


Sometime late last year, the first issue of Materiality was published. You can now purchase it as a hard copy or as a PDF download through Pinknantucket Press. Puruse the table of contents and be tempted. There is even a zine tucked inside the back cover which certainly adds to its allure.
MATERIALITY
Number 1: Book
Published by Pinknantucket Press
Edited by Alice Cannon
2012
The Artist and the Book
Book artists Gracia Haby and Louise Jennison love
paper for its adaptable, foldable, concealable, revealing nature. From
their limited edition artists' books to prints, zines, postcards and
other projects, the animal is ever-present in their work. "For us, the
animal is there to question our very behaviour, those moral principles
by which one governs the self, and to explore our relationship with the
natural world... we leave our scenes deliberately open-ended. We invite
you to ponder, to contemplate, and to perhaps find that things are not
as they appear at first glance." Gracia Haby tells us more about their
attraction to the book format as an artistic medium.
I blame the intimacy of the book. It was perhaps a suggestive wink from a
book that first drew me to collage and from there to the process of
altering and adding to the printed page. Now, I am not referring to
those precious tomes that in library collections most rare reside. Nor
am I talking of books deemed sacred by any definition. No, I am talking
of books salvaged from dusty piles and rescued from opportunity shops.
Book that can be exchanged for a couple of plastic notes of various
colours that would otherwise become a meal for silverfish and time. So,
before you panic about the corruption of a precious book, remember that
the future of these books, these beautiful books, was not always secure.
They come with age spots and creases and weak spines. They are hunched.
There, I've made them human, almost. Like withered folk in a nursing
home. Well, perhaps not—I may have inflated my position as Rescuer
Supreme a tad too much, like any real collector who saves artefacts from
the clutches of the past and then feels inside the warm victorious
glow.
Now, where were we? Books—one's love affair with books. Books ripe for
collage. I've one favourite supplier who keeps any tremors of withdrawal
at bay. If it sounds like an obsession, then, yes, you'd be right.
Collecting can often become an obsession, a devotion sometimes taken a
little too far. Obsession is perhaps what steers the ship Louise and I
jointly captain across the paper seas. We are linked by a love of paper,
be it to draw or paint upon, to fold into concertinas, or to snip at
with a pair of scissors until the negative space (typically) is no more
and new landscapes are found.
In my search for a suitable book, I am first restricted by the price
listed inside the cover. Restrictions and limitations can actually work
to the advantage. In a general sense, I look for books that are not so
badly damaged that they cannot be used, ones that are chiefly complete. I
am not bothered by a rusty staple in a tourist booklet, for this I know
can be removed and a stitch tied in its place. I am not adverse to age
spots or even marks left from sticky tape.
I look for negative space within the images printed on the page.
Primarily, is there enough of it? Or will any hippo or vulture or river
otter be too restricted or hampered (even for my liking) by the
composition's predetermined confines? Within the existing image on the
page, I look for room to add something to the scene. And I look for
books that hold scenes that are not, by my definition, too complete and
beautiful that no further mark or element is needed. I look for books
that feature the landscape or the urban environment prominently. I like
to control the scene as a puppeteer controls their puppets and a
choreographer their dancers on the stage. I view the scene from such a
distance. I look for many images within each book, for this is the arena
I doctor with glue pot and brush and elements cut from another book at
some earlier stage.
Upon a more practical note, I look for a paper that will agree with
glue. Something that is not too thin, for those, when a collage piece is
adhered, will ripple in quiet rebellion. I look also for a matte
finish, as I will draw on the page with pencil. I use pencil around the
edge of the collaged pieces, to soften any white edges that a slightly
thicker paper will yield when placed atop another, and to shade, for
example, the hind paw of an animal. Shading helps me to marry the piece
added to the base below. Seamlessness, that is the aim. I am interested
in creating a sleight-of-hand, a fascination that Louise and I carry
over into our collaborative collages too. We try, always, to hide the
effort of the hand. And, compositionally, we desire the piece to look
both effortlessly thrown together and as if it had always been that way.
It is all about finding a balance, and working a restriction to an
advantage.
A ready supply of books languishing in small darkened stores and a love
of a format that requires the viewer to curl around or cradle it—or, if
displayed in a case, requires the neck to crane forward and perhaps the
nose to hit the glass—this is what draws me to the book and to collage.
Printed paper—I am, on second thought, not your master but your slave
most willing.