A SERIES OF FIVE ARTISTS’ BOOKS, 2017
1/ Gracia Haby & Louise Jennison
I think all the world is falling
2017
Eight page concertina artists’ book, inkjet print on Hahnemühle Photo Rag 308gsm, with covers mounted on gold-trimmed board, housed in a printed slipcase on 225gsm Buffalo board
Printed by Arten (covers, pages)
Printed by Bambra Press (slipcase)
Bound by Louise Jennison
Edition of 6, with an artists’ proof
A series of five independent yet related artists’ books, which together weave a tale.
The first two were released into the wild from our stall at the 2017 NGV Melbourne Art Book Fair in the Great Hall.
Completing the series, the last three were created for and revealed as part of Looped, our exhibition in the La Trobe Reading Room at State Library Victoria.
Together, all five artists’ books also form a part of our exhibition, Looped, in the La Trobe Reading Room at State Library Victoria, which has been on display since early August, 2017. They are from a series of five independent yet related artists’ books, which together weave a tale.
In addition, I think all the world is falling and No longer six feet under, were shortlisted for and exhibited in the 2017 Geelong acquisitive print awards, at Geelong Gallery, Victoria, 2017.
I think all the world is falling was shortlisted for and exhibited in the 2017 Fremantle Arts Centre Print Award, at Fremantle Arts Centre, W.A., 2017.
Editions of this artists’ book, along with its four companions, No longer six feet under, Disrupted and rumpled, Dim wood, spark bright, and A warmed pebble in my hand, reside in various collections, including State Library Victoria, National Library of Australia, University of the West of England (UK), Baylor University (USA), Environmental Design Library, Berkeley University of California (USA), and North Dakota State University (USA).
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RELATED LINKS,
LOOPED
#GRACIALOUISELOOPED
#THEWORKINGTABLE
LOOPED (STATE LIBRARY VICTORIA)
RELATED POSTS,
LA TROBE READING ROOM
A WHISKER OF LIGHT
LOOPED IN THE LIBRARY
"AN AFFAIR OF VOLUMES"
TRAPEZOIDAL
LOOPED
FINITO
SET, READY, SCISSORS
FAIRGROUND BECKONS
ON THE WORKING TABLE
A WARMED PEBBLE IN MY HAND; A ZINE IN YOURS
SUNDAY, STICKILY
STAYING PUT
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“I think all the world is falling” (Kylling Kluk, Just Mathias Thiele, 1823)
Where there was earth, there was sky. And soil and toil was where the sky was. Topsy turvy. Switched around. In the blink of an eye.
Where there was water, there also was earth. And instead of the sound of birds calling, there was the white noise hum of standby power. It was familiar. Yet it was out of sorts. It was a left foot crammed into the right shoe.
It was day and lights, not day and night. It was fenced in, thumbing its nose at Cole Porter. It hobbled over Henny Penny’s fallen sky.
I think all the world has fallen. And it was long ago.
2/ Gracia Haby & Louise Jennison
No longer six feet under
2017
Eight page concertina artists’ book, inkjet print on Hahnemühle Photo Rag 308gsm, with covers mounted on gold-trimmed board, housed in a printed slipcase on 225gsm Buffalo board
Printed by Arten (covers, pages)
Printed by Bambra Press (slipcase)
Bound by Louise Jennison
Edition of 6, with an artists’ proof
The sea had risen, forming new tidal marks around the trunks of buildings. It had bleached the foliage of the trees. It had taken the colour from the wings of birds, butterflies, and moths, also, making a fable of my pocket.
As I had slept, Atlantis rose, or so it seemed. Bringing with it a band of subterranean garden-hose sea snakes and rusted shopping trolley chariots. Ring pulls, wrappers, waste, and gelato spoons too.
As what was sunken now bobbed to the surface, I sought to crown a fallen rodent burning in the light, but my eyes alighted on the gleam of a beer cap masquerading as a coin.
Minding the sludge, I had slipped the hook. I pulled the neck of my t-shirt back in place, and gambolled ever onwards.
3/ Gracia Haby & Louise Jennison
Disrupted and rumpled
2017
Eight page concertina artists’ book, inkjet print on Hahnemühle Photo Rag 308gsm, with covers mounted on gold-trimmed board, housed in a printed slipcase on 225gsm Buffalo board
Printed by Arten (covers, pages)
Printed by Bambra Press (slipcase)
Bound by Louise Jennison
Edition of 6, with an artists’ proof
The moon rolled in front of the sun, snuffing the light like Wee Willie Winkie come early, “tapping at the window, crying at the lock …. ‘Hey, Willie Winkie, are ye comin’ ben? The cat’s singin grey thrums to the sleepin hen.’’ And I walked through the silvered scene, of a day turned night.
A solar eclipse, folklore tells, and nature feels unordered, unexpected, even animalistic, as the sky wolves of the Vikings chase the orbs of the sun and moon. But an eclipse is also, in ornithological wings, a term used to describe a duck whose markings are veiled during moulting of the breeding plumage.
Suddenly from one celestial body obscuring the light of another to a small bird’s distinctive markings, eclipsed, I feel myself to be a tiny, tiny speck. The path ahead, an unfinished, unfixed, ever changing puzzle.
4/ Gracia Haby & Louise Jennison
Dim wood, spark bright
2017
Eight page concertina artists’ book, inkjet print on Hahnemühle Photo Rag 308gsm, with covers mounted on gold-trimmed board, housed in a printed slipcase on 225gsm Buffalo board
Printed by Arten (covers, pages)
Printed by Bambra Press (slipcase)
Bound by Louise Jennison
Edition of 6, with an artists’ proof
I entered the cage and felt my way along the floor in something of a clumsy crawl, as my eyes played catch-up with my body. Piercing the struts of the timber structure, the light was blinding. I was reminded of Gerald Manley Hopkins falling upon the word ‘shivelight’ to describe sharp lances perforating a forest canopy. Making like Hopkins, strolling through woodland, exploring a new environment, proved a comfort as forms slowly shook off their haze. I extended my arm forward, and pawed at the wall. I collected a splinter under my skin. I cursed the ‘shivelight’, and found no romance in my surrounds, nor interest in coining a word to describe a particular sensation. I cursed the confines of both the hut I was in and the rut of my predicament. I cursed it all.
And it was then, uttering my annoyance, that I noted several pairs of eyes in the darkness. They glowed. They glowered. They did not blink. I retraced my tracks as best I could. So loudly was my heart beating that I never heard them coming for me until it was too late.
5/ Gracia Haby & Louise Jennison
A warmed pebble in my hand
2017
Eight page concertina artists’ book, inkjet print on Hahnemühle Photo Rag 308gsm, with covers mounted on gold-trimmed board, housed in a printed slipcase on 225gsm Buffalo board
Printed by Arten (covers, pages)
Printed by Bambra Press (slipcase)
Bound by Louise Jennison
Edition of 6, with an artists’ proof
I closed my eyes, to look at the stars. I laid my head, to explore the wilderness. I coiled up upon a rock, to feel what it was to scamper, and glide, and ultimately soar, and I did so knowing that you were my eyes and ears. I blotted out the day, and replanted it anew.
With your hand on my cheek, I looked up at the sky. In the hug of your tail, I felt my skin prickle and burn.
I was stationary, and yet I was leaping. I was warm, and yet I was stone.
Looped
Gracia Haby & Louise Jennison
The Blue Notebook: Journal for Artists’ Books
Published by Wild Conversations Press
Edited by Sarah Bodman, UWE, Bristol
Volume 12, No. 2 Spring – Summer 2018 (pp. 6–14)
Subscribe to The Blue Notebook: Journal for artists’ books, published by Wild Conversations Press, edited by Sarah Bodman, UWE, Bristol, UK, to read our invited contribution, and other tales by other folk. Inside Volume 12, No. 2 Spring – Summer 2018 (pp. 6–14), you’ll find us talking about our artists’ books within Looped, at State Library Victoria.
Head to Book Arts to subscribe (hard copy and digital).
Articles: Looped is an installation by artists Gracia Haby and Louise Jennison, presented in partnership with State Library Victoria. Each glass-panelled cabinet case around the domed reading room’s original heritage dais becomes a page. Together, five artists’ books read as one tale told through collage and the written word. The exhibition is currently on display in the La Trobe Reading Room, State Library Victoria.
Cover design by Tom Sowden.
Books as Art
Margaret Barca
artlife magazine
Volume 27, 2018
Cover and pp 27–32
Our exhibition, Looped, features in the article ‘Books as Art’ in the Australian Decorative and Fine Arts Societies’ artlife magazine (volume 27, 2018).
Artists’ books are at the heart of the art practice of Louise Jennison and Gracia Haby, who both trained as painters at Melbourne’s RMIT. Their ongoing collaborations — described as “a poetic partnership” by Olivia Meehan in Imprint magazine — see Louise and Gracia write, draw, collage, bind and produce a wonderfully lyrical and intensely thoughtful series of artists’ books.
“We’re inspired by natural history,” says Louise, “but also by dance, music and literature. In short, by a wide sweep of things.”
Louise and Gracia’s project Looped — which consists of five eight-page concertina artists’ books, inkjet-printed, with covers on gold-edged board, each presented in a slipcase — is an example of how flexible the definition of an artists’ book can be. The books have also been displayed stretched out in the glass cases that encircle the dais at the heart of the State Library of Victoria’s Reading Room, so the dais itself becomes
a book.
“Not a book you hold in your palm, but a book that you walk around. One foot, after the other .... turning the cabinet pages with your feet,” they explain.
