Unveiling My New Artist Book: Pistolero

In my June 2023 blog, I left you wondering what I would do with the various visual elements I was experimenting with for a project titled Incognito, inspired by the textures and colors of California beaches. As we traveled, I continued planning the book. I needed to create a seamless panoramic background and ensure that the sand image on the accordion's reverse side matched perfectly by carefully adjusting each photo's hue, saturation, and brightness. Once my concept was clear, the initial title, Incognito, no longer captured the playful spirit of the idea. I began writing the statement or description to support the original idea. It was then that I realized the concept was derived from two experiences.

While brainstorming for my artist book Infatuation, I unexpectedly found myself in a rabbit hole of FanFiction stories that introduced me to the word « tallywacker. » The playful language I encountered offered a fresh, whimsical perspective, full of humor.

As an artist, collecting is in my nature. Walking barefoot on California beaches, feeling the sand stimulate my nerve endings, created a sensual experience I wanted to preserve. I initially planned to display my sand collection in my studio and was fortunate to find perfect containers. It suddenly struck me that when the vials were turned upside down and filled with sand, they resembled phallic symbols, evoking themes of masculinity, power, and psychology.

Ultimately, blending the sensory pleasures of the beaches with the playful, rebellious spirit of the quotes gave my artist book its unique character. The design was crafted as an accordion, reflecting its layered, complex theme.

After printing, cutting, folding, and gluing the pages, self-doubt arose due to a life’s challenge, making even the simple hardcover case feel daunting. I wanted the binding to be as smooth and enjoyable as the process of creating the book. I decided to work with Andrew Huot of Big River Bindery, even though it exceeded my budget. Sometimes, a little help makes all the difference in completing an artist book.

© 2024 Louise Levergneux. Andrew Huot is showing me around his bindery in Toronto, Ontario.

I am thrilled to finally share Pistolero with you! Take a look at my new artist book here.

© 2024 Louise Levergneux. My newly bound copies of Pistolero were at-the-ready for pickup at Big River Bindery in August 2024.

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Artists' Books and an Apostrophe

I would like to share my first blog post since June 2023. If you followed my monthly updates in the past, I apologize for the silence. The past two and a half years have been challenging, and reaching out wasn’t my priority. Despite my grief, I kept creating because art has always been my life's compass, and I needed to hold onto something tangible.

During this time, I completed my artist book Pistolero, which I mentioned in my 2023 posts, and published two more: Paradigm Shift and Owning My Process. I began working on Owning My Process at the end of 2022 with help from the late Cherry Jeffs and discussions with Amandine Nabarra. I plan to share them on my website soon.

While editing the text for Owning My Process, I found myself explaining and defending the term “artists’ books” over and over. After research and reflection on the art genre, I decided to remain consistent with the movement’s spelling, writing “artists’ book(s)” with an apostrophe at the end and ignoring AI suggestions that it was a spelling error.

The debate over the apostrophe has persisted since the 1960s, reflecting the medium's resistance to traditional definitions. This controversy emerged as a shift from luxurious livres d'artistes to affordable, mass-produced books.

Artists like Ed Ruscha (Twentysix Gasoline Stations, 1963) and Dieter Roth (Daily Mirror Book, 1961) pioneered the new art form using the book format, raising questions about terminology and spelling. The debate on the spelling centered on whether to use 'artists' books' (plural possessive), the singular “Artist’s book,” or "artist book” without an apostrophe, with "artist” as an adjective.

By the late 1960s and early 1970s, as institutions began collecting these works — such as an exhibition at Moore College of Art in 1973 — “artists’ books” became the term for this genre, even as debates continued.

In Stefan Klima’s 1998 survey, "Artists' Books: A Critical Survey of the Literature," he noted that inconsistent spelling reflects both the medium's ambiguity and its artistic potential. Some, like Clive Phillpot, distinguished “artists’ books” from “bookworks,” emphasizing the conceptual nature over craft.

Most collections recognize the importance of a policy requiring staff to use the apostrophe consistently. Those who have acquired my books spell it with an apostrophe at the end, supporting the genre’s recognition.

I have always used the term “artists’ books” and will continue to use it to acknowledge my work in this genre. Though after my research, I am considering dropping the apostrophe in favor of “artist book” or “bookwork” when referring to individual works. It’s not a typo; it's my policy.

© 2026 Louise Levergneux. Featuring the title on the cover of my new artist book, Owning My Process: Reflections on Making Artists’ Books.

What Makes An Artists' Book

When you get to the end of your rope, tie a knot, hang on and swing!
—Leo Buscaglia

© 2022 Louise Levergneux. Oceano Beach, Oceano, California. Partly the Inspiration for my new book.

Many decisions on the elements that communicate the idea behind the artists' book had to be made last month. This is the fun Ideate stage where all the aspects that are part of the book need to be studied carefully. Being a bit obsessive-compulsive helps with the details!

How do you start establishing the correct elements (images, text, color, structure…) together to bring forward the idea for your artists’ book?

What method do you practice as you explore and select the elements?

What questions enter your mind to verify each of the elements?

These are some of the questions that I ask myself as I start the design, page layout, and choose text if necessary for any artists’ books.

© 2023 Louise Levergneux. Matching colors a unified look throughout the book. Top two swatches show the colors from the original source photos of different sands. The bottom images come from the same photos but shown after color matching — the process of replicating the hue (the basic color), saturation (the color intensity), and brightness (the lightness or darkness) of the original color.

Deliberating about colors (manipulate color to tell a story), layout, design, and text has been a joy as I relish in the world of Pantone and HEX color codes. I haven’t had so much fun in a while. Colors are an essential component since it sets the tone for the idea.

Another element I play with frequently during the development of the book is fonts. The fonts demand attention to properly present the mood of the concept. I have been trying out these fonts for a playful but readable text.

© 2023 Louise Levergneux. Sample fonts explored while working on the layout and text.

When the elements of the whole work or fit together well, lots of times the rest falls into place and I can start reflecting and planning the layout in more details.

At that moment the brainstorming has been accomplished and most of the images have been chosen and organized. But still, I go through my photo folders to examine, analyze, and make sure there are no other solutions for the visual and written narrative. I recognize the sequence of the images and text to convey to the reader a clear understanding of the book.

I might also do more research to eliminate all other possibilities that will enhance the idea. I’m close to implementing and producing my book by printing, cutting, folding, and assembling all the pages — this will start tomorrow! I’m looking forward to feeling and evaluating my first prototype.

© 2022 Louise Levergneux. Oceano Beach, Oceano, California. Sand and reading fanfiction stories while on holiday were the inpiration for Incognito.

I will be away from my work table till mid-September but will keep in touch with what is happening with the completion of Incognito! Let’s go! ¡Vamos! Allons-y !

I Made It, Now What?

Last month, after reflecting on Cherry Jeff’s comment on reasons we might get stuck. I jumped over the fence took the bull by the horns and got unstuck. Organizing material and thoughts was needed to proceed.

Various approaches were taken into consideration for the development of the idea to become clearer: like form versus content, structure… I finally identified a potential solution for the design, page layout, and colour of my book in progress Incognito. Thanks Cherry for your interest!

Noticed I was not letting my subconscious connect the dots and in doing so, my mind was all over the place. I find this happens frequently when life gets in the way of creativity.

How do you enable the work to incubate before the creative process can continue?

Another issue came to mind. I was unfinished with all the creative process stages of my most recent book Infatuation. The Publishing/Distribution stage seemed incomplete and I was unable to proceed to the following artists’ book! Whether I dreamed of another fun idea or not!

Writing the prospectus, description, and photographing my artists' book enabled me to feature Infatuation on my website. This Publishing/Distribution stage never seems to end.

How do you handle this stage? Does the distribution of your book self guided or do you engage a bookseller?

The distribution requires months to accomplish and for me represent the most tedious job. I felt at a loss with the work that was before me. I could not see the fun in that?

When one needs to place a book on the proverbial shelf of ideas and wait — often the idea fades in the background. I have been there. The book was to much fun to disappear from my thoughts.

How do you make sure an idea is worthy of your time and effort?

© 2021 Louise Levergneux. Cover for Infatuation.

I understand my book Infatuation might seem irrelevant in the heavy resurgence of all the Covid and political themed artists’ books published in the last couple of years.

But the messages our books convey, are important to society. The reasons I create my artists’ books is to share ideas and my voice. I hope my published books stimulate the sentiment I wanted to express. We tend to forget there are still many private conflicts that are important to share.

Today's teen will one day wonder how they have arrived at the self they live with daily. Therefore, the content of Infatuation — the « coming-of-age » phenomenon — is still clearly relevant. It is a significant unique period of our life which we can’t escape. For me it was a powerful means to study who I am now.

Have you ever researched this theme in your artists’ books?

Let’s see how far I get next month!

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Getting Unstuck — Alleviate An Issue During The Creative Process

Thank you all who took time to read and comment on last month’s post Baffled, Dumbfounded, Puzzled. It was encouraging to read the responses to the dilemma of being stuck! The questioning of one’s ideas presents itself at any point in the creative process. I constantly seem to be baffled as I leave the INSPIRATION stage — I appreciate being inspired and researching my subject or theme. I thrive in this stage! It is probably the reason that each of my books takes so long to create. For me INSPIRATION is the optimal stage as it captures a dream world that I love to linger within!

A creative opportunity knocked during the process of my most recent book Infatuation which brought another inspiration. An idea took shape. I reflected on the representation of this recent theme. Thoughts where all over the place as my muses came and went, blew hot and cold, appeared and then disappeared. To finally re-surface giving me a yo-yo experience of frustration!

One of the responses received — this one directly from my blog page — was from Cherry Jeffs in Spain.

From my own experience and that of my clients, I’ve noticed that feeling stuck is commonly caused by one of these:

1 - Simply a need for more ‘information’ e.g. research or sketching. We haven’t completed the ideation process. There is still something crucial missing in our idea.

2 - Dissonance. The idea we’re pursuing doesn’t really resonate at a deep level.

3 - A need for more risk in the work. We might be skirting round a really important theme or avoiding a certain approach because it feels challenging.

4 - In fact 3 can also be the cause of 1 or 2!
In all cases, we might be trying to force ourselves into the next stage of developing the idea when we haven’t yet arrived at a worthy idea.

— Cherry Jeffs

Reflecting on Cherry’s comment, I related to number three “avoiding a different approach because it feels challenging.” Lately I find that it is the structure that causes me to pause and wonder how to bring my project to reality.

Life brings many curves. When daily responsibilities are hard to cope with, being in the clouds, dreaming and thinking of the inspired idea may not be practical but so satisfying! Now reality has set in, and I must continue on the path of creativity.

© 2023 Louise Levergneux. Collected sand from Malibu Beach, California.

Thinking of the many comments through emails in my in-basket, I started investigating my idea: what type of structure, what kind of images (colour, texture…), and which genre of narration?

I’m back and ready to work, I’m not saying the « stuckness » won’t repeat itself but maybe the next time I will have fun while putting aside the work and play with a yo-yo to capture a distinct vision.

Conversations with like minded people are one of the benefits from having an entourage of artists who can bring clarity of mind while producing an artistic endeavour — in this case an artists’ book. The reason exchanges and comments are SO important.

Any change in life, even the renovation of an itsy bitsy teenie weenie kitchen, is difficult as our private wold is frequently reflected in our art, which makes going to the following stage sometimes annoying.

© 2023 Louise Levergneux. Pantone color of the year — Viva Magenta.

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Baffled, Dumbfounded, Puzzled

“The last time I counted four projects were in the works in my mind!” Where did that moment go?

Last month, my mind was filled with options while ideas seemed to blossom in the inspiration stage. I was enthused with many new ideas… I did let the month of February buck! But as the month progressed life interrupted my work flow, and I got baffled!

« Being stuck » is part of which stage? Does « getting stuck » present itself during all stages? What does the expression « being stuck » mean and how do I change my mind set?

My thoughts/ideas have gone from exciting moments to having thoughts/ideas absorbed, and finally fade. I guess I’m at the point of saturation and not enough spark available, or in my case enough spirit to question.

Do you have moments where the fun in your work goes down the drain and your subconscious is too full. Maybe the problem lies because it’s only half full? Is this when stepping back helps the flow to re-establish itself? Or, is this your subconscious telling you to move on to another idea or theme? Maybe seeking other alternatives is the way to go.

Some ideas are worth looking at twice or maybe three times before it all comes together. How do you know how to proceed? Reviewing at this point is helpful. The biggest investigation for me is the why! Why one idea and not the next? Why am I inspired by this idea?

After working, reading, and going with the flow of life, here I am with many questions, pieces of papers with notes, open conversations, materials to explore… ah ha! my idea is still valid.

© 2022 Louise Levergneux. Point Dume, Malibu, California

I took time to relax and let my subconscious work. This gave me the opportunity to read other blog posts waiting in my email in-basket.

Guylaine Couture’s blog post gave me a push. Being interested in the creative process at the moment, Guylaine’s introduction to a book entitled The Shape of Ideas: An Illustrated Exploration of Creativity by Grant Snider was exhilarating! Merci, Guylaine !

© 2023 Grant Snider

Here I go again as I continue my research for words/text and test different page layouts for Incognito. Yes stepping back can unblock creativity.

A New Project

It has been two months since the completion of my recent artists' book Infatuation. I am approaching other ideas at the moment. No break this time between projects. At my last count, I had four projects in the works in my mind!


Writing on the creative process throughout last year revealed an interest in the knowledge of how my mind translates and develops each phase of the Creative Process intuitively. While waiting and trying to make sense of swirling thoughts, I spent time preparing to present and distribute Infatuation: writing the artistic statement, prospectus, and going over my contact list. I also completed the webpage with online information.


In the studio, I find myself starting the Creative Process all over again, but this time sensing each phase in a different light. Many small sheets of paper and sketches filled with ideas and probable solutions sit on my working table. These ideas play at the back of my mind as I try making sense of an intuition and the beginning of a new theme.

 I am trying to solve the questions on the why and how of my working title Incognito, an idea that came along while creating Infatuation. From this point, the title and all the drawings/sketches will be gathered while researching, reading, developing, determining and absorbing the theme. As the days, weeks, and months go by, some ideas will be discarded and others kept as the solution for the storytelling development comes to light.

Let’s see what the month of February brings as I let her buck!

© 2023 Louise Levergneux. First notes and sketch for Incognito.

© 2023 Louise Levergneux. Sand in a glass vial collected in Sabino Canyon located in the Santa Catalina Mountains and the Coronado National Forest near Tucson, Arizona.

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Creative Process — Distribution

Distribution

Identify, contact, and market to potential customers. Finally, complete the administrative aspects of the bookwork.

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I’m finally at the last stage of the creative process and I’m delighted to announce the release of my new artists’ book Infatuation. I did it and happy to have met my deadline. This post is the last post on the Creative Process.

The publication of Infatuation came after a long journey starting in November 2021 using photographs from my family albums and stills from streaming the western TV show Lancer. This book documents the concept of “becoming of age” of a young girl in 1968-1970.

© 2022 Louise Levergneux. Infatuation wrapped with a red cow suede with skeleton key in pink gold.

© 2022 Louise Levergneux. Infatuation in a Drumleaf structure.

Infatuation was explored in various ways, through the study of adolescent feelings and investigating the background of the actors and the series itself. I viewed videos of the original TV show and visited filming locations in California last July and August.

I chose this particular book to learn about and demonstrate the Creative Process — the optimization of each phase of the creative process. My purpose was to determine the nature and number of stages present in my own creative visual artistic process. I was seeking to understand the explicit creativity phases associated with my artists’ book. I discerned the need to verbalize and document an implicit process and to document it. Normally the process is instinctual. I felt the urge to expose these feelings and insights.

© 2022 Louise Levergneux. Infatuation opened in the middle of the book showing the small accordion book inserted at the bottom of the book.

© 2022 Louise Levergneux. Infatuation seen from the top opened in 360°.

Infatuation is an assemblage of folios bound in the Drumleaf structure. Infatuation is meant to be read in a sequential fashion. The narration begins with: “I have a dream, a fantasy to help me through Reality.” Eventually, the young girl’s reality of the celebrity crush matures and the reader is left with “Memories that remain…”

Now comes the Prospectus, along with the identification of potential customers for the book launch. Collections need to be logged and contacts approached to determine the level of interest in acquiring the artists’ book, Infatuation.

© 2022 Louise Levergneux. Infatuation, page 3.

© 2022 Louise Levergneux. Infatuation, page 5.

© 2022 Louise Levergneux. Infatuation, page 9.

This has been an incredible journey. I can only pray that the blog reader has gained insight into the Creative Process and the intricacies of manifesting a concept into an object within the physical realm.

“Everyone sees what you seem, but few know what you are.” Machiavelli.

© 2022 Louise Levergneux. Infatuation, last page.

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