AIR 2017 prep in progress

As soon as I agree to a project, currently the four week residency for AIR 2017, Artists' Books, I initially plan to think about it later. It's not till April, plenty of time, I say to myself. Need to get on with weaving and spinning right now.

Then I start getting ideas and need to do something before they get away.  So I start like this:

 and that unleashes a whole lot of other ideas, some for teaching, some for exhibiting, some for my own need to Do Something with the huge portfolio of drawings and paintings under my worktable.

Organizing them into artists' books serves several purposes, so that's part of the process.  And since there will be four sessions, I have a bunch of empty folders for collecting said ideas.  And then I need a crate so I don't go wild searching for the materials when the time comes.  

The participants will see the crate and a selection of reference books and materials when they show up, but probably have little thought of the chaos that preceded the organization.

Then I go back to the original thought I had, and had made a few examples for participants to reverse engineer.

This book idea's a folder for installing separate pages or photos or other items.  And I realized, since I'd changed the original idea I got it from, I should do some diagrams to remind myself show participants how to proceed.  So far so good.  This is just the first draft of instructions, and I need to organize them ready to copy off.


This little foldy thing is fun to make, once you get the directions working. I did it from written instructions and quickly decided I'd better whip up some drawings otherwise it would be at least difficult if not hopeless, to convey this to speakers of other languages. For a lot of people stopping by at this sort of event, English is their third or even fourth language, fluent in everyday use but not necessarily up on the mildly technical terms needed in art. Diagrams and demo work best.

In the course of the search I also unearthed a couple of huge portfolios I'd made for other purposes, so I'll upcycle them and use them to show how to make a portfolio for even quite big watercolors and drawings. That big one in the foreground of the top pic is one, monotypes and stamping and other things going on.

The danger of pulling out old stuff like this is that the trip down memory lane can get a bit lengthy, with all kinds of new ideas flying out at you and demanding attention, while you beat them off like a cloud of gnats, trying to keep to one point at a time.

If anyone wants to try her hand at the foldy book thing above, take a shot.  I searched but did not come up with anything in video on this design, but if you do, let us all know.