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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Creative Process, Publishing

Publishing

Adapting the idea into reality by producing the finished creative work — the artists’ book.

©2022 Louise Levergneux.

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I have regrouped my thoughts, this month and a plan of action has started to bring a close to this beloved project. The end of the year seems to be at my doorstep and the need to complete at least four copies of this edition should be imminent.

©2022 Louise Levergneux. Printing of “Infatuation” pages.

©2022 Louise Levergneux. Printing of “Infatuation” pages.

I have printed all the pages plus the endsheets and looking forward to the return of the pages needing laser cutting back from FreeFall Laser in Massachusetts, to prepare the text block. This encompasses the cutting, folding, and “drumming” the pages together. After assembly, I will be trimming the head, tail and foredge. Not having a guillotine of my own, I plan on using Hazel & Violet Letterpress Printers facilities in Phoenix. All the boards (I used Crescent mattboard) and thin cards have been cut and are ready for action.

Next step gluing the spine and using Japanese red paper for lining the spine. Following a lengthy debate, I decided on a red faux leather bookcloth by Lineco to finish the boards and Iris crimson bookcloth for the spine wrapper.

©2022 Louise Levergneux. Materials for binding “Infatuation”

After an even more extensive debate concerning the beautiful red cow suede purchased in Salt Lake City, a decision to create a book wrap was made after a conversation with Judith Serling-Strum in Cincinnati, Ohio.

I can taste the end. I’m excited about the publishing phase now that everything is coming together and I am anticipating the results.

A quote from René Lalique (1925) comes to mind: “I look at; I examine; a tree alive in the sunlight appears as a fish beneath the water; suddenly the harmony of a shape, a gesture, a movement, becomes locked in my mind, combining with other ideas I have already acquired.”

This quote brings me back at the beginning of the process. Ideas, thoughts, feelings, and life experience were mixed with a past that shaped my childhood interests and laid part of the groundwork for “Infatuation.” This initiated a wonderful Creative Process that immersed my soul for the last year.

A model is great to see and pounder during the Pilot Options phase of the Creative Process but interacting with the final product will be completely different and exhilarating!

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Creative Process, Execution

EXECUTION

Storytelling Development

Bringing to life the visual and narrative of the book.

“Young love is a flame; very pretty, often very hot and fierce, but still only light and flickering. The love of the older and disciplined heart is as coals, deep-burning, unquenchable”. — Henry Ward Beecher

What comprise the story behind Infatuation?

This project demanded in-depth thoughts and emotions on an almost 55-year old event. Feeling more and more like an actor whose job is to bring a scripted character to life, I wondered what technique I could use to bring the dialogue of a celebrity crush alive.

© 2022 Louise Levergneux. Studying structures, images, and text.

Infatuation presents this fantasy/reality by juxtaposing personnal photos with appropriated stills from the TV show Lancer. Once the photos were chosen to fit the wanted effect, I used my many years of working in Photoshop to blend images and re-awake a celebrity-crush dream world. Compositing in Photoshop allowed the creation of impossible scenes — the fantasy intrinsic of a young adolescent — resulting in a journal filled with her dream world. To recreate this dream world, I combined multiple exposures and composited backgrounds, making sure each photo had the proper lighting sources to juxtapose the correct images together. Each detaif the composite shifts the reader’s focus on what becoming of age means for an adolescent girl.

© 2022 Louise Levergneux. A composite image from three different photos and still. Text/words appropriated from “Unchained Melody” by The Righteous Brothers, 1965.

© 2022 Louise Levergneux. A composite image from two different photo/still plus text/words from “Something's Gotten Hold Of My Heart” by Robson and Jerome, 1996, original song released in 1967.

© 2022 Louise Levergneux. A composite image from two different photo/still plus text/words from “Something's Gotten Hold Of My Heart” by Robson and Jerome.

Next came the script, I selected words of songs to yield power to the imagination that are meant to inspire the reader. On the first page, the first few words deliver the initial information about the character — the heart strings that tug a youthful teenager.

© 2022 Louise Levergneux. Text/words on first page is appropriated from “Johnny Angel” by Shelley Fabares, 1961.

© 2022 Louise Levergneux. Text on second page is appropriated from “You Don't Know Me” by Elvis Presley, 1967.

© 2022 Louise Levergneux. Text comes form Eric Clapton’s - "Forever Man"

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Option Development

Elaborate the options for the binding and the structure and choose a final format.

With a chosen title of “Infatuation” and a subject in place, I started to visualize and narrate with prototypes. My choice for a structure and page layout had to fully represent a young adolescent’s dreams. What did I remember about this intense but short-lived passion — this unattainable fantasy? I explored the traits of a young girl — the friends, the journal, the dreams, and the secrets. With my initial research on structures and bindings. I decided a mix of accordion and drum leaf would be ideal. The drum leaf structure gave me the possibility of using spreads or multiple images without anything cutting the image. The drum leaf also added to the weight of the folios. A small accordion inserted in the middle of the book brings forward the secrets involved in a young girl’s journal.

© 2022 Louise Levergneux. Title page.

© 2022 Louise Levergneux. Infatuation open showing drumleaf pages and mini-accordion page.

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Pilot Options

Examine and step back from the work, formulating an analysis and questioning one's own work.

I enjoy using Moab Lasal photo paper, after identifying many templates and choosing the size of the book, I found out the company no longer made the preferred size with the correct grain direction in this paper. So back to the drawing board to figure out a different size paper to work with.

I’m still researching how to bind this bookwork. I know that leather needs to be part of the binding but still need to iron out the details.

I’m on a three month journey down the Northwest and West coast of the US. This has given me the opportunity to do more self-reflection and to continue my research as I will be meeting with women with the same interests and visiting film locations, this will help with the finishing touches for the images. With more info and photos to utilize as background I intend to work on my project while on this journey and have a completion date for the beginning of September. We will see… life has a way of sending curves even fun ones!

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How does it feel to be in the final stages of a book? It's a time when you're problem-solving at every step. The practical questions are more present. I realize that from reading you because you are also in the final stages: the binding, the paper format, etc. There is a lot of creativity in this period because we think about the materials available, how to handle them, etc. I love this stage of the process.

© 2022 Guylaine Couture. A sprout=an idea

On my side I finished my book "A sprout=an idea". Because I was under a time constraint (one month), the book became more of a detailed model of what the book could be. I didn't measure the size of my pages correctly in relation to the cover, the pieces sometimes didn't fit well, and the pop-ups are far from perfect. But, I made so many nice discoveries though: the pop-up work and the root printing, different from what I had done for another book. I really like the result which motivates me to continue some of the things I discovered in this work.

© 2022 Guylaine Couture. A sprout=an idea

I look forward to seeing your book in the early fall! — Guylaine Couture

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Creative Process: IDEATION

IDEATION

Ideate

Explore and illuminate the idea. Arrange thoughts, ready the experience, and preserve the idea. Organize photos, text, songs, sequence… for the book. Muse over the final look of the book.

© 2022 Louise Levergneux

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This is the phase Edison was referring to when he said that creativity consists of 1 percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration.”

This is the stage where the hands-on work begins; this is the phase when the abstract takes shape to give way to the concrete. It would be nice to just idle in the inspiration phase for a while longer but now is the time to discover the solution and make it clear.

This stage is usually relatively brief and involves a strong rush of insight in a short span of time. This time, my idea to gel, seemed to take an eternity! As an artist, one uses a ton of day-to-day reality or events to express themselves and their environment… I appreciate simple moments portraying our lives, whether sensational or monotonous... When an idea strikes me for an artists’ book, it’s because the life experience is fresh and the emotions are in the now. Since our minds manipulate our feelings and the fantasy angst to be portrayed happened 50 years ago, the challenge was to recapture the emotion or experience which was retrospective. The need to relive that teenage crush from afar created moments of self-awareness. The challenge was to relive how I really felt as a teenager and what I believed I experienced back 1968.

© 2022 Louise Levergneux. Sample of photos from personal albums.

© 2022 Louise Levergneux. Sample still images from streaming Lancer episodes.

As a result, I started to arrange my thoughts by organizing photos, text (lyrics of songs) and the potential sequence of the pages from chosen photos. The fundamental design had to represent fun, innocence, a sense of closeness, sensuality, and the complicated sentiments of an adolescent girl. You're just watching TV, minding your own business, when you suddenly identify someone on the screen who scrambles your brain and makes your heart drop to your knees — how to represent this experience? The conclusion is a narration on infatuation, a time of foolish love.

I started with words that to me defined the project: infatuation, dream, fantasy, reality, passion, desire, fascination, captivation, puppy love, celebrity crush, charismatic, attractiveness, allure-ment, enchantment, enthrallment…

While streaming the Lancer TV show, I captured appropriated images, I recreated blissful fiction scenarios utilizing my tool of choice — Photoshop. I wanted to rekindle my ability to implement Photoshop features by creating a new photograph with juxtaposed photos to re-frame my own subject-position and enter into the desires that celebrity crush can evoke in a young adolescent — her dream world.

© 2022 Louise Levergneux. I needed a font that would look like hand writing, after careful search I chose Modernline.

I experimented with text which included mixed lyrics — language of the soul — accompanying the images to prompt us on how memory coexists in dreams.

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Prototype

Research content versus binding. Create maquettes of binding and structure. Choosing paper and material to complete the book.

“Infatuation” corresponds to a fiction — journal — and obsessively persistent romantic fantasy of a young female with the actor James Stacy’s persona of “Johnny.” It was a subconscious struggle to determine the proper and most effective design, structure and binding to represent this fantasy world. I was looking forward for all the puzzle pieces to fall into place.

© 2022 Louise Levergneux. The many phases of designing pages.

© 2022 Louise Levergneux. The many phases of designing pages.

© 2022 Louise Levergneux.

The page layout is the first step; it usually helps define the binding structure. I wanted the book to retain an innocent sensual feel. To bring this feeling into effect, adding red organza and strands of red thread became more poignant.

The threads could easily be part of a sewn book, the strands cut long to hang below the bottom edge. Black and white photos or coloured? Maybe add a colour LUT (known as Look-Up Tables in Photoshop to bring a cohesiveness to the pages) LUT's are used in order to apply specific and distinctive effects and style to photos. What about texture?

As for the structure, the first one of interest was the Accordion Binding for its playful pagination as seen below by Annwyn Dean, Alice Simpson or as in my artists’ book Conversation below.

© 2017 Alice Simpson. DANCING ! Unique double-fold, accordion. Original hand-painted paste papers, watercolor, shagreen paper, thread and beads. Against a double layered, paste-paper background; Isadora Duncan, Martha Graham, Vaslav Nijinsky, Bo Jangles, Josephine Baker, Fred Astaire, Cyd Charisse, Gene Kelley, and Michael Jackson dance with joyous abandon in an homage to iconic performers I have always admired on stage and screen.

© 2017 Alice Simpson. DANCING ! Unique double-fold, accordion. © 2017 Alice Simpson. DANCING ! 17”H x 11”W x 1”D x approx. 9’. 5 open

© 2018 Annwyn Dean.

© 2016 Louise Levergneux. Conversation.

© 2022 Louise Levergneux

Then the Drum Leaf binding which I enjoyed when creating my artists’ book “Shadow Me” also spring to mind.

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Verification

Transfer the overall idea to the substrate, test the prototype, and evaluate the project, paper, presentation, sketches, and notes. Critique and seek feedback/opinions on already planned prototype options.

I thought the fun aspect of the accordion would present the project’s subject of infatuation in a delightful and colourful way. The narration could be seen in single pages or its entirety. But, after trying a few accordion models, I was unable to settle on any page layout design.

I created a sewn book layout template using InDesign. It was overly rigid of a structure and not useful for some of the images that acquired a need to spread along two pages. The fun was eliminated!

Coming back to the Drum Leaf binding, the structure offered me the opportunity to capitalize on spreads without any visual interruption and gave access to pages for reflection.

© 2022 Louise Levergneux. I thought this little sample was interesting, I could make in a drumleaf structure with an accordion. Great!

With more reflection, I knew that a mixture of structures would pop-up in my mind’s eye. Next month I will share my Storytelling Development and Option Development. “Let ‘er buck”!

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On my side, I started a book for the monthly #areyoubookenough challenge on Instagram. This month I was inspired by the "sprout" theme.

This kind of short challenge is perfect for trying new techniques. I don't have too many thoughts or readings for this book. I'm taking the opportunity to try out pop-up folding, which has intrigued me for a while now. At first I tried to figure out the folds, made some, watched some, and see how to get inspired. Beautiful exploration.

© 2022 Guylaine Couture

© 2022 Guylaine Couture

In my photos, I show you the roots I would like to print, calligraphy words and a piece of pop-up model.

I too am in the layout stage right now. Each background of the double-page spreads will be inspired by the explorers' notebooks with drawings and texts, as they used to do back then. I am just beginning the realization of the book. Next month, I will be able to present it to you because it will be finished. One month is really fast. — Guylaine Couture