Tabatha Hawks from Hawks Nest Photography and I decided to go for a hike and photograph the surrounding foothills around Avimor, Idaho. Here is my favourite picture.
2016 © Louise Levergneux
In the last few weeks, I have found many books created in large-format. If you have answers or comments to the questions below please don’t be shy and send me an email or a comment.
What dimensions are you comfortable working with, small or large? After working and experimented with size, I’m going with small!
What moves you to create big? A personal dream to publish the biggest book. It probably has to be one-of-a-kind. Who would want to publish a large edition of a large-format book?
Have you ever had problems binding large books because of the width of the paper or cloth?
What drives an artist to create a book? The idea or the dimensions? I start with an idea most of the time. My Memories of My Memories was a special case, I started with the dimensions necessary for the concept. The dimensions were chosen so grown adults would be aware of their size—small—holding this large family album.
Do the dimensions of a book limit sales? Library & Archives Canada in Ottawa, Ontario, acquired my book My Memories of My Memories, it took eleven years for them to decide, Eh! Geez! Hmmm! But they did...
Galleries have a dimension restriction for call to artists why is 18 inches in any direction the limit size?
Do you know of any shows for the large-format? Should we get one organized?
Do libraries collect artists’ books with particular dimensions in mind?
Is your inventory space big enough for other large-format books? Well, my Half Measure Studio no longer has the storage room for big books.
Uh!...
Whatever makes us want to publish in large-format, we need to try.
Another artist who has made large-format a part of his work is Thomas Parker Williams. Thomas portrays his subject in a way that affects the deepest part of your soul, either through nature, fire, wind, light, rhythm even a love affair. His work includes handmade artist book editions, unique book works, printmaking, and painting.
Williams is both a musician and a visual artist, so no surprise that his artist book editions contain an audio element—music or sound work. All parts of the sound work is composed, performed, and recorded by Thomas.
Fire Book is 24 inches by 18 inches closed. The materials used to create this book are oil and acrylic on paper, enamel on mylar and bound with cloth with painted cover. Fire Book is an experiment about the mystery of fire. Seven unique painted flame studies are paired with seven unique transparent Mandalas. The final Mandala is on the cover.
1998 © Thomas Parker Williams, Fire Book, cover
1998 © Thomas Parker Williams, Fire Book
1998 © Thomas Parker Williams, Fire Book
1998 © Thomas Parker Williams, Fire Book
1998 © Thomas Parker Williams, Fire Book, detail
Natural / Un-Natural is a small book when closed with dimensions of 7.75 inches by 12.5 inches by 1.75. This book comes in a custom wood and polycarbonate case and is 23.25 inches in diameter when opened. The book consists of original painted panels executed with dry pigments in alkyd medium on paper arranged in a circular accordion structure with twelve double-sided sections and Tyvek hinges.
The twenty-four painted panels represent events affecting our environment and actions exacerbating these events. Each panel is divided into two sections to give two possible visual interpretations. Events described by the panels are: extra-terrestrial impacts, solar storms, volcanic activity, eruptions, earthquakes, tsunamis, wind, dust storms, rain, flooding, hurricanes, storm surges, tornadoes, blizzards, drought, wildfires, earth shifting events, glacier melting and calving, permafrost melting and sea level rise. The climate is changing, we cannot control the events that threaten our environment but we could have controlled our actions. Now we may be powerless to stop this process!
2015 © Thomas Parker Williams, Natural / Un-Natural
2015 © Thomas Parker Williams, Natural / Un-Natural
My visit to Thomas’ website brought me to an amazing book—Jasper's 72 Triangles, a book that is 26 inches by 30 inches unfolded.
Closed and in its box the book is 9 1/2 by 11 by 2 inches. This book is made of cut paper and Tyvek painted with metal pigments in oil medium and presented in an acrylic box.
Jasper's 72 Triangles inspired by the recent "Number" reliefs by Jasper Johns. Starting with the concept of a single number in a discrete area, in this case a double-sided triangle, and then connecting 36 double-sided triangles together, the book-painting becomes dynamic by folding into many configurations of triangles for display. The work uses only the numbers of 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8 and 0. Adding the displayed numbers together results in a sum that is a multiple of 12 or 36 or 72 in many of the possible triangle combinations. A folding diagram is provided as an aid to returning the book to its correct folded state to fit into its acrylic box.
Has these books affected your soul yet?
Now, I have to find the biggest book. Check next week and see if I found it.