My first Chapbook!
Over the last couple of weeks I have
enjoyed photographing some of my artwork to use in a couple of small
books that I have compiled. I love to use the name chap book for this
project as Chapman was my maiden name and means pedlar. I was always
proud of that for some reason, so now, to have produced one is
curiously wonderful! The historical definition of chapbook is 'a
small pamphlet containing tales, ballads, or tracts, sold by
pedlars.'
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| Copies of my chapbook ready to be stitched together. |
The 'Spirit of Place' project that I
have been working on with Alison Lees has really helped me explore
other mediums, such as wood cut printing and it is good to see the
overall variation and diversity of my creative output, photographed,
set with text and printed.
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| Choosing photographs of my artwork to be included. |
Finally I have a couple of small books
to be proud of. It has been a long process and I have felt at times
like there were too many obstacles to navigate to actually get
something into print. But now, by scaling the 'writing project' down
and producing something that I see now as 'just' another piece of
art, I have managed to complete it at long last. Hurrah!
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| Finding the best layout of images to be used. |
After photographing my recent work, I
was able to select specific images that showed the various 'mark
making' that I had been experimenting with over the last 2 years. For
example, the brush-strokes of acrylic look soft compared to the oil
painting and likewise the subtlety of a gelli-print contrasts well
with the deep old strokes of a woodcut print. The printing system I
have chosen to use picks up these tiny differences and I wanted to
work with that.
The first book is titled 'Spirit of
Place, Wanderings and Wonderings' and explores the basic inspiration
I have had whilst walking and being in nature that has led to the
production of the many images contained in its pages. It is not deep
and inaccessible but light and easy to read, hopefully inspiring
anyone who reads it to feel that they too could go outside and become
more aware and ultimately inspired. I guess my aim was to produce a
gentle reminder...
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| Getting the master copies of each page ready at Intra. |
I printed the books as an initial
batch of 50 and now have the repetitive but hugely satisfying task of
putting them all together. The Risograph printing machine that I used
is a wonderful thing and I like many others would like my own, but
just to have the opportunity to travel up to Medway, to Intra and use
theirs is good enough for now.
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| Part of the page layout for 'Spirit of Place' chapbook. |
It's a great way to print and the best
way to explain the function of the Riso machine is to compare it to
mechanised screen-printing. You still have to create stencils and
choose colours plus when making a booklet, pagination, layouts etc
also need to be decided. But I love a process and now I just have 100
booklets to hand-stitch together! Some of them will be on sale at my
next Open Studio event in June, so come and see for yourself!
My
next open studio event will be on Saturday the 16th
of June. It will show the new progression on from my current art
project 'Hearth and
Home'.
The
exhibition
is open to all from 11-5pm in my straw-bale studio.
The studio has a Facebook page of its
own, to look at its 'life story', look up
www.facebook.com/Green-Build-Tankerton
10% of all sales of this 'Hearth
and Home' artwork will go to our local homeless charity in
Canterbury, 'Porchlight'.
I love to teach others and facilitate
space for them to create, so I run art and design workshops
throughout the year. These can be either 1:1 or for a small group
and I charge from £15 per hour.
The next ones for the exciting and
accessible art of Gelli-printing are on most Wednesdays and Fridays.
throughout May and June. They run 11-2pm and cost £40 pp including
all materials and refreshments.
My
own personal art page can be found at
www.facebook.com/RoseClarityArtist I
can be contacted
on 07432679164 or clare@people-to-place.co.uk
