COMMUNICATION-processes -
Publishing workshop diary
Day 1- introduction to publishing
- book making techniques
- types of books
-letter pressing
- blotting paper
- 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
- 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
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.