1. front page- cotton canvas, title, embroidery threads branching off into the book. this thread is a continuous presence throughout the book.
2. Fibre-Rope Page storytelling origin. pop-ups, stories in the scroll that rolls out? print the story as a storyboard?
3. Storytelling page-notion of time passing-fibre ‘language’. pop-ups. OR each ‘language term’ is a story scrolling out? literature extracts? tisser des liens, ball of yarn unwinding itself, le fil d’Ariane(une ligne directrice, une conduite à tenir pour atteindre un objectif), main thread through a story, life is hanging by a thread, weaving a story.
4. introducing weaving. cotton canvas pages, story with cotton scroll, pop-up with cotton and slavery (my immediate association to cotton), weaving industry and cotton, industrialisation.
5. weaving-communication-codes- patterns. pop up? patterns are made from embroidering with different fibres (nettle, rope, etc...)
6. weaving and derivatives- felted wool pop-up? ‘homemade’ paper pop-up/scroll? indigenous knowledge pop-up?
7. indigenous/traditional knowledge- botany-plants. cotton canvas, more pop-ups? printed pictures of plants, background colour, degrade of colours? story scrolls?
8. my relation to natural dyes and pigments. cotton canvas, different coloured pop-ups, printed text ? with ink made from natural dyes?
9. wool material-knitting. knitted cotton/wool pages? or just the pop-ups are knitted?
10. waulking songs-passing on knowledge. colourful background? more embroidery? printed pictures of the three women who influenced my fibre journey?
11- back-page. crick crack monkey break he back on a piece of pomerac, the wire bend and the story end.
FEEDBACK from group crit 1
- internal connection vs external connection?
- fictional story?
- how to connect the stories in one big storyline
- formats of storytelling?
-each ‘page’ is an artist book
-invite the stories for tea
- think of the æsthetics of presented material together
- go the ‘personal’ way
ARTIST REFERENCES
- Leonor Artures - rope (negative space) architecture of the sculpture vs de-architecture
- Eva Hesse - coming out of the walk (space) - reopening out my book like a map is like coming out of the book
-Bodil Furu - stories about plants
- Teresa Margoles - Agenda youtube
1. front page- cotton canvas/paper. TITLE. ‘Under the silk cotton tree-and other words (stories)?’
2. general book structure: left page has the overstory and the scroll down understory, right page has the visual story (which could then be seen as a ‘movie’-flip book when flipped through fast?)
3.embroidery thread connecting all the pages throughout with dots and lines (mores code for the names of all the ancestors that played a role in my fibre story?) and patterns is normal hemp rope, dyed different colours (?).
4. the ‘weight’ that holds the scroll down is a hemp rope (maybe several strands plaited into one bigger strand?)
5. the hemp rope is a nice way to link Abakanowicz and the ‘origin’ of my fibre story beginning with a piece of rope?
11- back-page. crick crack monkey break he back on a piece of pomerac, the wire bend and the story end.
NOTES
- overstory = under the silk cotton tree : passing on of knowledge from ancestors.
- understory = textile metaphors.
overstory stories
- a rope is a story
- knitting sweaters - long knitting needles
- first sewing box - teaching the objects around sewing
- embroidery
- crochet even when granny lost her sight
- sewing her own drapes for windows
- crochet tablecloth
- aunty vetty’s pencil case - using the sewing machine
based on publishing workshop thoughts
STRUCTURE
-fabric pages, with riso printed text on rice paper, stitched into the fabric pages. embroidery and other patterns will be on the fabric pages.
- scroll down menu made using the same paper as the riso printed text, maybe painted or dyed to separate it from the other paper
- visual story is painted/block printed on the fabric using two colours (stencil?)
- use rope to tie-down the bottom of the scroll down paper
TO THINK OF:
-
drying time?! if I’m to paint on pages separately? once the book is bound? what does that mean?
- binding- coptic binding using rope? dyed rope?
TO DO:
- re-cut fabric 15x30cm to be folded
- riso print overstory text
- dye hemp rope
understory: letter pressed w oil ink ?
overstory: Riso printed paper sewn onto fabric
visuals: painted with natural dye
embroidery: hemp rope?
STORIES- written piece : see copy of draft here.
summary: a little girl walks through the forest and stops under a silk cotton tree. she notices a rope and picks it up, opening up for memories, passed-on knowledge and language related to fibre.
- How do you want me to read the text, should it be shared? collectively read? or more private?
- Lead-type = old craft
-printed postcards for shows- send postcards to artist, for comments on show?
- the paper lifts the text
- where is the work going after it is exhibited?
- hand-bound pamphlets, letter-press, TERMS
- see-through/transparent envelope - a bit secret but still inviting.
- think of grain when folding paper
- blotting paper used to help in flattening process in the book press
- kettle stitch - links the book on itself, usually 1cm into the book from the edge
- pamphlet stitch
- endless coverboard
- fibres stretching out are in the spine
Day 1- introduction to publishing
- Riso printing
- book making techniques
- types of books
-letter pressing
- blotting paper- concertina book
- kettle stitch
- preparing the Riso file
- meditative side of book-making
- Heidelberg letter press
Day 2- mockup of my book
I cut up the pieces of fabric and stitched them using the kettle stitch with normal stiching thread. I printed out some test pieces of the text on the Riso using a thin japanese paper, and stitch them on. Results of test: the text needs to have space around it to allow for tearing around it without tearing into the text itself. tried stitching the japanese paper onto the fabric using zig-zag stitch on the machine but it looks too messy and there’s too much going on. Vibeke suggested making little dots of stitches in the corners of the paper to make it slightly invisible. Also, if I was to stitch the texts on one side of the fabric page, the back of that page would also have stitching, which again is too much.
UPDATE 13.10- after making the mockup
- - visual story just on the front page/title page
- front and back page are letter pressed
- re-prepare the file to have lots of space around the writing enough to tear the paper
- don’t do the scrolls idea
artist book dye plan for the weekend
friday night
- mordant hemp rope and pages (tannin and alum)
- concentrate cutch dye
- make carrot dye
- make reinfann dye
saturday night
- dye hemp hope
- prepare stitching/shibori/patterns on ‘pages’
- dye pages
sunday
- open out to dry
Day 3- production of the artist book - with the help of Vibeke
I brought my dyed pages to start working on them. I had a Riso printing time slot, for the text but also the visual story part (I decided to use the picture of the Moriah Silk Cotton tree in Tobago, and used a picture of Alba interpreting the little girl’s action of picking up the rope (from the story).
After that I went on to doing letterpressing with Vibeke in the afternoon. She prepared the ink and the letter press and showed me how to do it. There’s something about the gentle printing touch, and the music of the machine, I understand why Vibeke likes it so much. But it took almost an hour to prepare the letters (mainly because KHIO’s stock of letters aren’t complete after years of use). the printing itself was quick. then the front and back page had to be left to dry. (see videos below).
Because I was printing on fabric and not paper, it was too thin for the printing to go through so we had to put papers behind the fabric in order to make it thick enough. Also, my pages being 15x15cm and not A4 , we had to test out on tracing paper where the writing would be placed, in relation to the silk cotton tree picture I had printed on the Riso.
videos
Letter pressing 1, video link here.
password: letterpressing1.
Letter pressing 2, video link here.
password: letterpressing2
Day 4/5- production of the artist book
Tuesday :
Last day with Vibeke. I spent the day stitching the texts onto the textile pages. figuring out what sort of embroidery I would put in between the pages as ‘visuals’, as a way to emphasize the tet. I found out late at night that it would be too much to have embroidery, and the book was enough as it was (the dyed pages were enough in themselves, and had a lot of life in them, enough life in them without the embroidery).
Wednesday
I used the wednesday to stitch the book together, using the hemp rope. which proved to be really difficult as it was too thick (even when I unravelled it to get thinner strands of fibre). I also really liked the holes that the attempted embroidery left behind, there’s lines of discreet dots linking some pages together.