Session 1: "Toward Theory. What Concepts Are Evolving As Book Arts Matures?"
Leigh Holden introduces Betty Bright, chair of the session.
(Betty Bright initiated the sound system and a couple of he-men moved the mini podium so everyone could see the seated panelists. Thanks, guys.)
Betty thinks of presence and absence regarding the book arts. She read from a recent e-mail: "Why have I never heard of book arts before? Is it just a community of academics and other book artists? Shouldn't it be brought into the broader community? What is the market like for public exhibitions? Is it a dying art? Just curious."
Betty: Those of us in the book arts live with irony. Our cranky yet beloved field is as if in a bell jar. It's a field that has a long history yet is considered "emerging" by those outside of it.
We are not here at this conference for irony.
The conference is positioned to face the next millennium. We have much to talk about.
One concern is tied to the fate of the ordinary book. (And two other ties that this writer missed . . .)
Desire to come up with one direction. But we know there are a number of directions.
Introduction of Panel:
Susan King
Artist and writer in LA and Kentucky
Been thinking about the idea of maturity. Thought about standing at Nexus Press printing her book with Clifton Medder and didn't want to be in the syndrome of "fartus antiquus," or becoming one of those old guys who stands around in his tweed jacket with leather patches on the elbows saying "I have the last box of offset plates."
The field of book arts is no longer 35 people around the country who all know each other. It's kind of what photography has gone through. It's a time of growth.
Much of the book arts field is personality driven. Think of some of the people behind the information that helps keep us informed (like . . . Umbrella. . . ) Some people have made their jobs their life mission. (Many examples given . . . )
Example: Marilyn Sward and Barbara Metz's organization in Chicago.
"I don't want to take theory into the studio. But I do want it there for me when I come out of the studio."
"My biggest concern: How we can support the most creative work possible. And it may be very different from what we are doing now."
Inge Bruggeman
UC Santa Barbara Book Arts and printmaking
nine years at Inka Press
Interest in contraction and expansion. On the expansion side: Going as far as we can with the book form. One of her main interests is typography, the visuality of typography. Important to study the history. But also important to look at graphic design. And looking at fine artists that use text in their work. Branching out like that is important. It can only inform all of the work.
Contraction: Important to define book arts, it's about culture and culture is in constant movement. Must know and acknowledge where you are. But be informed by the many aspects.
She has an interest in opening that up to some questions. One is the idea that "Will this produce good work? Everyone is spread too thin. People used to spend years in one area. Yes, there will be some bad work by spreading out. But also more good and exciting work. Book arts has the ability to fuse together multi-sensory experiences. And as people realize this, they become interested and excited. Layering emotions, feelings, expressions into one format explains partly the increased interest in the book arts field.
For example, if you work in the fine press arena, you have another set of criteria than someone working with books sculpturally. Do you force the book into the fine art world, does it belong there? We should be able to talk more about the criteria we need to establish.
Phil Zimmerman
artist's bookmaker and teacher, includes computer aided design
SUNY Purchase:
Not a big person in theory. As a bookmaker, doesn't think about theory that much. Interested in multiples. In output devices. Process oriented person. As an undergraduate at Cornell, lucky to be introduced to letterpress by Peter Kahn who died recently. Fell in love with making multiples quickly.
At grad school in 1976 at Visual Studies Workshop, letterpress was there, but also a few offset presses, and he fell in love with it. Perfect for him because he came out of a photo background, being an image maker more than typographer. Offset (blasphemy here!) seemed so much superior to letterpress. But he had in interest in text too. Went to Chicago and worked where there's a dichotomy of book arts traditions; a radical offset component in Chicago Books. Set the tone for his grad thesis work.
But offset has lost some bloom for him. The digital aspect of offset started in mid-80s. Bought his first Mac in 1986. Digital equipment he invested $40,000 in was obsolete by late 80s. Offset is such a labor intensive process it's difficult for fine art book works. A four-color process job is like going to hell. Digital pre-press changed that totally. He hopes to see some output device not as labor intensive as working with ink jet printers. A nice aspect of ink jet is that you can kind of make books on demand, and carry no inventory. Not the huge overhead costs of offset. But it's so slow and it's not very attractive to him for making multiples. Hopes for advances that will transform and allow us to instantly get all the sheets coming out (laughter), beautiful quality, without all the overhead of inventory.
Karen Wirth
Chair fine arts dept. Of College of Visual Arts St. Paul:
Has students in graphic design, media arts, illustration
(Karen had written notes so her comments went a little too quickly to get most of them in this report. But she may be able to share her notes with those who are interested.)
Argument that book art object is a fetishized object in relation to the book.
Bookness: time & sequence, image and form, computer has widened the context. Comparison to films of Peter Greenaway. In Pillow Book and Prospero's Books, book represents body, history, text, layering.
Octavo is putting books on CD-ROM. Wonders what it means to have a first edition on a CD-ROM. Octavo describes their books in the same sensual terms as letterpress printers describe their books.
Interested in the tension between specific & general, sensual experience, body of text. That's what her students explore.
Gary Frost
book conservator and instructor Chicago, New York, and Texas:
He introduced subtopics: image, product, customer, economy, business plan
Image: "Too much cast iron can ruin your image." He watches the Development Officers' eyes when they come into the studio; they see it as a tourist attraction and dismiss all the other activities; another thing - we could become known as those that react to every communication development that comes along - hence you could build an image just on reacting to the developments. He proposes that we create an image of our own, not just a reaction to a medium.
Product: Wouldn't want to take a computer to the beach or bed, but what is less often remarked upon is that you wouldn't want to take a paperback to a video arcade or into the cockpit of a plane, even though both are legitimate reading environments.
Customer: the reader in the book arts in fact uses the aesthetic achievement of it; look at 2nd & 3rd century African development of codex, reader's voice. Codex is an invention to house the reader's voice. Orientation to the reader. In accord with a current trend to reader interactivity and productivity. Artists remain artists, authors remain authors, but readers are unpredictable. Reader's reaction to the news paper, "dirty, smelly and there are all those words."
Classical model. One of those attractive, weird complexities of the book itself. The customer may affect our collaboration with the book.
Economy: Digital and analog are existing simultaneously. We are dealing with the children of print. Book arts transcend these dichotomies.
Hard copy is not native to print; hypertext is not native to digital.
Business Plan: content of these systems subject to chaos; tangible days are over. Tacit knowledge, remote learning, doing it yourself are "in." In the preservation field, people are trying to come to grips with the continuing role of source material, original copy. Short term agenda in the book arts is the long term. Can show a centrality in this situation with digital. Technology is blurring agenda by spreading influence to larger undergraduate market and need to connect programs to the future of the functionality of the book.
Questions:
Betty: What does it mean to make a time based medium in this era? Book time vs. Lived time? In her life, lived time = absence of time, pressure, seems worse than before. Pressure to be in a production mode that is faster. Criticism in our field and what it means. We live more and more with electronic, mediated time. Used to read a book in airports but now there's CNN going on TV monitors. Children and Teletubbies: kids LOVE this show with characters running around with t.v.s in their bellies. Book time is slower time. Remind people that it's healthy to live in a number of time frames, not just one.
Inge: Interesting about Teletubbies, but college students love it too. They seem to perceive in it a quick, new mode of reading and seeing, but in another way it's more and more the way people will be reading in the future. There is something to be said for acknowledging new media.
Betty: Reading "In The Vineyard of the Text," by Ivan Illych, where he talks about the physicality of spoken language, like poetry read out loud. This book goes way back in time about monks. In early manuscript illumination they tried to translate the physicality of speaking into the page, create a journey through the book that is tactile, physical, as if on a physical pilgrimage as one goes through the book. We should recall this.
Audrey Niffenegger: wants to hear what we as artists want from criticism. Which is an extremely developed form of readership where the reader gives something back to the creator. Serves a wonderful function and keeps us from being too isolated. Communication channels are open and available in an unprecedented way.
Susan: Hopes Kathy will talk about her seminars. Having people talk about her (Susan's) work was more valuable than anything in a long time. We should set up a salon-type seminar, doesn't have t be on a grand scale.
Tim Barrett: Relation between criticism and creation, particularly in relation to photography. Does anyone know if there's a model in the history of photography that might be helpful to look at right now?
Betty: Visual Studies Workshop followed by other journals. Susan Sontag is an interesting one to bring up bec she wrote in an almost chatty way.
Unknown: Alfred Stieglitz pub CameraWorks early in c. And was one of the first to try to evaluate and define photo on its own terms rather than copying painting. But also has been thinking about time spent with books; to write something about books, you have to really look at the book to try to get not the mind of the artist and is a joy, there's value in it and increase s awareness about his own work. Reading about what others write about others works is also a joy. Thinks there's a need, a call for more writers.
Karen: As educators, how much do we miss the boat. How much do we teach our students to write critically bout these works? Until a canon is esablilshed, it's a problem]
Betty: How we define ourselves. As in Inge, she's a fine press printer but is also tiring to redefine herself or define herself further.
Clive was writing but there were so few voices for fine press printers. Harry Duncan one of the most erudite voices for fine press printers. There is a call to as many of us that can write to write.
Peter Thomas: we have an obligation to produce catalogues with photographs to also carry the visual image of the book along with it.
Betty: Hopefully pning techniques will come along that makes it easier.
Sandra Kroupa: Most students she comes across are totally inarticulate about their work, particularly when writing. Plumb the depths of the creative writing faculty and students at your institution. They have many of the same goals and problems, so collaborate.
Betty: you do work from what you've got. George Jessers wrote articles for years out of the Univ. Of Oregon and found his route that way. Wonders why there aren't more journals that can't start up on campus.
Ken Botnick: Students in their BFA program (Wash U in St. Louis) write many more than 10 pages many times. We have certain classes in comp lit that we steer our students toward. And they have a tremendous impact on the art students. But it also takes the faculty advisors to channel the students.
Betty: We have a challenge to teach our students about their predecessors.
Susan Barrett: Question to Susan about her statement "I don't want theory in the studio but do when I get out."
Susan King: Gradually became aware of how damaging it can be to live in theory all the time. Doesn't want to know what's going to happen, can't create and critique at the same time. But does want some feedback and perspective eventually.
Mike Taylor (Fartus Antiquus): Artists and criticisms. We want praise and we want money. Problem then is to praise ourselves. WE authenticate ourselves by being here. The work authenticates itself. Paradox is the continuing definition of the book, means of expression vs. Container for the text. Find ways to plug this into a marketable product. He's really selling the product. Gets his own satisfaction from making artists books. Doesn't sell them because no one else thinks they are! So give thems away. We have to sell ourselves and we have to sell what we do. Idea thatomeone should support us. Well, we are supported by people buying our books.
Person: Situate the artist book with the customer.
Gary: Giving up the aura of institutional or ego functionality in this. A wonderfully powerful medium that literally forms ints product in the hands of the reader. I.e. Visitors to the website are the product. Look at Amaazon.com where readers are producing the reviews, the readers are the product. This is a dilemma for the field to transpose the product more toward to consumer. And to drama the product out from the customer, when we produce we don't know what it is until
Phil: It's hard to have criticism without some sens of the history of the field. So little memory in the field about conferences which is an indicator of activity in the field. 78 big conference. Another in 79. But no one remembers these things. Every conference is billed as the first, the largest. How do we keep track of these?
We owe it to ourselves bec we owe it to ourselves.
Michael Peich: Someone needs to step forward, the way we're going to get an answer we have to produce something. He is a literary printer and has his students work that way. Runs a poetry conference in the summer. Would be glad to talk about those things. Someone needs to step forward and produce the documents that are about our history.
This session was recorded by Marie Weaver.