LIFE AND ART UNFOLDING

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. 

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