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Back to The Things I Used to Do – The Artist Book/Box

Posted on by Sandy Webster

An Artist Book Box

Sixteen years ago after finishing graduate school I made this box with a book on what it was like being an artist. This is the text found with images of work I had done. Work that took all my concentration and quite a bit of my time.

The ideas for my art come from an enormous need to fix feelings into a visual form.

It is never clear from the outset what that form will be.

The feelings that provoke the work usually have to do with human connections and interactions.

Sometime it is release enough to simply express myself in a journal entry.

But here I can only pour out thought for myself.

And unread or unsaid, it remains somehow unrealized.

I might as well have just kept it inside.

But to take the feeling through the studio and…..

select together what it will take to give it form,

I discover myself all over again…

on a journey through the familiar…

toward the unknown.

It is here that I can engage all my senses..

into the creation of some thing that takes form…

for all those feelings..

and lets me look hard at what it is that seems…..

so incredibly important.

And then later..

gives me the chance…

to  see if it connects…

through the familiar…

of someone else.

An Artist Book Box open

The box has an area near the spine that is filled with small bits and pieces that I found inspiring and necessary to include as objects with the book. There are mica windows that are a bit rose-colored over the object and title of the book printed on cloth. (Cloth was important to so much of my work then).

Under the book is a hidden compartment of letters from others about how my art affected them and what they saw in it at the time.

An Artist Book Box hidden compartment

And the inside title page of a book bound with skewers and made of papers that were stained with the wood chips from the scraps left by the men in work shops of my area. The men who inspired so much of my work back then and continue to make me smile at our memories.

An Artist Book title page

What I wanted to do with this book that was made as a gift to my children when I am no longer here, was an attempt to explain the preoccupation I had with my art, the time spent with the making of it, and the time neglected in other areas of my life. It seemed important that I do this, try to explain myself in some way.

The images throughout the pages are of my artworks photographed and altered to fit the look of something not quite clear but very present. Then several of them were sketched over with pen and ink to emphasize the layers and complexities of my mind and hands and feelings about what I was trying to say with each piece. Looking at these pages now, sixteen years later, I find them fascinating and more evocative now than then. I really love this book/box. But what I love most is that I did it in the first place, that these things mattered so much to me that they be housed some way in a shrine of sorts. Here are some more of the pages. I think later today I will just sit with this book and feel the pages along with the memories of what inspired each image.

An Artist Book mid page

An Artist Book mid page 2

An Artist Book back page

An Artist Book domestic page

And this page….it is like a piece of poetry waiting to be written.

An Artist Book toward the unknown

Putting Together a Limited Edition

Posted on by Sandy Webster

Circus book cover

Before I head back into the studio to finish off this edition I thought it would be a good idea to show all the steps that go into putting it together. This is the finished book in a series of books based on my “weekly wait for food”. Every Sunday morning we go to a particular diner in our area and as soon as we arrive our waitress gives us coffee and our silverware wrapped up with a napkin in this napkin wrapper.

I carefully remove the wrapper and can only tear it into a shape based on that years’ theme. I do allow myself to use the knife, fork or spoon as tools but find that the fork is the best for giving texture and poking an eye into something.

The somewhat complex cover of the book for the diner series was discovered on an anthology of poetry book loaned by a friend. I liked how it folded and how both sides had to be printed exactly to get the windows to line up with an image. This appeals to an engineering side of me – making something fit.

I photographed the diner’s buffet table and interior so I could adjust them in a free photo application downloaded onto my computer. Microsoft Publisher helps with the layout of pages and design. The cover has to be printed on my large Epson printer that will easily accommodate 11″ x 17″ card stock that will give me two covers inside and out when loaded properly.

This is the fifth year of making things out of the napkin wrappers while waiting for my food. The first year was insects. That was fun, making bugs in a diner. Below in an image of the center fold of that book with its own pop up insect.

Diner Time Books with pop up insects

The only text in the insect book is what our waitress says to us.

After insects came a year of garden guests, then sea creatures and then the circus. I did not do editions of garden guests or sea creatures. Well, not yet. I am tempted when I finish the circus book to go back to the sea creatures because I made a special one for my collector of these little artworks when his entire year of the sea creatures was lost with a six year old and the fire place. I made his one off book as compensation for his loss in a flag style book that sounded like waves washing in and out as the sea creatures moved back and forth. I can easily talk myself into doing an edition of twenty of that book. It too was fun. And of course fun is about all that comes from this work. It is expensive in ink and paper, let alone time. The insect book sold for $20 each and I gave away more than I sold. With the circus book I am raising the price to $35 and as of today have five spoken for.

Let me start by saying that each Sunday when I make the “object” out of the napkin wrapper it is photographed on my iphone and then the piece is given to my collector who is amazingly grateful to receive these bits of scrap paper torn into something. Once in a while he will brave an attempt at something himself with his own wrapper and seek a critique. He is also my first purchaser of a finished book. Naturally I enjoy his enthusiasm.

When we return from the diner, I re-size the photo and post it on facebook for those who are following Sandy Webster – Artist can see the latest in Napkin Wrapper work. When a year or 52 different pieces are finished I can start a new series and hopefully I have selected something that I can do 52 variations on that theme.

Here is how the circus book is being done step by step. To begin all photos have been re-sized to fit the pages and layout that must fit into the previously designed cover. They are saved carefully until the entire 52 images have been used and pages numbered.

Then the printing. Here it gets fussy with ink and expensive. I need several cartridges to start the project. In the case of the circus book, the paper is card stock like the cover. All paper from the same ream and all carefully loaded with the best side being printed on. Then it is to the board shear to trim pages to the exact size and begin assembling.

Pages being glued

This very handy glue dispenser from MicroMark makes this job so much easier as a very thin bead of glue is needed to overlap the pages by only one half inch. Pages must be kept straight along a line and squared up to each other. The whole book pages glued out is quite long and they easily fill the studio.

pages ready to be foldedPages on board shear

After the strips of pages are dried I begin the folding process. The circus book is an accordion style book that I want to be able to turn by pages or pull it completely away from the spine to give the feel of an active circus tent with lots going on at once.

pages being folded

This again is precise work. Then the book is put briefly into the press to crease the spine folds tighter together.

book spine being pressed

Then it is time to make the cover fit the text block and cut the windows in the cover.

covers with text block

cover inside ready to be cut

All cut, trimmed, folded and sized.

cover folded to fit text block

Gluing in the text block and pop up ticket.

Circus book title page

Then finally fitting in the program to a T strap inside the back cover.

IMG_3073

There are more of the edition of twenty to finish off.

folded books piling up

Is all this work and materials being compensated for in the price of $35 each? Hardly. But I do find making them so much fun and that is worth something. I will likely quit making these books about the diner wait for food when I go back to do the year of sea creatures. I can’t think of much that will be as interesting as these three variations on the diner books. At present I am tearing out dogs and so many of them look alike. They are a bit of a come down from the circus and I have no idea what will be next. Maybe I will just start a ball of napkin wrappers just to see how large I can get it. The thought of just sitting there with that napkin wrapper and doing nothing with it is just not a good idea.

Wish me luck on selling more than five of these books!

 

Thinking About Artist Groups and Craft Guilds

Posted on by Sandy Webster

Self Portrait outside of basketAbout thirty years ago when I was a member of a weaving guild I took a weekend workshop in weaving our identity. Being a literal thinker I warped my small portable loom to make a self portrait using the tubular weaving technique that allows for the figure to be stuffed while still on the loom if desired. I saw myself as medium length grey hair, always choosing to wear pants over dresses, and a bit of a hippy. I still have blue eyes, still think earrings are like underwear and saw myself as a happy person. Since I was also firmly involved in basket making, I stuffed some of those materials coming out of my head. And when I did that I knew she was not complete as a self portrait at that time if she was not housed in a basket – of course! So here I am – in and out of my perceived place of belonging in the late eighties.

She hangs in the guest room near another weaver’s interpretation in figure form of how I looked selling my wares at a Renaissance Fair. Both the figure I wove of me and the basket she sits in were done on the same loom with the same warp threads – just a simple matter of spreading them out further to accommodate the corn husks, raffia, reed, heavy yarns and of course beads.

Self Portrait

It was fun to do. I did not have to think about anything but fitting materials to techniques and techniques to materials. It was simply a portrait in fibers – nothing more. It was meant to be a singular piece, not part of a series and definitely not for sale. If there was ever an intention of having this piece say “art”, it would be impossible. There is way too much immediate evidence of materials and techniques. And that makes it “craft”. In this case not even that good of craft. Others in the classroom had much better command of their abilities to weave finely shaped forms with appropriate materials. And still even their self portraits were not “art”. They were not an idea fixed in form. An idea that gives the viewer pause to look at what might be being said in the work. All our pieces simply called out to the viewer that we all made doll-like figures on looms with yarn. Nothing more to think about except perhaps how well we each accomplished that goal.

When I moved to North Carolina and went back to college to get my Bachelor of Fine Arts and then on to graduate school, I was introduced to “the art world”. No one cared about “how” I made something but “why”. Then if my intentions were clear and not buried under materials and techniques that spoke more about good (or poor) craftsmanship than about whatever my issue at the time was. And those issues had wide ranges at the time – from the war in Bosnia to the fading of a patriarchal system adrift in feminist theory.

I had a lot to say – a lot to talk about. And in an area where craft is livelihood it was hard to find those passionate about their ideas and doing whatever it took to get those ideas across in a visual form to  share in publications and exhibitions.

And I am not talking about someone who is trying to make the most beautiful basket or exquisitely crafted jewelry, clothing, furniture, pottery, etc. Those are all made with the intention of being decorative art, functional art/craft but not an idea fixed in a form and presented as simply as that – a visual thought that the viewer looks at and says, “Here is something that the artist intended me to be a part of – to experience – to feel.”

Art is not “better” than craft. It is simply different.

If you are in a craft guild, then the talk will invariably all be about “how” and then “how much?” “How did you make it, how much time did it take and how much does it cost?”

Art in a way is so much simpler. It is only about “What are you saying here?” And “Why?” Craftsmanship is only there in service to the idea, not to become the dominate feature.

bug lo res for blog

The above image is one of several “specimens” from the installation exhibition titled Expedition to Elsewhere: the Evidence. There is no way the viewer is looking at craftsmanship here. It is purely “What and Why”.

Finding my people to talk to about art took time and the formation of an art group. We have met continually for more than fifteen years. Some have left due to being more about the how and others because of lack of passion for their own work or interest in the rest of ours. But now we are a hard core group who meet once a month to talk about what matters to us to make. The only “hows” are how we feel about those efforts.

Here is a list of questions for those interested in starting an art group of their own.

QUESTIONS WHICH HELP TO ESTABLISH THE OBJECTIVES OF AN ARTISTS’ ORGANIZATION:

By Sandy Webster

  1. What do you want from these meetings?
  1. How often should we meet?
  1. Where do we meet?
  1. Will everyone bring work each time?
  1. Will there be a progression in the work?
  1. Can there be a clear statement (written) by each participant on where they want their work to go and how they plan to see it through?

*Note:

We just had our last meeting of the year on Sunday. We meet at 2pm and take turns talking about our work in my studio until dinner time when we stop, eat together and everyone leaves. There is always wine and appetizers. There is always art to be discussed. We are a close group and have total trust that what we are feeling and doing matters – to all of us. It takes time and it is so very worth it.

 

Gifts

Posted on by Sandy Webster

Treasure Boxes waxed and closed

Treasure Boxes Cane Toad side view

Marla's Gift Box with fabric scrap

These are three boxes I made for gifts this Christmas. The first one is pig skin over board with an inlay of goanna skin. The one below has an inlay of cane toad skin. And the last one is a box covered with a material that was turned into a book cloth and inlaid with a kantha stitched textile from India. They were treasure boxes filled with smaller wrapped gifts.

The cloth covered one was so much easier than the leather boxes to make. There is much to learn about how to make leather do what it needs to do to be properly fitted to the form. But I am learning.

The wooden spines have to be made first because all other parts must fit to that. Below are some of the stages the treasure boxes went through.

Here are the wooden spines with thick leather straps to give additional shape. The trays are made to fit and the ends covered with thin board to smooth out the join between wood and tray.

Treasure Boxes with trays attached

Next they are covered inside and out.

Treasure Boxes with inside bottom paper placed

The leather is cut to the correct size and pared down on the corners with a leather paring blade. In this case the cover boards will need to be made with windows to show the cane toad and goanna skins that are recessed into the cover.

Treasure Boxes layout for leather measurement

Treasure Boxes front cover window wrapped and weighted

The accent hides are centered onto the inner lid that fits into the box when closed.

Treasure Boxes Cane Toad inside

I used a tai kozo paper that had been contact printed with plants and a rust colored lokta paper on the inside of the boxes. The glue was pure corn starch paste for all except I used a straight PVA to glue the tray pieces together. These boxes were definitely a labor of love and I can easily see where I need to do better on the next ones. But I love how they sound when they close and how they feel in the hand.