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Thursday, May 01, 2008

Living books

I've just been browsing through the various emails I get sent every day about book arts-related activities. There's a brand new exhibition at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London (one of my earmarked visiting spots if I ever get out of Canberra) with the unfortunate title of Blood on Paper: The Art of the Book. When I googled the title to get a direct link, it came up first, but the second link was regarding what it might mean if you found blood on your toilet paper after wiping your arse. Charming! Mind you, the exhibition involves a book by Jeff Koons so the two might not be such a coincidence.

The other email made me feel quite wistful. A real estate mogul in Minnesota tried, in collaboration with the town elders, to create a 'silicon alley' section of the city, and when it failed, transformed the project into a Book Arts utopia. Read about it here. Sigh. I wish Australia could do something similar.

Anyhoo, I'm printing pages for most of today, so that cheers me up.

Afterthought: if you've ever wanted to make a linoprint and have never felt brave enough, or haven't made one in ages and want inspiration, strange fruit is the place to be at the moment.

3 comments:

worldpeace and a speedboat said...

ahh lino how I love thee. except I long for the days of real lino. the plastic stuff like Silk Cut really doesn't do it for me texturally.

but then I AM a fogey :-)

fifi said...

Hello &duck, thank you for the link! Very fun to see the visitors call in. Good motivation to continue.

worldpeace, you can still get the lino. Its just goes very hard sometimes.
I think it is the linseedy smell that is the appeal.

worldpeace and a speedboat said...

ooh Fifi, are you in Sydney? got any tips where to acquire it? I have a big fat roll of Silk Cut that just sits here getting dusty while I think of that lovely caramel coloured crumbly ole lino.

I don't even mind that it comes in brain-limiting squares.

and yes, it does go hard. specially when you microwave it for too long. but I love it :-)