Some of Rita's Musings on Artists Books

Here's an image from "Better Guns and Gardens", my artists book of the hour as the show at Artspace, CT (Un) Bound opens tonight! This has led to a loose collection of thoughts about artists books. We were walked through the show at Artspace and an associated show of artists books at Yale. Certain themes spring to mind while considering the realm of artists books...
First is that my books don't really resemble many of the other artists books. Many artists books are "one offs" as in so-called altered books (taking a pre-existing volume and manipulating it, often through carving into it or shredding it), or high end, fine letter press type set books that seem to want to lovingly replicate earlier volumes, or "books" made out of ropes or glass or conceptual materials. Many artists books seem to exist as single idea repositories- like the book that has wheels and looks like a model car. Or the book that has a bolt and a lock through it. Many don't even have pages.
Of the books that have multiple pages, many are shown only open to a single double page spread and remain that way until a curator or museum official comes through, dons gloves and turns it to another page. Almost all the books- single ideas, cut, sliced, riced and diced reside in vitrines where you can look, but not touch.
Herein lies one of my issues (and you knew I had to have one or two!). These books lie there, shrouded under glass or plexi, like so many patients in isolation or premature infants in incubators. They're like invalids that require oxygen and sterile conditions to live. (And in the off chance that you can handle the book, you are required to wear white gloves to protect the book from your grubby mitts.)  I find this peculiar, off putting and very contradictory.

Books, by their very definition (except those made by solitary monks in sequestered monasteries) are democratic. They're relatively cheap, mass produced and available. This is what makes knowledge accessible and dangerous. Even artists books seem more comfortable existing in editions- however small. They are meant to be picked up, poured over and handled. You really can't do this with any other art form. Paintings, drawings, sculptures are all on pedestals and in frames and your eyes can walk over them and you can physically move around them but you don't pick them up. They're not portable (generally speaking!).
Artists books, on the other hand call out to be fondled. I was the only artist at the show yesterday who's work was made to be picked up and groped. We all stood looking longingly at several of the books housed in glass sarcophagus, and collectively sighed how nice it would be to see the next page. But you can't... I understand why this is not always practical (too much finger dirt, people sneezing and oozing on the page) but it's unfortunate. We all know the artist handled their own books- without those white gloves- and passed it around at parties to their friends. But once collected, most artists books are doomed to an early death.
Here's where I step in. All of my books are made of indestructible materials like plastic and packing tape. Drooled on the book? Wipe it clean! Tore a page? Stick another piece of tape on it! And the fact that they're most often laser and photo copied at a large copy center only makes them more affordable. I say, bring on the man and woman handle-able artist book!

Justice and Other Niceties

Well, for all those that worried that I'd do hard time for breaking the speed of sound on my way to work, no fear! justice has been done and my ticket was reduced to a mere $35 infraction. My day in court was something of a anticlimax as it resembled a deli line more than courtroom drama. We all sort of shuffled along on hard wooden benches, but were processed really fast- like so fast that no one really even wanted to look at my splendid photo  documentation of the scene of the crime. (As seen above: evidence!) Bob and I did make sure and get a parking ticket while in the court house attending to the primary crime. How were we supposed to know that you put the parking ticket received from the kiosk on the dash board? I thought they had magic space sensors.
At least that (non) drama is behind me and I can concentrate on finishing up all the details accompanying my debut of Better Guns and Gardens this Friday at Artspace. I was lucky today and despite the blustery frigid wind, I managed to get everything on my art shopping list. And I further scored large by finding a wonderful ensemble to wear to my opening! Yet another source of stress alleviated!
I am really looking forward to the culmination of ages and ages of hard work. Many of the spills and chills were provided by Staples in the form of stupid mistakes in printing my work. And these are the "professionals" that we're supposed to trust and rely on! Hahahaha. Time is short and there'd better not be any more unforeseen snafus.
Here's a picture of the evite. I certainly hope all my adoring public will be in attendance!

For some reason, I think it's funny that it's green! But hey! Who cares what color the announcement is? It's going to be a great show and it's up until the very end of January.

Tricks and Treats

Halloween is upon us and that means my court date draws nigh! Wish me luck on my Day in Court, auspiciously falling on Halloween. It was most recently recommended that I go wearing stripes (in an allusion to prison togs), and the costume I have selected for my court appearance is pinstripe (to subtly echo a lawyer's garb). The above is what I wore to a garden center that offered a further 10% discount to any shopper wearing a costume. I was wearing my riding jodhpurs and boots and brandishing a riding crop. I was the only nursery shopper at that time to be outfitted thusly, but it was worth it as Bob and I brought home a couple of real nursery bargains!

 

I guess everyday is Halloween around here and things just keep getting scarier. My book project that has been occupying my almost every waking hour is being installed (by me and Bob) on Wednesday and I have a couple of million details to complete between now and then. Here's a tease; a page from my book... this one is being printed up as a poster. I have to pick it up from Staples tomorrow, and after the last printing debacle, I shudder to think what they'll have done to this image!

But details? Was I mentioning details? Oy! I keep making lists and revising them but it is all coming together... Now I have to figure out what to wear to my opening. I suppose I could go in costume!

Just Plain Gross and And a Waste of Time

Okay, so here's one gross thing but not THE gross thing about my walk. I submit the above picture of a very dead little mouse which may be gross but listen to this: I set off on my morning walk with Jules and as I didn't need to go to work or any where particular, we took a rather longer walk than usual. Now I've railing about the slobs and assholes who dump their old building materials and ugly chairs along the dirt road where I walk, but today's offering took the cake. I spied a white thing in the road, and as I approached closer, I pulled Jules in tighter to me as it appeared that the white thing was a rather large pair of men's Fruit of the Loom underpants. But not only did some idiot see fit to leave dirty laundry laying around in the road, but they were copiously soiled with evil looking diarrhea. (I guess I have to ask if there's any other kind). All I can think of is "Ebola!" Boy, did that ruin the atmosphere of a lovely pre-storm walk! (You're all just lucky that didn't have my camera.)
That was the gross; here's the waste of time. (Haven't I recently been haranguing that i have many things to accomplish and and I'm very short of time? I sound like a broken record.) I am having my book, Better Guns and Gardens produced, and for many reasons ( and people can have their opinions...) I am printing the first batch at Staples. I actually went out of my way to the next town over as the do the production of the book binding there, and the poor over worked young man at our local Staples seemed less than informed about how they do them and said they sent them out anyway. The young man at the New Milford Staples had examples, seemed involved and even listened to my tale of woe as to how their competitor (OfficeMax) made a mess out of one of my previous books (printed and collated upside down backwards etc). He assured me that this wouldn't happen; they'd be extra careful. What could possibly go wrong?

I picked up the single test copy that i had ordered and was pleased; it really looked great. I therefore ordered up four more, and left work early to go over to pick them up. The cover looked fine and a part of me thought, Better be safe and check them out." It's a good thing I opened them up and systematically paged through because the insides were a disaster. And as I pointed out to the young woman at the copy center, not only were the files in order (like pages 1, 2, 3 and on) but the pages were numbered in the book. It was like they collated them with their eyes closed. I was so distraught that I spoke with a manager, who was properly horrified and apologized by saying they'd redo them and give me a fifth one free.
I returned, not getting my hopes up as I've learned that once something gets messed up, there's a good chance the correction will be botched, too. The books looked fine and I checked every last one but when i went to pay, they charged me for the fifth "free" one. After much cash register rewriting attempts, a manager was called over and he tried to right it. Eventually, with a line forming behind me and me feeling teh evil eye of every other customer, they rang it up. And it turned out to be thirty dollars LESS than it should have been. I think they were trying to get rid of me! I need to get a few more printed next week. We'll see what happens!

Firewood Unlimited

Bob and I have an additional chore, besides getting hay, making art, doing laundry, taking care of the garden, etc etc etc. We go to secure our heating supply for the winter, otherwise known as "doing firewood". That huge tree, above is the source of this winter's heat.
Our gracious friend Tina has offered us all the wood from trees that have fallen on her property in Bridgewater. The soil is stony and there is a lot of ledge, so trees tend to topple over and leave these weird root monsters:

That's the underside of the above tree. (See all the rocks to the left? Not much soil for those roots to grasp onto.) I walk around scouting and musing while Bob cuts up the branches. (And try not to worry as it's dangerous work. Those sideways limbs are way overhead and sometimes crack and split in unintended ways. I'm always relieved when the branches are felled and the wood is safely on the ground.)
That's also where I come in: I help Bob pick up the cut logs and load them onto the truck. This is probably why Bob and I are in pretty okay shape physically. We spend so much time hauling things like hay bales and wood and compost around. Who needs a gym?
Here's another uprooted tree. There are so many of them!

There is enough downed trees for several years worth of fire wood. And it's way less dangerous than felling an entire tree, so I'm glad of that. If you've never been in the are when a large tree hits the ground, you have no idea how traumatic it can be. They really fall hard. But even in a downed tree, there's spring and tension in the weight of the limbs and it's not easy work. Bob loves it and has been doing firewood since his teens but it still makes me a bit nervous... But it's good exercise and way cheaper than buying gas or oil from some corporation that exploits people for living in a cold environment! And besides, the field looks so much better cleaned up when these fallen trees are cleared.

A Very Odd Posting! (for Hope)

Well! Seeing as how my attempts to email pictures of my mathematical collages has failed miserably and very mysteriously, I have concocted this scheme. I will use a blog post to exhibit a few of my images for Math 4 Artists, one of my artist's books with profound educational overtones! those of you tired of my work and sure that you have seen enough are dismissed until next posting! Those of you named Hope who have been kind enough to express interest... look here!

Here is my multiplication table. I was never any good at multiplying: all that carrying imaginary numbers from place to place. And they say artists are crazy! We were told that if you multiply a negative number by a negative number you get a ... positive number? Don't get me started.
Anyway, the above collaged multiplication table is much easier on the eyes than the grim inevitably black and white pseudo- Soviet looking math tables we were forced to memorize.

And this is (very small!) my Periodic Table of the Elements. Again, how much more fascinating is this? I cut out innumerable tiny numbers and letters but made the table exciting and beautiful! Which it is, when you consider how much information is crammed into that nifty format. I've always been totally in love with the Periodic Table and have actually done several versions. One of which is large (like 3 feet high and 5 feet wide- perfect for installing on a classroom wall!

And speaking of the number five, here's one of my individual number interpretations:

I picked five but I've done them all- even a table of Prime Numbers. So, I hope you could view these. Any questions? There will be a quiz tomorrow!

Equine Update

This is weird! i thought I had published this days ago! But it was in my drafts folder...

My horse doing yoga! It is pretty incredible that an animal the size of Maggie can simply lift her hind leg up, swing it around and scratch her ear (like she's doing in the photo). And with a hoof! You'd think they'd accidentally kick themselves in the face, or give themselves black eyes.
Here's another odd Maggie thing- she dreams. I mean, I figure that most animals do, as they sleep and do most everything else we do, so why not dream. But I've never SEEN a horse dream (like the dog; twitching and yelping) until last week. And horses don't actually sleep that much.
Bob and I were going to the store so I walked out into the pasture to make sure Maggie was secured. (Sometimes she's out in her temporary pastures.) Anyway, she was lying down but her chin was resting on the ground. And then her lips started to move and sort of bite at the ground. And here ears started to swivel all around and independently of each other. I thought, "Either she's asleep and dreaming or she's dying." So I stood there, where she could see my plainly if she woke up or came back from the dead and waited. This peculiar REM state continued for a few minutes. I was really starting to worry when her eyes opened, she looked at me like, "Oh hello!" and then she rolled vigorously around on her back and finally hoisted herself up and shook herself off. She looked very relaxed and well rested. But it was weird.
Hey, what I don't know about horses could fill several very long blog postings and it wouldn't be that interesting. Suffice it to say that between my admitting to giant blank spots in equine knowledge and residual fears about evil horsey activity*, thanks to Crispin (whom I hope is now residing in a can of dog food) I decided that what this middle aged equestrienne needed was some remedial lessons. And it's doing me a world of good! It's crazy as so many people say things like, "Why do you need lessons? Don't you already know how to ride?" But as my sage sister Beatrice observed, it's like dance and you can always learn something new. And it's been at least six or seven years since I had lessons.
So I have been riding a much larger, stouter horse than Maggie (Hannah by name, a red Hanoverian/Morgan cross) and consequently, my upper/inner thighs are killing me. I feel like I've been drawn and quartered, and I'm walking like a cowboy. This is also an interesting fact to point out to cynics who insist that riding must be good exercise for the horse, implying that the rider does nothing but sit there. Ha! Let me be the first to assure those skeptics that riding is incredibly physical. Your weight is one of your "aids" while riding; subtle shifts in balance tell the horse where to go. Not to mention posture and the alignment of shoulders and legs are constantly in use. But it is giving me new confidence and a happier attitude.I rode Maggie this afternoon as it didn't rain after all, and enjoyed myself immensely.

Not the most flattering picture of Maggie, but it shows her skepticism. I think she likes me, but secretly thinks I'm a wimp. I am. But I do like my little Magster!

* like bucking and spooking and bolting. All kinds of horsey fun!