During the Easter I helped out with the Easter School at Leeds College of Art for a three day workshop in exploring self-portraits and identity. While on a trip to The Stanley and Audrey Burton Gallery to see the Alfred Drury and the New Sculpture Exhibition, I came across another exhibition on the other side of the gallery called Gather and Bind that was asking questions that are quite relevant to my work. And especially to my current piece with the two books.
Exhibition description (as copied from the Gallery's description)
Gather and Bind
Exhibition description (as copied from the Gallery's description)
Gather and Bind
The Stanley and Audrey Burton Gallery teamed up with aspire – a Leeds based service run by community links that works with young people experiencing early signs of psychosis - to deliver a series of four bookmaking workshops led by Book Artist Rebecca Jones and Alex Prichard. This project offers the participants the chance to come together and learn new skills in a calm, quiet environment in a way that we hoped would offer some kind of therapeutic respite whilst engaging with the University's Art collection.
The workshops also formed part of the Gallery's wider three-year education project funded by the Audrey & Stanley Burton Charitable Trust, one aspect of which was to engage the community groups that had not previously visited the Gallery.
The participants in the workshops learnt a variety of book making skills, from identifying the grain of paper through to Japanese binding techniques. This display shows examples of the books they have created during the workshops alongside examples of 'Artists' books from the University's Special Collections. It also explores a variety of bookmaking techniques employed by artists.
So, what is an artist book? This is a much debated question indeed. Are they books made by artist? Does the categories include books about artists, or artists' sketchbooks? In the display we are interpreting the term 'Artists' book' to mean a Book made by an artist is intended to exist as an artwork in its own right. What do you think?...
The first question this exhibition has got me thinking about is that whether my idea for these two books are considered as artists books because they are created by myself or are they books connecting to literature because that was the point of questioning by making anti-books. But by making an anti-novel am I in turn creating a different kind of book, and that being an Artist book? Just by the simple notion of challenging what a Artist book is through this exhibition and the process of making has got me thinking further about this. My aim and visioned outcome won't be possible until I tackle this idea. My direction of looking should be spent researching further into what makes an artist book an artists' book and what makes a novel, a novel. I felt I may have been rushing to get these books made without thinking deeply enough into this idea and what the book would represent. Rather than rush into making a book, at this point i'm going to stop and revisit my research and ideas before I am ready to make the book in full, otherwise I will miss the point completely and do as I did with the 'overheard conversations' originally and rush for a finish product that didn't work and felt empty.
