Pedestals painted, and white felt affixed atop.
Floors swept.
Windows washed.
Most of the installation is in place.
© 2017 Louise Leergneux, Ming Studios almost ready
City Shields is awaiting its sixteen feet floating shelf.
Vinyl lettering still to come.
Tired and antsy.
Thursday night is the big event you are all invited to my exhibition!
Please come, bring your smiles and celebrate this event with me!
Tasks at hand this week in my 1/2 Measure Studio...
The gallery walls of Ming Studios are freshly painted and the pedestals are more or less prepared.
© 2017 Louise Levergneux, Ming Studio Space
© 2017 Louise Levergneux, Ming Studio, pedestals being painted
I finished the volumes of City Shields, had a couple of boo-boos, re-print time!
© 2017 Louise Levergneux, City Shields oops!
Spent three days in Salt Lake City for business and pleasure. Taking some time off to relax.
© 2017 Louise Levergneux, hiking in the Dimple Dell Gully Trailhead in Sandy, Utah
Received my prints from WhiteWall Photo Lab in Germany. They look great, it’s nice to see the pages of my artists' books in large format.
© 2017 Louise Levergneux, prints for the show
I cataloged my books for the exhibition and I’m anticipating the big event at Ming Studios.
© 2017 Louise Levergneux, six artists' books plus 78 volumes of City Sheilds
Thinking of submitting to the MCBA Prize—an international artists’ book award. Here are the links for the submission guidelines and the Book Art Biennial. Good luck to all who submit!
Drafting text for a grant, eager for newer and better equipment.
Twittered for the first time!!
An interesting and busy week filled with preparations.
Last, but not least, excited to finish a prototype of a recently developed artists' book. Will take photos next week.
My first week of residency behind me, I’m contemplating the space, the books, the projection of images...
© 2017 Louise Levergneux, Ming Studios in preparation for my residency
© 2017 Louise Levergneux, Ming Studios in preparation for my residency
There are many details and it’s not a good idea to keep details and lists only in one’s mind. Notes, many notes, are required when creating an on-going project or any edition. These instructions are important to keep around for future reference. Writing details, such as the type of paper, colours used in Photoshop, set-up of jigs, binding... because you will forget! I don’t care how young you are! I’m happy to create an edition at once, but when low on cash, printing when needed is the best way to go, and it creates less inventory.
After answering many emails and particulars for the show at Ming Studios, I took the time to finish another volume of City Shields—Illinois Vol US7 No2.
© 2017 Louise Levergneux, City Shields—Illinois Vol US No2
When I started the project, each volume contained 18 manhole covers. Since 2006, I print and die-cut the manhole covers myself. With thinner paper, I added three more manhole covers to a volume. More manhole covers the better? Right. Now, I print a volume when I receive an order. It has become more complicated to print odd numbers of manhole covers. I could print three sheets of 13 x 19 inches. Voilà, two volumes printed with no math or a headache. With 21 manhole covers, I always have an odd number to keep track of printing without waste. It becomes a guessing game on what manhole covers to print. Aye! The dilemma of an artist!
Needing a meditation moment, I cleaned my junk. Screw posts anyone?
© 2017 Louise Levergneux, my many screw-posts
The National Gallery of Canada Library and Archives and the Centre Canadien d'architecture have purchased these new volumes. The volumes are in the mail today.
© 2017 Louise Levergneux, eleven new volumes of City Shields
A new week begins, must get ready for more conversations and planning. Check it out.
The week flew by with residency and exhibition preparations. Lots of details to iron out as the days are short and timing is everything. City Shields will be part of the show, but not the focus. The attention will be on the idea behind my work, my obsessions, my collecting and my archiving. City Shields is the most obsessive and most popular project of my career, so it is a major component of the exhibition.
Time was spent choosing between all my published books—the ones that best describe my artist statement. Equinox was the first to make the list, but since I found a new home for the books at the beginning of the year, the books won't be present at the gallery—with imagination you might see nine years of my life. Other books in line are: A Day Filled with Onomatopoeias, Traverse, Parade, Perception, and Ambivalence.
© 2017 Louise Levergneux, spread of Ambivalence artists' book
© 2017 Louise Levergneux, spread of Ambivalence artists' book
WhiteWall Photo Lab will print large prints of certain pages of books, these will adorn the walls. I’m anxious about the proofing—there goes that obsession again! Kristen Cooper the Program Director at Ming Studios is overseeing the printing in Berlin, Germany, where she lives and works. Cooper is a conceptual artist, her work is exhibited internationally, Kristen must know about the printing process. I hope the surprise will be good.
© 2017 Louise Levergneux, spread of A Day Filled with Onomatopoeias artists' book
Set-up of pedestals begins next week—a good start to figuring out the gallery space. I am contemplating on the look of the show, the books, the prints... Stay tuned, here I go!
I’ve met with the executive director and the program director of Ming Studios to prepare for my residency starting February 6th.
MING Studios is an international contemporary art center and residency program in Boise, Idaho. The gallery brings international artists to Idaho and introduces new opportunities for regional artists. Ming serves the community by hosting innovative programs including workshops and cultural activities, performances, screenings, readings and artist talks.
Keeping active between meetings and emails, I’ve verified files, edited text, printed and cut the last eleven volumes of City Shields.
© 2017 Louise Levergneux
Through the conversations, the scope of the exhibition has changed. Subsequently, we wanted the viewers to capture the nature of artists’ books. The spotlight is no longer on City Shields but the idea behind my work.
I appreciate simple moments characterizing our lives, building our history, whether sensational or monotonous. Fascinated by memory and identity, the day-to-day events entertain me.
I want to familiarize the readers with mundane activities that link us together to regain our childhood innocence. Autobiographical references are characteristic of my work, which centers on the act of collecting and storing my memories, my self-identity, and my environment. I study my surroundings with camera in hand and accumulate memories. My process of investigation continues as I manipulate images in Photoshop and iMovie, re-organize, write and plan my artists’ books. I finish a book when my conceptual framework reads as a physical object.
A digital method of reproduction gives my books a contemporary look. I work with different binding structures that respond to the book in question. The final product is a limited edition book representing the mundane in a unique, imaginative, and dynamic way for the reader to experience.
This video is my interpretation of the game Decision of the Flower: She loves me, she loves me not, originally Effeuiller la marguerite. I present this game in the French style making the potential outcomes more numerous. "Il/Elle aime un peu, beaucoup, passionnément, à la folie, pas du tout" (translates to "He/She loves me a little, a lot, passionately, madly, not at all"). I created four small flip books that demonstrate these outcomes: m'aime pas du tout (loves me not), m'aime un peu (loves me a little), m'aime (loves me), and m'aime à la folie (loves me madly).
The exhibition represents how I collect, document and archive using my complex, French Canadian culture.
Articles on manhole covers keep on popping-up. More and more people are noticing the design underfoot as they walk their city streets.
Rob Turner writes on the subject of cities much smaller projects that make a big impact in his “Cover Art” article.
“As a visitor to a new city I’m always intrigued to discover and surprised by fantastic cast-iron works of art—they delight me.”
This article lists wonderful photos of "manhole covers that left their mark in New York City".
Andy Sturdevant lists stunning manhole cover designs in Minneapolis in his article “Minneapolis' sense of itself revealed in artist-designed manhole covers.” Andy helps us discover the reason for the covers by describing them and their location in Minneapolis. Andy directs us to a few of Kate Burke’s manhole cover designs.
I received a wonderful email with a nice surprise this week, a sequence of photos showing the steps in the creation of Kate’s walleye manhole cover design.
Have you ever wondered why you didn’t bring that darn camera with you? Kate wished she had a camera to document her first experience at the foundry eight inches deep in black sand staring at the wheel-a-matic sandblaster.
We can’t turn back time and document those fantastic moments of creation, but we can remember them as did Kate.
It was a sandblasting booth that had a huge turntable inside a metal box. As I stood in the sand, the guys opened the door to the first cast manhole cover, which was the walleye. As the turntable rotated the silhouette of the cover [emerged] out of the darkness. It was glowing red in the center as they had just cast it and it was still hot. It was jaw-dropping.
Below is Kate Burke's production process for the Walleye manhole cover for Nicollet Mall in Minneapolis:
© 2016 Kate Burke, a quick sketch to help with the design process
© 2016 Kate Burke, the sketch created for the carving of the design
© 2016 Kate Burke, the actual drawing used to cut the design—many copies were made to prevent the loss of image detail when transferring the drawing
© 2016 Kate Burke, these recent photos of the finished cut pattern show its resilience after two dozen casts. It held up well and is still beautiful
© 2016 Kate Burke, altered photo of the original photo by Will Crain, manhole cover installed at Nicollet Mall
© 2016 Kate Burke, a rubbing from the original pattern above to create prints
Need to get back to work and finish eleven new volumes of City Shields from my trip back to Canada. My residence and installation at Ming Studios will come soon enough.
In the meantime, go for a walk and discover your city.
© 2016 Kate Burke, installed Walleye manhole cover at Nicollet Mall in Minneapolis, Minnesota
© 2022 Louise Levergneux