Ensixteen Editions

Al–Mutanabbi Project

2012-02-07T14:36:00.000-08:00

For those following the link from my listing on the site recording participant book artists of the Al Mutanabbi Project – a collective effort to sustain the memory of a street of booksellers bombed by fanatics in Bagdad some years ago – please scroll back here to posts from September 2011.

My three-part edition 'The Physics of Violence' was covered in some depth at that point.

Detail here from the third of the three parts – 'Effect'.

All Booked Up

2012-01-18T03:12:00.001-08:00

An image from my recent 'The Power of Ten' edition.

I intend to use it with my entry in the catalogue for the upcoming 15th International Contemporary Artists' Book Fair in Leeds.
Event taking place on the Friday 9th & Saturday 10th March, 2012.

Venue is The Parkinson Building, University of Leeds
11am - 6pm on Friday & 10am til 5pm Saturday

Do drop by and sample my wares.

People I like very much No. 15: Ian Hay

2012-01-17T05:30:00.000-08:00

Ian Wood Hay is one of the voices to be listened to in my life.

I treasure each – generally unexpected – phone call:

“Hello, Mike. You lovely old thing. . .”

His gravelly tones would put Valentine Dyall to shame, but not only that – there’s just so much sheer good sense and insight in what this man has to say (with or without a glass of Shiraz to hand).

His proclamations can bring a room to silence, or send it crashing into laughter, as the latest local or global events are filtered through his own distinctive lens.

Some of the funniest bar-room material I have ever heard, and I’ve heard quite a bit.

Ian would truly grace any stage – indeed I’ve seen him hold an audience or two in the palm of his hand – and, given his lifetime passion for comedy, this seems entirely appropriate.

(His annual 'speech to the nation' on Christmas Day, meanwhile – though I think occurring only in his imagination – is an acknowledged cornerstone of British Life.)

We worked nearby one another at the Colchester Art School, though typically Ian got the naked ladies as part of the job (his life models during fascinating studio days).

Essex born and bred, Ian had first stepped up to the artistic coalface in that very town (the old art school on the hill) then up to London (to the Royal College of Art itself as a contemporary of the likes of Mister Hockney and, later, teaching at my old school, St. Martins) and back again to build a life with lovely Teresa. Later the father of two lads, and lately a grandfather.

They named a gallery at the art school after him before he left, in fact, and he continues to exhibit his deft landscapes – often of his beloved county – widely.

A well-deserved retrospective (‘A Life Drawing’) at Colchester’s Minories Gallery in 2010 brought together the true scope of his work, including beautiful studies of abandoned cars from the early 1970s, portraiture and gorgeous black and white studies of town & country & coastline.

He was touched at all the fuss, I think (beyond the bluster he is a modest and gentle man, too), and deeply chuffed.

Since his retirement – and my cessation of work at the school – we maintain a brisk paper correspondence (he once briefly flirted with electronic mail before deciding it ‘wasn’t for him’) and still meet with regularity – most often on licensed premises it has to be said; whether out across that fine eastern county on Jolly Boy’s Outings with the other fellows, or in the strange twilight world of the North Countryman’s Club (at least in the Smoker’s Area outside).

A Rennaissance Man? A Doctor of Life, certainly (and the recipient of an honorary doctorate from Essex University in 2009).

A Man of The Old School, unashamedly.

My dear friend, the good doctor Hay.

A New Day Beginning

2012-01-17T03:34:00.000-08:00

Amidst a long week of assessment in relation to my university post, starting the day can be a grind.

This image from my Ensixteen Editions publication 'A Month Of Sundays', from March 2011.

People I like very much No.37: Mick Smee

2012-01-15T06:25:00.000-08:00

Michael (‘Mick’) Smee is one of the select band that proved so inspirational to me – at work and play – during my early teaching years in Colchester, Essex.

His easy human touch, so vital to the studio nurture of young art students, made a lasting impression when visiting his sessions alongside a certain Mister Hay (see elsewhere on this blog).

He did what he did with great generosity and care.

Outside of the teaching I drew great creative inspiration from Mick’s delicious, atmospheric paintings of public house interiors, hinting at a love of a good pint and the daftness of shared blather and laughter.

In fact I’m inside one of these works, now hanging on some unknown wall (it was purchased before I could ever see it).

It commits my own past local, The Shakespeare pub in London, N16 to posterity, from a lost afternoon shared years ago.

No small honour, that.

Alongside his talented wife, Nicola (an illustrator/writer of many beautiful children’s books) – Mick lives near the salt flats of Maldon, in a gem of a village called Tolleshunt D’Arcy (once home to the esteemed author Margery Allingham, creator of detective Albert Campion).

My times as their guest – sitting in splendid company in the garden amidst summer breezes, sampling Mick’s sublime home-made pies after rounds of dark beers over the road at The Queen’s Head – remain some of my happiest memories of that much-misunderstood county.

Mick’s is a reflective sort of approach to pub conversation. After keeping his powder dry he’ll drop in a nicely-timed word-grenade of his own, having gauged the flow – and he can pull off a textbook deadpan expression, before the arrival of with a huge smile.

While it’s also rumoured that he is a practising warlock, I have no corroborative proof of this.

Virgin Territory?

2012-01-15T05:21:00.000-08:00

What do you do on a train between London and Oxenholme (for the Lake District)?
Well – I did this.
Click to make it larger, the better for reading.

People I like very much No.20: Phil Davis

2012-01-13T04:49:00.000-08:00

The very man who, in January 1990 – at the meeting points of Fate and Chance that nudge us through our lives – ushered me into a brave new world of teaching; the parallel career track that has offered me many challenges, and continues to do so.

At the Colchester Institute I enjoyed around 7 years of leadership from Phil, pushing the message of creativity (and passion for language and imagery beyond the subject) that underpinned his approach to the disciplines of Graphic Design. It formed – alongside the deft skills of others in the building in those years – an elegant, daily masterclass in the role of the tutor/lecturer/teacher.

More important still, in that strange, bustling Essex town – and in nearby Wivenhoe – (where here the lad himself can be seen outside The Rose & Crown, down by the river on a late afternoon of buttery light and deep beers), I learned the value of new mid-life friendships that sustain me still.

Phil, now happily retired from the fray, it seems to me has an enviable life, mapped out between points of significance; his inspiring local landscape, a passion for books, cinema, music and good company, and a touching loyalty to those whose friendship he relishes.

Long may he seek A Sense of Glory while walking those wind-blustered Colne estuary flatlands.

“Hold onto this. . . “

For my viewing pleasure

2012-01-11T05:17:00.000-08:00

One of my recent forays into my stupidly large DVD collection – within which I tend to build little connected sections (by theme, or perhaps director or writer or actor) that I might watch successively – allowed me to relish three TV plays directed and written by Stephen Poliakoff:

'Friends and Crocodiles' (2005), 'Joe's Palace' (2007) and 'Capturing Mary' (2007)

What are his driving themes? What does Mister P concern himself with. . ?

Well. . . the plays return to certain issues again and again; identity and the back-story of cultural history behind all of our shoulders; the tides of time and how they shift our sands; the influences of power and privilege – or the lack of it – on our fate as individuals.

How new spheres of experience can change us – for good or bad – if we step inside them.

There's strangely dream-like, fairy tale quality to much of it.
Beneath the beautifully-realized recreation of historical periods, for instance, the characters slowly assume almost emblematic, symbolic roles that are bigger than reality.
The prelude to World War 2, the war years themselves, the bleak ravenous desires afoot in the Thatcher era – all these are inspected through the distinctive lens of the writer/director.

Dialogue – the exchanges between characters – can feel somehow timeless, possessing a secondary significance beyond the scene at hand should you care to play Poliakoff's game of meaning.
Yet these are also extremely British pieces, in many ways, populated by the finest actors of several generations – as well as instances where Poliakoff has used completely fresh talent.

For me the most affecting piece was 'Capturing Mary', with a memorably sinister turn by David Walliams as Greville White. In fact I was astonished at how quickly his performance wiped the slate clean of the familiarity one has for him in other comedic roles.

The story slips from what feels like reality – the happenstance of Life's chance encounters and how they alter us at a profound level – into unsettling places where time and space are toyed with to unsettling effect. It has the creeping discomfort of a nightmare in places.

It's marvellously disorientating stuff, crafted with care and immensely, immersively watchable.
And highly recommended by your author for the remaining Winter nights yet ahead.

We stood where the two seas meet. . .

2011-12-19T03:06:00.000-08:00

Northern-most Denmark, with a Northern-most Dane.

Skagen, Summer 2011

2011-12-19T02:54:00.000-08:00

Here I join the other artists - of the surprisingly broad collective known as the Skagen Painters, who worked and caroused in the Northern Danish town of that name in the late 19th century - in a recreation of the local hotel dining room in which they gathered.
I need to work on the beard, obviously.

Photo © 2011 Mette-Sofie D. Ambeck

Bob & Mike

2011-12-19T02:49:00.000-08:00

Elsewhere, in my 20th 'bio auto graphic' edition, the Great Bob (Bob Cobbing 1920 – 2002) and I look down upon the shennanigans within the bookartbookshop. . .

On a cold Friday lunchtime on Pitfield Street I did this.

2011-12-19T02:20:00.000-08:00

Newer works - late 2011 Number 2: ENSIXTEEN EDITIONS NUMBER 20

2011-12-19T01:49:00.000-08:00

The inestimable Tanya Peixoto released a call-out to book arts types recently - to create a new edition in celebration of the tenth year of thebookartbookshop (that's the name of her domain, to be found at Number 17, Pitfield Street, London N1).
As part of this I have created my 20th edition in my 'bio auto graphic' series: 'the power of ten'.

The Creative Circuit?

2011-12-19T01:46:00.000-08:00

Busfragment

2011-12-19T01:24:00.000-08:00

In 28th October 2005 Mette and I were fortunate to travel on the old Routemaster Number 38 - the final evening that it ran.
Better than that, for the occasion many of the older buses were out of the garage and running one last time. Ours was circa 1960s, I'd say.
The strangeness, the cultural memory of the dimmer upstairs lights, chair fabrics and handrails – all pleasurable details.
The once-mundane made exotic.
The ticket collectors were all in melancholy/jolly mood and issuing tickets for free.
Then came the Day of the Dumb; the 'bendybuses' – their farting and whinnying noises cutting through the dead of night near my flat. Years later - having facilitated millions of pounds of lost revenue in dodged fares - these red white elephants are gone and the 38 route will be the first to usher in Boris Johnson's latest woozy, post-lunch nap dream of London travel: the Routemaster Hybrid.
Whatever.

Me & my Nan Number 2: Spring to Summer in the 1960s

2011-12-18T12:25:00.000-08:00

Me & my Nan Number 1: Winter in the 1960s

2011-12-18T12:24:00.001-08:00

Newer works - late 2011 Number 1: Craft/Art

2011-12-18T12:13:00.000-08:00

I have been working with noted designer/typographer and letterpress guru David Jury, as we plan a joint venture in 2012; an edition merging both our – very different – working methodologies and styles.
It's particularly exciting for me because David's relish of traditional print process and quality materials is a world away from what I myself exploit for my editions to date.
The piece will derive imagery and thinking from debates on what divides art from craft, and where qualities of one cross over into the other.

Her are a couple of my developmental rough sketches; ideas made into lines of ink that have then been scanned and made into pixels.

The More Things Change, The More. . . etc.

2011-12-17T03:37:00.001-08:00

I have been scanning in a box of old colour slides that no-one in the family's seen for a few decades.

Here I am in one of these, whiling away my day in the garden of my Nan's house in the mid-1960s – and, in an image from Mette and I's trip to distant Skagen in late Summer 2011, doing much the same in the garden of our hotel.

Time's wing-ed chariot has run over me with around 45 years of wear and tear in the meantime, obviously.
Ouch.

Recent shot © 2011 Mette-Sofie D. Ambeck

Ye Olde Gentlemen of Anciente Provenance

2011-12-15T01:44:00.000-08:00

An image here showing that, occasionally, good things come from bad: a rare chance for the three ex-flatmates from 41, Queens Drive, London N4 - back when we were all at St. Martins School of Art and meat was cheap as they say – to reconvene.
They called it the 1980s, I've heard.
The sadness was that it was for the funeral service of another old, dear friend, Vicky Andrew.
To the left - yours truly. In the middle – Phil Baines (who I first met back on our Foundation Course in 1981 Carlisle, and is now a renowned typographic guru and indeed Professor of same in the Brave New World of CSM @ King's Cross). To the right – Andy Altmann (the man who I met on my arrival day at Ralph West Halls of Residence, Battersea in 1982 as we began to prepare for our degree the following Monday – we soon discovered we were born on the same day back in 1962, and have remained soul brothers ever since – he being a founding partner of Why Not Associates).

The roads we have travelled since have taken us very far and back again, and – while Life gets no less complicated and no less sad – it was good to be together once more.
The grinning presence in the background is Richard 'Dickie' Doust, our old tutor in those pre-historic days (who looks absolutely no bloody different 26 years later – extraordinary).

Photo © 2011 Catherine Caldwell, also of the parish of St. Martins, circa 1983 - 6, for which thanks.

Ensixteen Image [&] Narrative

2011-12-14T02:37:00.000-08:00

Here's the opening page from my visual essay – 'Time and Relative Dimensions In Storytelling' – (did you see what I did there?) as included in the new issue of 'image [&] narrative' (see www.imageandnarrative.be), an online academic online journal based in the Netherlands (it's part of the Open Humanities press).
Their remit is to cover 'visual narratology and word and image studies in the broadest sense'.

Guest editors of the issue (Vol 12, No 4 - ISSN 1780-678X) are Manchester-based artist/academics Carson & Miller, who hosted the 2010 Manchester Metropolitan University conference 'The Story of Things: reading narrative in the visual' at which I delivered the original paper on which this essay is based.
All articles are free to download as PDFs but my pages are also to be included in an upcoming 2012 edition. As usual you can click on any images here and they will enlarge for your reading pleasure.

Interviewed!

2011-12-14T02:21:00.000-08:00

Thanks to London-based arts journalist Ros Ormiston – who I met originally at the September London Art Books Fair at The Whitechapel Gallery – for conducting an e-interview which has now seen the light of the pixelled day as part of the December issue of 'Cassone' (The International Online Magazine of Art and Books).
It's a subscription publication, but good to get the message of Ensixteen out there that bit further. Thanks, Ros.

Photo of yours truly at Smith College, Massachusetts © 2010 Mette-Sofie D. Ambeck

She's back

2011-12-03T16:44:00.000-08:00

The intensity that is Sarah Lund, on the trail of another killer.
Splendid.
BBC 4 or - of course - the treasured iPlayer.

JUNKED?

2011-11-29T04:05:00.000-08:00

I have contributed a series of images for a new website by that very nice man, Mark Bedford (thinker, bass player of legendary Madness pedigree and neighbour in leafy Stoke Newington).
You can find it at www.markbedfordsjunk.co.uk
Mark has begun to unpack his junk - and there are many gems to listen to, read and look at.
All in all, a pleasant new byway of this virtual world to while away your time.

Should you have strayed this way from that very site via the link - welcome.

Take a look around. . . this is my junk and you're also welcome to it.

Winter's imprint/entropy dancing

2011-11-26T15:28:00.000-08:00

Unlike the hardy stone of my Summer scans, this sums up the sense of delicate decay afoot;
the shift in colour, the coming apart of things.
Entirely natural of course – the waltz repeated, season on season.
Click on the image to see a greater detail – I think it's beautiful.

Vicky Andrew 1963 – 2011

2011-11-23T14:34:00.000-08:00

R. I. P

A seed awaits. . .

2011-11-22T11:24:00.000-08:00

A fragment of the subtle Winter landscape of Stoke Newington, London N16, as discovered by Mette. A delicate masterpiece. Much like the lady herself.

Then let not winter's ragged hand deface
In thee thy summer ere thou be distilled.

From Sonnet Six
By William Shakespeare

Small Publishers Fair 2011 - the tenth, in fact

2011-11-10T23:17:00.000-08:00

Mette and I will be at the Small Publishers Fair 11th and 12th November.
Please do drop by should you be in the neighbourhood.

Lots of info at
http://www.rgap.co.uk/spf.php

It's their tenth year and a great chance to see (and buy) all manner of fascinating work in the broad range of book arts, self-publishing, experimental writing, spoken word and other forms of creative endeavour. And meet the people who make it.

A feast.

Photo © 2009 RGAP

GoogleDad

2011-10-25T06:09:00.000-07:00

Remembered my Dad had mentioned seeing a 'strange car with some sort of camera on a stick on top of it' near the Nicholson Family Seat a couple of years ago. Found this on Googlemap. . .

9/11

2011-10-23T07:53:00.001-07:00

Here is the page from my 2006 edition 'Lettering From America Pt.1' which particularly referenced the events of September 11th, 2001. One of the two editions featured in the Smith College exhibition (see previous post). Click on it for a larger version.
The following is an edit of what I wrote to accompany the exhibition:

If my editions are about anything at all, they are about the way things connect.
I began the strand of personal storytelling I call 'bio auto graphic' with an edition entitled 'Issue Zero' in 2004. Fortuitously, the template was set with this modest trial. I had wanted the whole to be flexible enough to embrace shifting senses of memory and location, themes both grand and intimate. . .
The largest themes are reflected in the smallest events.
In Issue Zero, for example, I shift from a farcical domestic anecdote to the events of that week in early September, a day that would knock the world to its knees. I used the outline of the towers as a central element in the design.
In Summer 2005 I made a trip to the USA, beginning in New York. . . Events of the full trip would later become the trilogy of issues I called the 'You, Nighted States' sequence (2005 - 6).
I was again able to suggest the spectre of the fallen towers, in a section that referenced our impression of Manhattan going about its business in the shadow of the recent terrorist atrocities on London's public transport system.
Questions of how we live – practically and spiritually – in times of such raw suspicion and fear fuel this page.
As an adoptive Londoner I had seen the aftermath of half a dozen attacks, but this latest had proven particularly unnerving, and I felt it important to visit 'Ground Zero' while in NYC.
Layer upon layer of meaning surround us every day, and we interpret them how we will. This is like as not shaped by our personalities and belief system – and the latter doesn't have to involve a god.

We connect to the world and it connects to us.
In 1987 I had stood at the top of a Twin Tower and looked to the horizon. An abstract thought passed through my mind: 'What will happen if it falls down?"
I never thought it would – but it did.

And we all still live with the impact of that moment.

Making an Exhibition of Myself - nothing new there then.

2011-10-22T14:04:00.001-07:00

Just a note to self (after some breathless weeks of too much on and too little time to process it) and others who may be in either Leeds, Yorkshire, Engerland OR Northampton, Massachusetts, USA – to mention I currently have work in two exhibitions.

Yes indeed – I straddle the Atlantic, oh followers. . .

Barbara Blumenthal allowed me the privilege of having two of my 'bio auto graphic' editions included in the 'Remembering 9/11' show at the Smith College Neilson Library, and Rebecca Lowe at the Leeds School of Art Library did similar for their current 'The Paradise of Individuality – Artists' Books and Graphic Design' show.

People like these can be so important to the recognition and ongoing work of a book artist – and I'm certainly indebted to them.
They join my list of heroes alongside Jayne Burgess, Jonathan Carson and Jane Pendlebury at Manchester Metropolitan University, Linda Newington and Catherine Polley at Winchester School of Art, Diane McCourt at University for the Creative Arts, Maria White at Tate Collections, Elizabeth James at V&A National Art Collection, Michael Kasper at Amherst College and the maestro himself, Martin Antonetti (also at the Smith College Rare Book Room).
Sarah Bodman at UWE in Bristol remains superhumanly attuned to the book artist's lot and has always provided inestimable advice and support.

Friends to the cause all, and without whom. . .

Click on these images to see larger versions.

Comedy Carpet – The Early Morning after.

2011-10-12T11:27:00.000-07:00

Here are three Friends From Up North.
Far Left is Andy Altmann – ex- St. Martins School of Art colleague, ex-flatmate, designer of the Carpet itself.
In the middle is Michael Cumming – fellow Windermerean, ex- Carlisle Foundation Course colleague, veteran TV comedy director and documentor on film of the Carpet as it has developed.
And me on the Right. I wrote the various comedian biographies and other material for the printed guide to the Carpet as well as the 'Comedians' section of the official Carpet website at
www.comedycarpet.com

Photo by Mister Altmann.

Comedy Carpet - The Morning of It.

2011-10-12T11:23:00.000-07:00

Here I view with undisguised pleasure a drawing wot I did - made granite;
my rendition of the classic Monty Python 'big foot' (with apologies to Terry Gilliam).

Photo by Why Not designer Clayton Welham.

The Blackpool Comedy Carpet Launch: Monday 10th October, 2011

2011-10-12T11:03:00.000-07:00

It was one of the weirdest days I can recall - joining my dear pal Andy Altmann (and colleagues from the company he co-founded, Why Not Associates) for the launch of
'The Blackpool Comedy Carpet'.
This huge typographic pavement, heading out to sea from the base of the Tower itself, is very probably the biggest public arts piece since the Angel of the North. Every step underfoot carries catchphrases, sketches, banter and blather from the town's – and our nation's – long history of comedy.

A crowd – defying easy definition – gathered at the Tower for a reception on the appropriately windswept and rainlashed day.
A day when you genuinely needed a laugh, actually.
The Grand Poobah of British Comedy, Ken Dodd, anointed the day with a handy tickling stick and raised an appropriate titter or two.

It's been a long old slog for Andy and his collaborator, artist Gordon Young - pretty much 5 years - but there it finally was.
And, having built it, they certainly came; members of the public, their children and dogs, amassed journalists with dictaphones and cameras. . . All began reading it and enjoying it as soon as they could step onto it.
Laughter and recognition and the rediscovery of the familiar as the brown seas thrashed the Lancashire coast.
I enjoyed long chats with comedienne Hattie Hayridge – currently touring as part of 'Rory Bremner and Friends' – and esteemed comedy biographer Graham McCann, author of books on Eric and Ernie, Frankie Howerd, Dad's Army and Fawlty Towers amongst others.
Splendid folk.

National newspaper coverage began that morning, and local and national TV news caught up as evening fell.
Having relished an increasingly surreal afternoon in the grandeur of the Tower Ballroom – and refreshed ourselves at the hotel beneath the Pleasure Beach roller-coaster – we repaired to the evening celebrations.
The last laughs were had back on the Carpet, beneath the monolithic Tower, in the early hours.
Design meets art meets cultural heritage.
Old friends and new faces – the end of something and the beginning of it, too.
Sweet.

ENSIXTEEN EDITIONS No.19 – The Physics of Violence

2011-10-09T04:59:00.000-07:00

The three consecutive covers here for the latest Ensixteen edition. Click on the images to get a larger version, as ever.
The three-part set goes out – in alternate versions of a very fetching illustrated bellyband – as Ensixteen's 19th release.

Sophie Hallam, a new reader who picked them up at the recent Whitechapel event, emailed me:

"Just read the physics of violence and it made me shiver. Your writing and illustration create a very delicate and extremely powerful experience."

Clearly a woman of great taste.

Messrs. Fowler, Bryant and May

2011-10-03T17:01:00.000-07:00

Author Christopher Fowler – amongst a prolific writing career continuing beyond the novel into theatre, interactive media and a marvellously labyrinthine blog (www.christopherfowler.co.uk) – has created the splendidly ideosyncratic detective duo of Arthur Bryant and John May.

Determinedly applying old-school sensibilities of 'copper-ing' to the unfolding madness of the 21st century's weirdest criminal cases these two ageless sleuths, colleagues and friends offer a window into the past, present and future of the metropolis.

The books - as does Chris's site – burst with the accumulated detail of London history, human hopes and despairs.

They're a charming, intelligent read.

And funny, too.

Folding back upon myself – flashbacking to my career as an illustrator of other people's words – I asked Christopher if there were any B & M short stories for which I might create new images.

He emailed me a draft of 'Bryant & May in the Soup' – set in the crippling, claustrophobic smogs of 1952.

Here are the results, as concurrently featured on Chris's site.

As usual, click on the images to see them at a larger size.

This is for me like taking down an old and familiar jacket from the peg – revisiting the bold style of my magazine illustration days for the likes of 'Time Out' and the 'Guardian' newspaper.

Same bloke, different line.

'In the Soup' features in his new 'Red Gloves' two - volume short story collection.

His newest novel is just out: "Bryant and May and the Memory of Blood".

It's their ninth outing and I feel you may enjoy it.

Chris duly featured the images at his website after what was an enjoyable launch of the latest book.

What a nice man.

The Sole Proprietor of Ensixteen Editions

2011-09-30T09:50:00.000-07:00

A snapshot of the author by M-S D. Ambeck.

An uncharacteristically upbeat pose is struck, as the events of the 3rd Whitechapel London Art Book Fair unfold; such nice people, such stimulating company - so many sales!

Whitechapel 2011

2011-09-27T04:38:00.000-07:00

Images here from the ridiculously flexible iPhone 'Apps' of my dear friend Vicky Fullick, in the bleary aftermath of the 2nd full day at the Whitechapel Gallery event.

Myself, Mette and Vick repaired to The White Hart pub, of ancient East End provenance, at the close of play that day. Happy memories of a good day, well-spent, and good friends, well-met.

WHITECHAPEL GALLERY - LONDON ART BOOK FAIR 3

2011-09-22T06:10:00.000-07:00

Do join Mette and I if you are in the area. We're at Stand 50 - in the Upper Gallery space.

Adieu.

M x

NEW ENSIXTEEN - 9/11/11: One into three

2011-09-22T06:04:00.000-07:00

Images from the thing I have done most recently here. Click to enlarge them, as ever.

The new book is actually three books - in a set entitled 'The Physics of Violence'.

Part one is called 'Cause', Part Two '&' and Part Three 'Effect'.

This is created as part of my signing up to an interesting project called 'An Inventory of Al-Mutanabbi Street' - in memory of a terrorist attack on an ancient street devoted to the trade and appreciation of books in Baghdad, in 2007.

I completed primary work on the edition on the tenth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks in New York - which have infiltrated previous books in the 'bio auto graphic' series since 2004.

The new editions consider what exactly drives members of our society to take such irrevocably damaging actions against others.

Who are they, why do they do it, and what are the repercussions for us all?

They will be first exhibited at the 3rd London Art Book Fair - beginning with a Preview night this very evening at The Whitechapel Gallery.

***STOP PRESS***

The Special Collection at Winchester School of Art acquired this new piece during the 2nd day of the event, and old friend of Ensixteen Editions Maria White (Chief Cataloguer for Tate Britain) did the same on the final 3rd day..

Summer fragments 2

2011-09-22T06:03:00.001-07:00

The Stones of Skagen - walking the blissfully desolate and empty beaches of the Northernmost point of Denmark in late Summer with Mette - the place where the two seas meet (Baltic and North)

Summer fragments 1

2011-09-22T06:01:00.000-07:00

The stones of School Knott - a piece picked up on a walk over the local hill, and down past the modest tarn atop it, while back in Windermere.

This slate was still deliciously warm in the hand as I pocketed it.

You and Your Town?

2011-09-22T05:56:00.000-07:00

Discovered this document from another dimension - well, the hopeful, bright new dawn thinking of the post-WW2 British Welfare State - over the Summer break.

Had travelled to my homeland of the Lakes the morning after the third night of rioting and vile looting in London and elsewhere.

The contrast between the future outlined herein - all local libraries, free health care and citizens bound together in the new towns of the new nation - could not have been more acutely felt.

Today we steal trainers and burn properties for the jealous sake of it, irrespective of the endangerment of innocent families in dwellings above the flames.

A notion of a nation - admittedly a rose-tinted one - here that would have looked on aghast at recent events.

ENSIXTEEN EDITIONS: RARITIES 2

2011-08-08T05:37:00.000-07:00

At the end of the last couple of years I have created secular cards to send good wishes to friends and acquaintances (see a much earlier post for the last one from late 2010). Here's the first one - and both tip the hat to the late songsmith Ian Dury, naturally.

PAGE BEFORE THE FIRST PAGE – DETAIL NO.1

2011-08-08T05:20:00.000-07:00

In these six fragments of the bigger piece you can see me testing possibilities. . . of interesting tensions between the elements of text and image – the relationships between content and empty space – the cropping of larger images – creation of material that teases a reader, rather than just handing over the goods clearly in terms of what links to what in the scheme of things.
Also here, the hand-written text that has remained throughout my editions, and proven popular with readers it seems.
All these factors have been – I'd like to think – refined in the editions I made from 2004 onwards.

PAGE BEFORE THE FIRST PAGE – DETAIL NO.2

2011-08-08T05:19:00.002-07:00

PAGE BEFORE THE FIRST PAGE – DETAIL NO.3

2011-08-08T05:19:00.001-07:00

PAGE BEFORE THE FIRST PAGE – DETAIL NO.4

2011-08-08T05:18:00.001-07:00

PAGE BEFORE THE FIRST PAGE – DETAIL NO.5

2011-08-08T05:17:00.001-07:00

PAGE BEFORE THE FIRST PAGE – DETAIL NO.6

2011-08-08T05:13:00.000-07:00

ENSIXTEEN EDITIONS - THE PAGE BEFORE THE FIRST PAGE. . .

2011-08-08T02:14:00.000-07:00

Here is the very first visual experiment I made that tips the hat towards the entire ongoing
'bio auto graphic' style of telling my own story.
In the good company of my oldest pal Michael Cumming (Westmorland-born two days after me and my neighbour in the maternity ward in the autumn of 1962 – now a director of televisual comedy for some years) I made a road trip in an open-top Landrover, up and across to Lincolnshire. We headed there to attend a grand weekend gathering of old pals at the home of David & Fiona Carruthers.
In this strange, flat, largely unknown land – unsettling when you're from land of hills and verticality – our storylines converged once again, laughs were laughed and the geographical distances that usually separated us forgotten. . .

After the fact – and using a spare line style that had surfaced in my work as a storyboard artist in recent years – I made this one-sheet impression of the experience.
I can't even clearly remember why I sat down and did it, though it certainly forms a foundation stone for an entire – enjoyable – working methodology with which I still tinker.

It was that tentative first step, and – as has often been the case – it was friends that somehow inspired me to take it.

My next few posts will show details of the above which, as here, you can click on to enlarge. . .
NB - If you read back through the next six posts in reverse order you'll get the original flow of the narrative as intended.

Walking with The Dane Pt.2: Soul-food

2011-08-07T06:08:00.000-07:00

The performance of the Marlowe play proved a real treat.
We had long wanted to visit the theatre. What a setting and atmosphere.
We had sought the solace of a seat – and even additional cushion voucher – rather than the cheaper – and undoubtedly vivid – option of standing throughout.
From this placing, stage left, we relished a performance by Paul Hilton (Faust) and Arthur Darvill (Mephistopheles) and a superb cast. The setting and flavour were very much in the style of the play's period (including some haunting sleight-of-hand special effects) but the themes – as we've all sold our souls on occasion – are no less relevant today.
I cannot recommend it – both play and venue – highly enough.

"When all the world dissolves,
And every creature shall be purified,
All places shall be hell that are not heaven."

Leaving the theatre under the deep night sky and walking back across the Millenium Bridge, the feeling of connection to the city, and the lives of past inhabitants, was vivid.
Thanks to Mette for the photos.

Walking with The Dane Pt.1: River's edge

2011-08-07T05:56:00.000-07:00

My dear Mette and I have once again been treading the streets of the metropolis during her recent visit.
A particular delight was to head towards the river and - before attending the Globe Theatre for their current production of Marlowe's 'Doctor Faustus' that evening - wet our feet in the sands and silt of the shore at Bankside. Twenty feet below the tourist yackety- yack outside the Tate, the noise drops away and there's the whiff of age, the uneasy creaking of decay and the mutter of the water.
Warmth under frowning clouds.

Meanwhile, at Guildford Cathedral. . .

2011-08-07T05:49:00.001-07:00

In the parallel universe of my lecturing job for University for the Creative Arts in Epsom there was the annual ceremony and celebration for the students as they graduated recently.
It's always good to meet parents and partners as the ex-3rd Year prepare to make The Great Leap Forwards and bid a fond farewell.
Here I am with Louisa Brooks (left) and Michelle Siddall (right) on the day. I'm the old crock in the middle.
Thanks for the photo, girls.

The Rochester Castle Pt.8: Nigel Burch (detail)

2011-08-07T05:26:00.000-07:00

The Rochester Castle Pt.7 - Abandon Hope All Ye Who Enter Here etc.

2011-08-07T05:15:00.000-07:00

The Rochester Castle Pt.6 - Darwin's Proof

2011-08-07T05:13:00.001-07:00

The Rochester Castle Pt.5 - Not a Dry Seat In The House

2011-08-07T05:10:00.001-07:00

The Rochester Castle Pt.4 - High Noonan

2011-08-07T05:08:00.000-07:00

The Rochester Castle Pt.3 - House of Lost Souls

2011-08-07T05:04:00.000-07:00

The Rochester Castle Pt. 2: The Army of the Dissolution

2011-08-07T05:01:00.001-07:00

The Rochester Castle: The Hieronymous Bosch Casting Agency Pt. 1

2011-08-07T04:52:00.000-07:00

There is a public house called The Rochester Castle, in Stoke Newington, London N16. Therein it is my wont to take beers with my friend Nigel Burch (of whom elsewhere).
To try and capture the mix and match of the place, the veering moods and swinging that goes on, I have lately taken to stealing the images of the drinkers that frequent it.
Here - and in other imminent posts - I lodge some of the sketchbook material as record of this.

How others see me - Number 1

2011-08-06T03:32:00.001-07:00

Occasionally I receive images that friends and acquaintances have done of me.
While this blog revolves particularly around my autobiographical pictures of myself I thought it might add a strand to the mix to include some of those others, here and there.
This first one was slipped on the back of a letter by my old teaching colleague Ian Hay - a sure hand with pastels but here lowering his standards to walk the ink line with me.
In case you're curious, I've Googled him, and apparently Mister Arthur Helliwell was a Fleet Street reporter with a seedy Soho beat back in the black and white days.
It's not not a compliment. . .

Who drew Who?

2011-08-05T18:33:00.000-07:00

A marvellous exhibition at the splendid Cartoon Museum, with flyer illustration by Paul Grist and James Offredi.

For those Whoheads out there there's a chance to see exquisite original artwork from the eleven incarnations of the Time Lord, and learn about this parallel universe through which he's moved – beyond our TV screens – for almost 50 years.

Timey-wimey gorgeousness.
Vworp vworp!

KURT

2011-08-05T18:22:00.000-07:00

As BBC 4 comes to the close of the re-run of Krister Henrikkson's second series as detective Kurt Wallander (created by Swedish author Henning Mankell), I can only say that, if you have a taste for this kind of stuff, you should perhaps consider the investment of the series on DVD?
Available in the last few months, beginning with the initial seven 90 - minute episodes of Henrikksen's first series (from production company Yellow Bird), this is - beyond the confines of genre - exemplary drama; intelligent script and direction, subtle tones of performance and theme.
All human life is there, I swear.
So - treat yourself.
Henrikkson's performance is truly captivating.

ENSIXTEEN EDITIONS: RARITIES 1

2011-08-02T14:01:00.000-07:00

As a start to a new slew of posts to grace these digital spaces – before the Dog Days of August hit good and proper – here is a page I completed for a book called 'Preoccupations: Things Artists Do Anyway', edited by Cordelia Erdmann and Michael Lee Hong Hwee, published in Hong Kong back in 2008.
It speaks of my fatal weakness for the recreational revolution that have been the DVD boxed set.
As with all images here, if you click upon't it will enlarge for your reading pleasure. . .

What is an Art School?

2011-05-25T08:48:00.000-07:00

An image here being my contribution to the new publication being put together by The Collective Mind at my 'day job' - that being the Graphic Design BA (Hons) course at the University for the Creative Arts, down in Epsom, Surrey.
In these times of Governmental antipathy towards the arts, and managerial grail-seeking for the spurious credibility of 'University-status', those of us who were schooled in the mysterious ways of the traditional arts school feel memories need jogging, emotions stirring, questions asking. . .
The brain-child of Course Leader, Luke Pendrell, the publication is being designed by Ben Branagan and shall be launched to industry on Thursday 16th June.
This timely article on the Design Week blog tells you more:

www.designweek.co.uk/home/blog/redesigning-graduate-
shows/3026724.article

BRISTOL 2011 - The 3rd Arnolfini BABE

2011-05-03T04:59:00.000-07:00

Here are images (as with every post - click on them and they get bigger) provided by Ensixteen's official photographer, Mette Ambeck, from last weekend's Bristol Artist's Book Event. As well as some reasonable sales from both back-catalogue and of new titles we were able to reconnect with lovely old friends including John Bently of Liver and Lights Scriptorium (see past posts), Sheena Vallelly of Reassemble, Lucy May Schofield, Stephen Fowler and Angie Butler. . . and not forgetting Sarah Bodman and Tom Sowden from The Centre for Fine Print Research at the University of West England.
Mister Bently can be seen, all generous curls and intellect, in the foreground of one of these very images.
Great venue, great pals, great town.

ENSIXTEEN EDITIONS No.18: "In The Air. . ."

2011-04-28T11:45:00.000-07:00

The front cover of the new edition.
I'll tell you more about the themes I explore in it very soon. . .
If you are anywhere near the Bristol area, do come along to the Arnolifini over this Saturday 30th April and Sunday 1st May (an ideal antidote to the Royal Propoganda Event, in fact) - it's always fun, with lots of our talented friends and acquaintances from the exciting range of book arts activity from all over the UK and beyond in attendance (see recent post for details of 'BABE 3").

Onwards!

FREEFALLING TOWARDS ANOTHER BOOK FAIR?

2011-04-28T11:43:00.000-07:00

A detail from my new book for a new book fair - and, though it'll be unveiled at the BABE 3 shennanigans in Bristol over this weekend, I don't mean that one. It's my 3rd piece answering an open call from the annual Doverodde Book Fair in Thy, Denmark.
My heroine, Mette Ambeck, is special Book Arts consultant and designer for the event, and it'll take place this June.
Their theme for the open call this year?

"In The Air. . . "

Which I must admit I have interpreted. . . openly.

HOT BABE ACTION: Bristol 30th April - 1st May

2011-04-13T07:37:00.000-07:00

A Statement of Intent - you might say.

2011-04-11T16:42:00.001-07:00

Ticket to Nowhere

2011-04-10T01:46:00.001-07:00

APRIL FOOL'S DAY - dawn sketches No.3 – 8.24am 1st April 2011

2011-04-05T15:51:00.000-07:00

Blessed arrival.
Thoughts ahead to a new book for the 2011 Doverodde Book Fair in Denmark,
title ". . . in the air".
In dreams, as we all do, I am known to fly.
Step lightly, up into the flawless sky, and. . . away.

APRIL FOOL'S DAY - dawn sketches No.2 – 5.40am 1st April 2011

2011-04-05T15:49:00.000-07:00

APRIL FOOL'S DAY - dawn sketches No.1 – 5.31am 1st April 2011

2011-04-05T15:38:00.000-07:00

Heading North last Friday with the new day and month, home for Mothering Sunday.
An insanely early train out of necessity. Awaking before 4.oo a.m, then out into that strange, non-world of the deadest hours of the night.
The 73 bus, however, full of people. The drunken at the dregs of their previous day, the semi-comatose beginning their new one. Strangely, as I was abed by 10pm I am fairly chipper.
On the train. Nicely quiet. Cracking a new Moleskin sketchbook (the 2nd of a pack of three gifted to me at Christmas last by my dear friend Karen of Williamsburg, Massachusetts), I set down the line skeleton's of future ideas. . .
For your viewing pleasure I now post a selection.
I thank you.

The clocks go forward and the crime is solved

2011-03-26T17:54:00.000-07:00

To bed after watching the final episodes of the superb Danish thriller 'The Killing' on the thrice-blessed BBC iPlayer.
With twenty convoluted episodes that gripped all right-thinking viewers – and a uniformly excellent cast headed by Sofie Gråbøl as Detective Sarah Lund – this never failed to provide compelling and compassionate drama. Serial storytelling of the highest quality, in short.
It's been a worthy successor to the Swedish version of Henning Mankell's 'Wallander' (starring the beautifully hang-dog Krister Henrikkson in the title role).

I will miss it.
RIP Nanna Birk Larson.

It would be illogical not to celebrate the fact.

2011-03-26T15:39:00.001-07:00

Meanwhile, on September 30th 2010, it's late morning at Otter Lake, New Hampshire:

2011-03-24T16:47:00.000-07:00

. . . but not as we know it.

2011-03-24T16:21:00.001-07:00

It's Life, Jim. . .

2011-03-22T13:27:00.000-07:00

Sweet, bright, chill Saturday

2011-03-19T13:45:00.000-07:00

An away day.

The city unfolding, endless under tire of bus and foot of leg.

Mette and I head to see Dieter Roth's 'Reykjavik Slides (31,035) Every View of a City' at Hauser & Wirth in Mayfair. Dark space. . . click, whirring of multiple projectors filling the walls with slides of another, curiously, quietly different place. Away across the cold Northern seas.
. . . Past the building the Beatles played upon, putting out the sounds that awoke a decade one last time in another London of mini skirts and bowler hats. Through Soho streets so familiar they're hard-wired into my memory (days of storyboards and Soho House meetings, fresh pastas and Japanese supermarkets, New Piccadilly Cafe omelette and chips, looking out across night-time rooftops with Karen, then the same under the purple-peach light of an eclipse a few years after that). FOPP for cheap riches - in book and on film. Chris Morris' 'Four Lions' included. . .
East, through a chaos of sluggish traffic, roadworks and fellow weekend wanderers. Bump into Mette's old St. Martins pal Adam, but conversation feels forced and empty - no surprise this, given the sudden social collision of our two storylines, and none of us having seen a script for this sudden Pink Page in our day.
To The Museum of London, and 'London Street Photography'. Really very interesting indeed - even if only grazing the surface of the experience of living in this odd, maddening place that is at once all cities, but so very much its own peculiar distinctive self.
To love and to hate. . .
Back to N16; Mette finding knitting treasures for her niece that inevitably remind me of my own Auntie Jean, who I dreamed of again last night. . . and that old Church Street we have walked a thousand times. A gentle light brushes the upper floors of the buildings, hinting at a Spring which sort of really should be here already.
Then a much-needed repast at The Rose and Crown: beer-battered fish, chips and posh mushy peas. With Adnams Stout.

Talk and talk and talk – feeling hopeful, and a bit sad, too. But mostly hopeful.

And anyway, in the 2007 Doctor Who story 'Blink' (by writer Steven Moffat) Sally Sparrow (played by the luminous Carey Mulligan), said that sad was 'happy for deep people' and if you recognized the truth of that, well then we agree.

Two people - one thing - Saturday 19th March 2011.

RIP BOB GREAVES: 1934 - 2011

2011-03-15T13:59:00.000-07:00

As with my recent post on the points on my Northern compass, Granada Television and Manchester. . . Sad today to hear of the death of a splendid everyman face from local news show 'Granada Reports' of yesteryear.

Mister Greaves, as ever, you didn't miss your cue.

Perhaps he and Tony 'Anthony H.' Wilson are catching up over a pint, wearing suits with flared trousers, in a Mancunian dream of the Afterlife?

"And now, over to Mandy with the weather. . . "

Set sights for The North

2011-03-10T03:31:00.000-08:00

Just a reminder to those many, many followers who I know will want to make suitable arrangements to attend. . .
This Friday 11th and Saturday 12th March sees The 2011 International Contemporary Artists' Book Fair (details attached alongside a ruggedly handsome line drawing that seems somehow familiar).
Mette-Sofie D. Ambeck (see her own new blog www.ambeckdesign.blogspot.com) and I will be showing latest work – including my own latest 'A Month of Sundays' edition (see recent posts).
It would be a grand thing to see any friendly faces.
Have a good weekend either way.
M

A Month of Sundays - the cover!

2011-03-01T12:37:00.001-08:00

The new edition on the block - click on the image and it gets bigger.
I'm so proud.
M

IT'S A BOOK! A Month of Sundays – Final Day 4: 28/2/11

2011-03-01T02:29:00.000-08:00

And so - after four productive and enjoyable Sundays across February, the new edition is now complete and ready for duplication this very day.
'A Month of Sundays' has gone with the flow of events across four modest days in my life that encapsulate a particular month.
It was a very simple premise that has proven to be just the tonic to motivate pencil (then pen) to paper and not only that but allow me to articulate things that are very close to my heart and mind. The image here, completed on the final day of production, reveals the vinegary wind of enforced change that's now imposed on us all by the latest Clowns of Downing Street.

'A little bit of politics', as Ben Elton used to say. Wait til you see my poster for 'The Big Society' - squirm, you political worms!

There are also some lovely drawings that I'm really pleased with, some deep thoughts and played words and my very first drawing of a Robin.

Available at Leeds and BABE book events, or drop me a line to ladnicholson@yahoo.co.uk

The North - Pt. 10: Granada TV and 'The Street'

2011-02-26T18:20:00.000-08:00

More text that never made the edit on the current project:

Granada Television represented a significant piece in the puzzle of 'The North' that I put together as a child.
It was a progressive, regional enterprise that unpicked the cultural monopoly represented by the alien BBC Received Pronunciation voice of London. Through Granada a regional accent that I recognized - the sardonic, flat Lancashire voice - entered the proliferating televisions then beginning to arrive in the homes of ordinary people. At Granada, in the pivotal years, the entrepreneur shook hands with the auteur and went for a drink. It embraced a new generation of drama writers, actors, directors and producers - and investigative journalism (the groundbreaking 'World In Action' from 1963 and 'Seven Up!' from 1964) with a global reach, to boot.
In my imagination, as I grew older - out on a limb in the Lake District – there coalesced a myth of Manchester formed from the wit of good writing and performances, plus provocative film-making with a heart. For the reality - hats off to the likes of Ray Gosling, Tony Wilson, Anna Ford, Pattie Caldwell, Gordon Burns, Trevor Hyett and Bob Greaves and, for the imagination, I'd like to tip the hat also to those behind 'The Squirrels', 'The Cuckoo Waltz', 'The Lovers' and – that most special police series (it's as if 'The Sweeney' were written by Pinter or Ibsen) 'Strangers' - starring Don Henderson, Dennis Blanch, John Ronane, Frances Tomelty, Fiona Mollison, Mark McManus and Thorley Walters.
Marvellous work.
And, in closing, none more marvellous than 'Coronation Street', which – at 50 years young, continues to flourish. The basic humanity that creator Tony Warren set in place with his initial episodes remains, and the constant thread of humour which leavens the dramatic mix is, I think, what sustains the show over the histrionics and misery of certain other Southern counterparts. That and an extraordinarily good, consistently surprising cast and writing team.
The achievement of the '50th Anniversary Week' of episodes - including a flawless hour-long 'live' segment - is startling.
My own appreciation of this national institution may be detected between the lines of the accompanying sketchbook image. As with every other image here, if you click on it, it gets bigger.
Relish the detail and read the roll-call!

The North - Pt.49: ". . . seaside, beside the sea." – Blackpool

2011-02-26T17:52:00.000-08:00

Writing that didn't make the edit for my current 'special project':

On Blackpool -

"My idea of the North, as a child, was more particularly loaded towards Blackpool, Manchester being a much greater and more inscrutable unknown of undetermined location, somewhere away over the hills near 'Coronation Street'.
Dad tells me that we visited the Pleasure Beach, and there's memory of that.
More vivid, through repetition, when we visited and shopped as a family towards Christmas every year; Mum and Dad, Nan (Mum's mum) and Auntie Jean (Mum's sister). And me.

Fragmentarily?
It was this:
The Tower, seen from the car or coach – the thrilling heave and chunter and bustle of the main covered market. Marvel Comics hanging from bulldog clips. The smell of hot, salty pies – the waft of them, the warm, savoury breezes from the shops that sold them. Fish ' n' chips 'n' mushy peas. Rain and cold wind. The Dr.Who Exhibition – a shabby portal to the imagination. Meeting up at the British Home Stores cafeteria with Nan and Jean after a couple of hours shopping - while outside the bright walls circled the 1960s and 70s. . . The compact, sugar-hit trifles in pots; blood red jelly, delicious and viscous custard and then, the least of it, the fluffy and tasteless cream dob at the top. Hated the flavour-free crunchy cherry above it.
The jolly, alluring crackle of white paper bags in sweet shops. Midget gems and Sour Apple sweets. Cough Candy.
A Funhouse mirror of a place.
A queasy mix of the sweet & soured.
Both savoury antidote and salty anecdote. . .

Blackpooled."

A Month of Sundays – Day 3: 20/2/11

2011-02-26T02:20:00.000-08:00

For my 3rd Sunday in this self-imposed schedule of work across February, I was back home in the Lakes with Mum and Dad, so final artwork wasn't practical to achieve.
Instead, I was both taking notes for the day – with which to create layouts and then final artwork later in the week for that day as part of the 'A Month Of Sundays' bio auto graphic edition – and ALSO making visual notes for a special project which must remain secret for now.
As a glimpse, here's a thumbnail of the potential opening page of four of that.

This is actually a good representation of my process as a whole - given many years of experience working to tight deadlines within publishing and TV/film industries, even when I'm dancing to my own tune I tend not to waste too much time prevaricating once I have the raw components (the things I want to say in a given page) in mind. I might have made a written check-list to refer to nearby in the sketchbook, but once the ink hits the page I tend to press on once satisfied.
I liked the look of this composition as soon as I'd set it down.
That kind of decisiveness comes with experience and a knowledge of your own skills.
Age, basically. . .
This is a really satisfying creative time for me and I'm having a ball.

+++LEEDS INTERNATIONAL CONTEMPORARY ARTISTS' BOOK FAIR 2011+++

2011-02-15T17:25:00.000-08:00

Should any of you be in the vicinity of Yorkshire - and more specifically Leeds - on 11th and 12th March, here's a note of the latest upcoming book fair.
This is the e-flyer received today from co-organiser Chris Taylor, using artwork from my prep work for the 2007 'In A Single Bound Volume Our Hero Is Free' piece (itself featured in the 'From Book to Book' exhibition at Leeds Art Gallery in March - April of that year).
As with all content here, click on the image to enlarge it.
The event is as usual masterminded by CT and John McDowell and has gained a pleasing character and new momentum since it's re-incarnation a few years ago from what used to be a smaller event over in Halifax.

I'll be there alongside partner-in-crime
Mette-Sofie D. Ambeck.

It would be lovely to see any of you who may read this, and the new 'A Month of Sundays' edition (my 17th under the 'bio auto graphic' banner) will be available there for the first time.

For the now - adieu.

A Month of Sundays - Day 2: 13/2/11

2011-02-13T15:57:00.000-08:00

Second Sunday, 2nd taster image.
Really enjoying this. Have a good week.
M

New Post - New Book: 6/2/11

2011-02-06T15:57:00.000-08:00

A belated Happy New Year to those rooting about in the Blogosphere.

It appears that January became a time and a space not conducive to posts of any kind. After three or so weeks dug in at the Nicholson country pile with the folks over Yuletide and New Year, I returned to teaching duties and other pressing matters in the capital.
Indeed, as well as the usual teaching mallarkey I currently have an article to prepare (a sequel to a paper I delivered at
'The Story of Things' Conference at Manchester Metropolitan University about a year ago) as well as a new storyboard commission for design gurus The Why Not Associates.
HOWEVER. . .
Today – the 1st Sunday of February, 2011 – I was hit with inspiration somewhere in-between the smoked salmon and cottage cheese on toast and the shower.
Leeds Contemporary Artist's Book Fair, 2011 (March) and Bristol Artists' Book Event 3 (April) loom, and I feel a new edition from the 'bio auto graphic' strand is called for.

I will draw from events on each Sunday this month, beginning today, and commit ideas to paper either on the days themselves or shortly afterwards. I'm already three pages in.

The name of the edition is to be 'A Month of Sundays', and attached here is a small taster image from Page 1. Impaled on the working week, kinda thing.
I thank sweet Mette - Sofie, 'Amusing' Andrew George, Karen 'God, that's a small island' Leet, Robert 'Far-Fetched Fiction' Rankin, Michael 'Ian' Cumming and David 'Iolanthe' Carruthers. All these people have inspired me, one way or another, since I got up today.

It's been a tonic.

New interview as of 19/12/10

2010-12-19T09:47:00.000-08:00

Just a heads up that the Zine Queen, Texan-born and UK-resident Teal Triggs has included me in her own blog covering the international 'zine scene'. The material, featuring a new photo by Mette Ambeck, appears in the form of an interview, Number 18 in an ongoing series.

This is a great honour for yours truly, and a nice way to round off the year in which I first dipped a toe into the bloggosphere or whatever it's called!

My interview can be found at:
www.zineweekly.blogspot.com

Secular, non-God, holiday wishes to the multiverse - December 2010

2010-12-16T16:40:00.000-08:00

To you all.
Love,
M x

Thames Beach - Tuesday November 16th 2010

2010-11-16T16:41:00.000-08:00

A blessed day off for both Mette and I, she from the rigours of bookbinding, myself from the psychological erosion of a tutoring job.
A strange, misted aspect to the London distance as we descended to the foreshore opposite Tate Modern. A surprisingly soft sand at the head of the beach, touching the slab-like building blocks of the wall, but descending into the crazy detritus of the water's edge, where Victorian clay-pipe fragments mix it up with red brick shards, crockery of unknown provenance, clogged mud and other delights.
In the distance the tapering bulk of some new novelty-shaped monolith towers already, dwarfing Southwark Cathedral, while on the Millenium Bridge a pretty patchy saxophonist trailed through some standards.
I momentarily felt like waltzing in the sand, but Mette had already walked on, eyes glued to the beach in search of that perfect pipe.
Splendid afternoon, in short.

ENSIXTEEN EDITIONS – 'The Common Senses' set Pt.1:

2010-10-10T11:57:00.000-07:00

This is a complex one – I’m breaking it up into parts and putting them up here in reverse order.
You can then simply continue down the screen reading one after the other and get the full effect.

Now read on. . .

In recent posts I have noted a few Ensixteen Editions pieces that were produced for submission to gallery exhibitions. My drive to write and draw the books even in these cases remains very personal, with triggers sometimes being as simple as a single word or short phrase, open to my interpretation.

The largest number of separate issues collected as one release so far are ‘The Common Senses’
– five books linked not to gallery exhibitions but rather to two trips to Smith College, in the small Massachusetts town of Northampton, between July 2007 and December 2008.

Pt. 2 – Gathering. . . Common Senses

2010-10-10T11:54:00.000-07:00

A double visual ‘code’ carried through the series and gave it coherence.

Firstly, each of the five was aligned to one of our human senses.
As you can see in the first post above, alongside connected images of the body the front cover compositions made use of falling stacks of words or phrases that came from the US trips, also tied to that sense (sight, sound, taste etc.), while back covers carried quotes that felt apposite, one example – from Volume 5 – being Aldous Huxley’s:
‘Every man’s memory is his private literature.’

Secondly, on opening a volume the reader finds it carries a theme;
learning, identity, Smith, place and self, respectively.

Pt. 3 – Embracing. . . Common Senses

2010-10-10T11:29:00.000-07:00

I travelled on a budget provided by 'research funds' from my academic place of employment at the University for the Creative Arts in Epsom, Surrey – such support being available to salaried staff developing ideas which tie into what comprises valid 'research activity'.
These are muddy waters, and I had come to the realization that being awarded such funds was to some degree a kind of shell game, reliant upon unpredictable and unknown management agendas, beyond a point.

Despite that, I set out an idea that sought to link reportage drawing and reflective writing with interviews conducted both inside and outside an academic institution.
As a student and – more recently – tutor I have remained bemused at the occasionally antagonistic relationship between colleges and the communities within which they sit.
It certainly seemed rich territory for human stories.
A kind gentleman called Martin Antonetti – Smith's Curator of Rare Books at their Neilson Library – agreed to help.
Martin's generosity led to many insights into the process and experience of education – the pleasure it can bring as well as the tensions and personal conflict, the things it leaves with us after we leave it behind.
Alongside Martin – in facilitating elements that meant the series worked on lots of levels – was my old friend Karen Leet, who also provided introductions to people and places that embedded the local area outside Smith into the set.

Splendid folk and many, many happy memories to keep, from the baked heat of July to the tight cold of December 2007.

Pt. 4 – Seeing. . . Common Senses

2010-10-10T11:19:00.000-07:00

After probably my most intense working period since I started the ‘bio auto graphic’ series, I wrapped the books up and released them into the wild at the November 2008 4th Manchester Artists' Book Fair – and at Smith College itself shortly thereafter.
They drew from the widest range of material I had ever used (location sketchbooks, interviews, photography) – a dizzying patchwork quilt of a thing at times – and I was hugely satisfied with the results.

Pt. 5 – Being. . . Common Senses

2010-10-10T11:04:00.000-07:00

Even these books still fall into step with my broad agenda; using my own personal experiences – and the stories spinning out from them – to link with the larger issues within society.
And telling yarns about it all.

Regular themes surface again; identity, morality, personal hope and public fear, the nature of our obligations to each other and to our community, the power of love and friendship and humour to take us through our days in meaningful ways.

What else is there?