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?
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!