Bibliotheca Librorum apud Artificem I

Possibly the highlight of my holiday was my visit to Monica Oppen’s Bibliotheca Librorum apud Artificem, a private collection of artists books. I have Sara from BAO to thank for reminding me that it is possible to make an appointment to see the collection.

Monica is a printmaker and bookbinder, also making artists books herself and in collaboration. She delights in sharing her personal collection of artists books, acquired over 20 years or more. Generous and knowledgeable,  I had a wonderful time discussing and sharing with another like-minded book art lover.

Although I spent some hours there, I know I only scratched the surface of the collection. Its not possible for me to give you an accurate idea of the beautiful works I saw, so I thought I would just name some names, with a little descriptive commentary and  links to the listing in the online catalogue for the Bibliotheca. I hope this might help you decide whether it is an artist whose work might be of interest to you.

As this is an Australian collection, I really have to start with a luminary of Australian book arts. The collection holds over 30 works by Peter Lyssiotis, a writer, photographer and photomonteur.

Peter creates imagery using old fashioned techniques of photomontage, by which I mean nothing, even his latest works, is computer-assisted! I had seen A Gardener at Midnight and 1316  elsewhere but had not realized the imagery was not digital.

To give you an idea of the sort of books he produces, I’ll share this quote I found on the IMCA website, briefly:

Whenever in doubt, Lyssiotis returns to John Heartfield’s dictum: “Use photography as a weapon”.

Despite being less beautiful than Peter’s recent books, I was also captivated by a couple of his early small press books, particularly Journey of a Wise Electron & other stories. 

Searching around online for some images of Peter’s work, I came across this video of a lecture he gave at the Ural University. I’ve only had a chance to watch the first 5 minutes and the sounds not great, but the text does seem to be included in his powerpoint presentation.

Peter Lyssiotis: I Make Books from NeMe on Vimeo.

 

I spotted Laura Wait’s name on the spine of a book, which turned out to be The Goddess in the Garden. I was interested to see the covers were wooden, stained green and I had a good look at the binding (wrapped cords) to see whether it would work for ceramic covers too.

In the catalogue , Monica explains that the  "book has a handwritten manuscript comprising an alphabet of symbols related to gardening and plants, along with early goddess and fefmale symbols."

The book pages are painted and relief printed on a variety of papers, some translucent. (Another of my loves, as you all know). I think my introduction to Laura Wait was as an artist working in encaustics, and some of her recent books use this medium. You can see more of her work on her website. For those interested in calligraphy, this is another feature of her work.

Holidaying with CFS

 

Flying in last month

I am finally home after nearly 3 weeks away. It was an exciting and stimulating interruption to my routine, and it has really raised my spirits significantly.

We are gradually learning that it is possible for us to have holidays and to travel, if we are very careful to keep things flexible and be disciplined about how much we try to pack into the time. Here’s why I think this holiday was our most enjoyable so far.

1. We spent a little more on accommodation, recognizing that we would need to spend some days just resting there.
2. Also choosing your accommodation in an appealing area helps – that way even short forays out for coffee or whatever will be more fun. Unfortunately both these make the holiday more costly.
3. Making sure you take everything you need with you. This seems obvious, but its easy to get to your destination thinking you can just slip out and buy your lactose-free milk or gluten-free cereal there, but if you can’t manage for the first couple of days because you are too tired from travelling, then you will just feel worse.
4. Of course the biggest adjustment you need to make is how much you can expect to do. How you manage this is quite a personal matter. This time, because I had 10 days, I let the first 4 slide by, just resting up after the trip, exploring fairly locally and then I made a list of what I was interested in. Immediately I could see there were more things than I could manage, so I picked three as absolute must-dos. That’s three in my remaining six days. That felt reasonable to me, although I still knew it wasn’t definite that I’d manage. Still I knew that by focussing on the things I really, really wanted to do, I could leave Sydney and feel like I’d had a good holiday.

Even a holiday in a place like Sydney needs to be at least 50% rest for me, but that still means 50% fun, and that is a lot more fun than I seem to manage in my home environment. The release from the responsibilities of running a house does seem to free up more energy and I’m sure the positive effects will be helpful for a while.

Looks as if we are flying at about the same height as the Centrepoint Tower!

Embracing my duality

This week I’ve been in a very dozy state of mind. I don’t often talk about the cognitive effects of cfs on this blog, and more dramatic symptoms like migraines or physical weakness are better known by the general public. However, what is generally described as “brain fog” is a major part of the syndrome.

I used to have a fantastic memory. And I used to be very organized and capable of thinking things through in a highly analytical way. Sadly, this isn’t the case any more.

It’s easy to believe that the issues I’m trying to resolve are just more complex and abstract than the problems I had to deal with at uni, and of course my brain is aging too. And I know lots of my friends do show similar albeit milder memory problems, but that is with families, careers and generally really busy lives to manage.

I’m talking about the days when you stare at the clothes in your wardrobe for ten minutes, trying to decide what to wear, and you aren’t even planning to leave the house that day. And eventually you walk away, still in your pjs. The only decision you’ve made is to try again in an hours time. It seems to me that there’s little doubt that your decision-making skills are “affected”.

The interesting thing about one set of skills diminishing is that it can lead you to enhance another set. As a teenager taking maths, chemistry, physics and so on, I focussed on being  rational, thorough and logical. All good, you might say, and generally I agree. Although…does that mean I can never be spontaneous, intuitive and passionate? I hope not.

I recently read Eric Maisel’s book “Coaching the Artist Within” and in it he discusses duality. He argues that it is easy to set up dualities such as logical and intuitive, disciplined and flexible, doing and being, and then opt for one side of the duality, taking it as your own. His point is that the creative process demands all these things at different times, and to declare that you are logical and disciplined (as I have in the past) and apply it rigidly, is to install limits that can only hinder the process.

I started off talking about the cognitive effects of cfs, and I’m not suggesting they aren’t limiting, or that they aren’t serious (obviously they are very serious as they are caused by insufficient blood flow to the appropriate areas of the brain).

However, what I am saying is that on those days when my physical energy is okay, but the brain fog has rolled in, I am forced to work in an intuitive, responsive, visceral way, and this has been a valuable lesson.

I’ve been working this way this week, using a trial version of Adobe Lightroom  (more soon) and Photoshop to process some of the photos I took on my recent beach holiday. I find processing photos is one thing I am able to do when my energy is very low. I tried to print some out and quickly found I was not up to the problem-solving required to make my printer behave, so for now these images remain screen-bound. I hope to have prints available soon and also to experiment with them a little further with some mixed media.

Room with a beach view

This is the view from the balcony of our unit. We are at the beach for 10 days. Will post again when I get home. Meanwhile here are some more photos, all taken from either the front or back balcony.