Tuesday, March 19, 2013

Next Big Thing / interview


INSIDE FRONT COVER
SHOWING 4 RAISED CORDS
AND ANTIQUE MARBLED BOOK BOARD






What is the working title of the book?


PRACTICE books - a series of sketchbooks 
letterpress hand-bound unique
each is a compilation of pages/papers - 
most from other books that have been deconstructed

Within the series each book has a working title
and by working, I mean titles are printed & cut
waiting the final artificer's touch:

SOMA TOXIQUE LIMINAL
iCHING/iCHANCE WHY TIP-TOE
     MINOR/MIDDLE/MINI






Where did the idea come from for the book SERIES?


The idea for this series came after making a larger series
of sketchbooks. I'm a letterpress printer and I make books.
I have been taking apart books and printing over them for
all the years I've had a press. It's what you can't really do
in photoshop but wish you could. So take that practice 
off the press and fold/sew/bind it back into a book.
It's like palimpsest x 3.





What genre does your book fall under?

BLANK BOOKS......... oh, my! that sounds so dismissive,
yet if I say ARTISTS' BOOK / PAPER & INK AS CONTENT ........?
Is there not poetry in the spaces between the letters?
Is there not thinking in markmaking?
Is there not medicine in an object?




What actors would you choose to play the part of your characters in a movie rendition?


First I have to comment on the word "rendition".
I can no longer use it because of it's association with "extraordinary".  Words get contaminated!

Second I'd want my books to be found in the short film:  The Lost Thing.
And if not there, then in the short animation: ...... The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore





What is the one sentence synopsis of your book?

30 spokes converge on a hub
but it's the EMPTINESS
that makes a wheel work
pots are fashioned from clay
but it's the HOLLOW that makes a pot work
windows and doors are carved for a house
but it's the spaces that make a house work
existence makes a thing useful
but NON-EXISTENCE makes it work.
---- iCHING/TAO

{ is it the "." at the end that makes a sentence?
  is it the lower case "i" that makes it branded? }


How long did it take to write the first draft of the manuscript?


I completed the first practice book within days - that includes
gathering/finding/folding/designing juxtaposition/sewn/bound








Who or what inspired you to write this book?

Xu Bing

iFEAR of losing Italic / markmaking by hand




WHERE I LIVE / WHAT THE SKY SEES

What else about your book might pique the reader's interest?

I use real carbon papers, real graphite coated computer grid papers,
real handmade papers, real printed papers, real staple holes,
real suminagashi marbling, real book boards, real plastic, 
real metal, real pigments, real design and surreal point of view.
QuaQuaversal - my books can be read from any direction.




Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?

The beauty of being a bookbinder, letterpress printer, markmaker all in one!

I have a show at Site SantaFE April 20-21, Santa Fe, NM
and they will carry my books in their bookstore.
I'm also represented by Vamp & Tramp.




Suzanne Vilmain
counting coup press
suzanne@vilmain.net