windham re-worked

 

In September 2016 Philippa and Tamar MacLellan were invited to be part of an exhibition entitled Illuminating the discarded library (working title).The premise of the project was to select a book to alter from a collection of discarded library books previously housed within Christchurch College Library. Whilst they agreed to participate, neither artist was particularly interested in the altered book genre, therefore it was not until April this year that they began to develop the project. Having selected a pair of books The Windham Papers Volumes I and II* from the given list – they set out to explore whether or not working independently, to set of collaboratively devised rules and instructions, would affect or compromise creativity. Over an eight month period they took it in turns to each set an instruction, that used the book content as the basis for exploration and alteration.

The responses were made independently of each other and as the project developed each instruction enforced change upon the book in terms of form, function, appearance and identity.   The whole process was recorded and can be seen on:

https://meetinginthemiddleblog.wordpress.com

The books will be on display in the newly titled exhibition Ex Libris: Altered Books at Bucks County Museum, Aylesbury from 9 December 2017 – 24 February 2018

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summertime too

The recent collaborative book from Philippa and Tamar MacLellan – Revised Edition – was recently accepted for the ‘we love your books’ online exhibition of artists’ books curated by Emma Powell and Melanie Bush. This years theme was intersect – Revised Edition uses two books about cross-stitching, which were overprinted then intersected to form a single edition.

See link below:

http://rejectamenta.com/wlyb/intersect-2017/

revised edition a+e*i=o:u/

Philippa has recently been collaborating with Tamar MacLellan on a submission for the call for entries theme of Intersect by we love your books. The coincidental chance purchases (on the same day) of two charity shop embroidery books, one type based, the other pattern based, by the two artists led to a project that aimed to use a simple system to develop a single book.

Entitled Revised Edition, a typewriter symbol was allocated to each of the five vowels. The key enabled us to interpret the text through the development of a series of patterns typed on top of the pages from one of the existing books. This entire process meant that the book pages were sent back and forth several times, as each person typed their particular sections, at one point 6 pages were lost in the post(!)… so the book has 6 blank pages.

The final publication uses pattern sections as end-papers, and one of the existing covers was overprinted and trimmed enabling us to utilize it as new covers.

For more information on this and other collaborative work: https://meetinginthemiddleblog.wordpress.com

 

LENvention 5th anniversary – wood (type)

 

This weekend the Caseroom Press were the proud hosts of the LENvention 5. This annual event instigated at UWE, Bristol by Angie Butler in 2012, brings together a small group of letterpress practitioners to share ideas and good practice whilst working together to produce a body of work. This year the theme was how we use our senses when negotiating a print workshop. The only parameters were 1. the finished book would be A2 folded to A3 – this enabled us to explore the potential of the Farley proofing press – and 2. We could only use materials and equipment found within the caseroom. Despite the small (but perfectly formed) Caseroom Press, and having to contend with the hottest weekend of the year, we managed to work effectively to produce a single edition loose leaf book, entitled Feeling for an edge, the book will eventually be case-bound.

migrating birds

A few months ago Philippa was contacted by Stephen Fowler – he of Rubber Stamp fame – and invited to be part of an exhibition called Migration. Each artist was asked to produce a single A6 postcard of a bird either perching or in flight. A total of 100-200 postcards will form an exhibition that hopes to draw attention to the plight of thousands of children and their families who are, as a result of oppressive regimes, violence or poverty, forced to migrate to safer places in the world.

The exhibition runs from 9-30 September 2017 at the International Centre for the Picture Book in Society (ICPBS) at Worcester University, in collaboration with BIBIANA, the International House of Art for Children in Bratislava, Slovakia and will coincide with the Biennale of Illustration in Bratislava (BIB) and its symposium.

Philippa’s response – produced a day before the dealine(!) used a simple letterpress block that was printed then hand tinted.

https://www.worcester.ac.uk/discover/international-centre-for-the-picture-book-in-society.html

http://stephenfowler72.blogspot.co.uk

fond farewells from uk to usa

Fond Farewells, the collaborative book project between Angie Butler and Philippa, is currently making its way to the US having been accepted for the Minnesota Centre for Book Arts upcoming exhibition – Reader’s Art: Control/Alt/Shift. The exhibition opens on 9 June-13 August at the prestigious MCBA, where by coincidence Angie will be speaking as part of the Book Art Biennial 2017 Symposium in July.

blogging the blog

Eye magazine recently uploaded a post about Barrie’s Typographic Dante.

The piece talks about the starting point for the project – which began when he was a final year student at the Chelsea School of Art, way back in 1989.

The first roughs and preparatory sketches for Canto I.

Planning the Letterpress overprints in detail.

The original ‘note to self’, which led to a project that has carried on over the next 28 years (and counting).

The Typographic Dante is on display at the National Museum of Print, Dublin, until Wednesday 19th April and the exhibition has recently been reviewed by newsfour.ie.

sewing secrets

Another book rolled off the Caseroom production line recently. Sewing Secrets is another collaborative edition by Philippa and Tamar MacLellan. They originally began working on this book in 2009 under the title of ABC of Stitching and Sewing, however the project didn’t get far and was shelved for 8 years, until recently, with the Bristol Artists Book Event looming, it seemed an appropriate time to resurrect it. The book uses a collection of old dress patterns that were scanned, reduced then printed and made into small envelopes, a short story is encased within each of the 12 envelopes.

the lure of the caseroom

In complete contrast to the beautiful and impressive exhibition of Barrie’s in Dublin, Philippa has been doing some small projects in the Caseroom whenever there is a spare 10 minutes! Six postcards have been added to the Endangered Species series – an on-going project with ABPress since 2015… #BABE2017 is looming, hence the flurry of recent activity!

2016 artists’ books top 10

We received news this week that Philippa’s recent collaboration with Tamar MacLellan – Meeting in the Middle – has been selected for Sarah Bodman’s 2016 Top 10. The complete list appears as part of Sarah’s artists’ book series for a-n (the artists information company). We are told the order is based on the editor’s preference for mixing images – see link below.

https://www.a-n.co.uk/news/artists-books-2016-10-of-the-years-best-from-fascinating-flies-to-performative-publishing