BOOK ARTS NEWSLETTER, 2007–2014
A Quartet of Salvaged Relatives in borrowed costumes.
Gracia Haby & Louise Jennison
A Quartet of Salvaged Relatives
2014
Collage with colour-pencil
2014
A Quartet of Salvaged Relatives in Borrowed Costumes created for the cover of the November Book Arts Newsletter, No. 93, 2014
Published by Impact Press at the Centre for Fine Print Research, UWE Bristol, UK
Edited by Sarah Bodman
In the borrowed costume for Petrouchka, designed by Alexandre Benois, c. 1913, with a Barn Swallow.
In the borrowed costume of the Chief Eunich from Schéhérazade, designed by Léon Bakst, c. 1910.
In the borrowed costume of a Military Musician from Jardin Public, designed by Jean Lurçat, c. 1935.
In the borrowed costume of a guest from Le Bal, designed by Giorgio de Chirico, c. 1929.
Artists’ books have emerged as an energetic contemporary artform over the last forty years. Developing from their last materialisation in the 1960s as a way of bypassing the constraints of the gallery; as a vehicle for the dissemination of ideas and a radical format of bringing art to a wider public through artists self-publishing their work. This notion of making art in an affordable non-wall based format led to the growth of what we now recognise as the artist’s book, from traditional printed matter to e-books.
As part of our research we explore many aspects of artists’ publishing: from the conception and history of the artist’s book to creative processes and output, current developments and critical assessments of the subject. Through our research projects and collaborations, we hope to widen critical discourse within the book arts field.
As part of our investigation of contemporary book arts practice we publish the Book Arts Newsletter, the Artist’s Book Yearbook, a biennial publication with essays and information on many aspects of the book arts, and The Blue Notebook journal for artists’ books.
Centre for Fine Print Research, UK
No. 38, November/December 2007
UWE Bristol, School of Creative Arts, Department of Art and Design
Robert Heather emailed info on Gracia and Louise’s new website, so we asked them to write a report for the BAN:
We, Gracia Haby and Louise Jennison, work together as a collaborative duo on various joint ventures, and have been doing so since 1999. We use paper as our primary medium to create an ongoing series of limited edition artists' books, several lithographic offset prints, and even sculptural objects folded, cut and molded into shape, as well as a host of zines created on the photocopier machine.
We have been making artworks together, in collaboration, for close to nine years now. The majority of our artwork is both collaborative and predominately with paper, in particular books, or to be more precise, artists’ books. We make artists’ books because, put simply, we love them. We are both fine art graduates from RMIT (Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology). We have exhibited together and separately, both locally, in Melbourne, and abroad, upon occasion. We were awarded the Australia Council for the Arts, New Work for Emerging Artists grant in 2000, and the Freedman Foundation Travelling Scholarship for Emerging Artists in 2002; two grants that both financially assisted and further propelled our interest in the medium of artists’ books.
Our work can be found in various collections. The State Library of Victoria has a set of all of our artists’ books to date, as well as several one-of-a-kind paper creations. They also have a complete set of all of our low tech zines made on the photocopy machine, usually under the fluorescent lights of our local office supply store, Officeworks. You will also find our collaborative work, both artists’ books and other works on paper, in the collections of the Print Council of Australia, Burnie Regional Art Gallery, Ergas Collection, Gold Coast City Art Gallery, Latrobe Regional Gallery, Melbourne University, Monash University, RMIT University, University of Wollongong, Warrnambool Art Gallery and many more, as well as in private collections.
Together as a team, we construct miniature worlds that seek to eke out a space removed from its original context. It is not unusual to find hidden in our work a spotted oncilla helping a woman untie her eyelashes; a red fox observing the goings on at a refractory in Beirut; or a Hectors dolphin jumping to clearer waters. Extinct and endangered species also play quite the starring role as can be seen not only in Louise's watercoloured drawings of New Zealand fur seals, Java sparrows, Snowy owls and like companions, but in our artists' books too. The Case of the Lost Aviary (2005), By the Pricking of My Claws (2005), The Dubious Clue (also published under the title, Extinct animals sing the Blues) (2005) and Trouble at Sea (2005) all feature heroes who are extinct.… with the exception of the Ivory billed woodpecker recently rediscovered in the Big Woods of Eastern Arkansas after a 60 year absence. Find your place (2007) explores themes previously only touched upon in these recent collaborative artists’ books. Once again it incorporates elements of collage and photomontage alongside forms both real and imagined.
In short, we plunged in knowing little and are unlikely to ever end our affair with the artists' book and all the possibilities the medium holds.
Every four-six weeks, The Book Arts Newsletter is published at the Centre for Fine Print Research (CFPR), University of the West of England, Bristol, edited by Sarah Bodman, Research Fellow for Artists’ Books.
Download current issue and back issues of the Book Arts Newsletter.
For the archivist, between 2007–2014, our artists’ books, zines, and/or exhibitions are also mentioned in the following Book Arts Newsletters, published at the Centre for Fine Print Research, UK, and edited by Sarah Bodman:
Newsletter for November 2014, issue 93, cover and page 36
Newsletter for August – September 2014, issue 91, pages 32–33
Newsletter for March 2014, issue 88, page 38
Newsletter for February 2014, issue 87, page 39
Newsletter for November 2013, Issue 85, pages 8 and 25
Newsletter for July – August 2013, Issue 83, page 9
Newsletter for mid June 2013, Issue 82, page 32
Newsletter for March – April 2013, Issue 80, page 39
Newsletter for December 2012 – January 2013, Issue 78, page 31
Newsletter for November 2012, Issue 77, page 7
Newsletter for September – October 2012, Issue 76, page 36
Newsletter for July – August 2012, Issue 75, page 26
Newsletter for March – mid April 2012, Issue 72, page 3
Newsletter for February 2012, Issue 71, page 3
Newsletter for December 2010 – January 2011, Issue 62, page 18
Newsletter for May 2010, Issue 57, page 23
Newsletter for October – November 2008, Issue 45, page 21
Newsletter for March – April 2008, Issue 40, pages 20–21
