I said I wasn't going to post any
images of the accordion book until it's finished but
since I want to keep blogging and I have nothing else
to blog or blag about at the moment, below is a photo
of the first six panels and an extra one of the first
panel opened out.
The title
of my book is My Life Unfolds and that's exactly
what it is: my whole life, from birth onwards,
interpreted and condensed into 52 panels - no words,
only images. The
subject, the format and the technique came together
immediately in my mind, stimulated by Mary
Husted's terrific project. She and her husband Andrew
came to see me today and we had much in common -
it seemed as if we'd been friends for a long time instead
of having just met. Each of the artists she has invited
is working on their concertina books in very different
ways and it will be very exciting to see them all together
in the exhibition.
The technique I'm using is monoprinting:
I'm cutting out stencils and printing them in oil-based
inks directly onto the book pages (which I first primed
with gesso). I can't put the book through my etching
press so I'm printing by rubbing the back of the stencils
with a wooden spoon. I do lots of over-printing, in layers,
and it's a slow process but I love the textures,
colours and shapes emerging and the design opportunities
provided by constantly moving around corners. Even though
the size is small, for me this is a major work and involves
a great deal of soul-searching in order to extract essentials
and find visual symbols to express them.
