BookArtObject – ‘Number 43’

This year, I have signed up to take part in the international book arts project ‘BookArtObject’. It is a yearly project, currently in its fourth manifestation that let’s book artists from across the globe come together and create a small series of handmade artists’ books in response to texts. Definitely my kind of project. Artists are put into small groups, where at the end of the project, you are to distribute a copy to each member and to the project organiser, ultimately, sharing a love of book arts. BAO is also a blog (as shown below) where ideas, thoughts, creations, problems, developments, inspirations come together for open discussion whilst acting as a diary, sharing the story of our mutual book arts adventure.

This year, Edition Four comes from Sarah Bodman‘s book ‘An Exercise for Kurt Johannessen’, in which 100 short story titles are the starting point for the groups of artists. The conception of the project with links to the Centre for Fine Print Research’s website can be found here. Once signed up to BAO, you had the opportunity to choose the title you wanted on first come, first serve basis. I am part of Group One where there are eight members, therefore I need to make a total of 9 books…and the title I chose is ‘Number 43’. The complete list of short story titles is below (again courtesy of Sarah Bodman). As I said in the BAO blog, thematics and concepts are slowly coming together as to how my book might develop. All I know is that it will be very different to anything I’ve made before due to the cultural (Chinese) contexts I am now working within…and that it will be constructed from handmade paper and typewriter text, no doubt referencing my day-to-day experiences in China in an archival way. I look forward to showing you how this project unfolds as it’s been a while since I’ve done anything book arts related. It’s got me fired up inside again. I wish I had more time for my studio practice.

1. There was an old lady
2. Another old lady
3. A boy waiting
4. A day just like any other
5. Making bread
6. Last night
7. Silent wolves
8. Nothing
9. Pulling up
10. Not believing
11. Twilight
12. It’s raining
13. Volcano
14. Oil
15. Winter
16. Turn left
17. No 43
18. The locker
19. More volcanoes
20. Bright orange
21. No rainbow
22. Work
23. Young offenders
24. Rowing boat.
25. The world turns
26. 197 years
27. White lilies
28. That’s life
29. Who knew?
30. My ancestors
31. The earth
32. Carpe diem
33. Maps of the invisible world
34. A subversive stitch
35. A fork in the road
36. Caterpillars
37. The darkness
38. Suicide
39. Three ships
40. Equations
41. It’s beginning to hurt
42. Delicacy
43. Grains
44. Security
45. A burning question
46. Curtailment
47. While memory lasts
48. A girl waiting
49. Gone fishing
50. Authenticity
51. Rapunzel
52. Silicon Valley
53. Protein
54. Motorway services
55. Sacrifice
56. Unchartered democracy
57. Premeditation
58. Stilled lives
59. Whiskey, no water
60. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
61. Can you pin your hopes on?
62. Vindication
63. Collaborative dreaming for Dick Turpin
64. Counting
65. To see what he could see
66. California dreaming
67. Mise en place
68. Just like the movies
69. The missing typewriter key
70. Intolerable cruelty
71. The daisy chain
72. The spoiler
73. That unbearable lightness
74. Dust
75. Night work
76. Poison
77. Not quite drowning
78. Curtains
79. Speed dating
80. A work in progress
81. Hope
82. Painting by numbers
83. Pulp fiction
84. The birds
85. Transparent
86. Where the dead live
87. Superstition
88. The clearing
89. Other people, other rooms
90. True grit
91. I make my wallpaper form your postcards
92. Ghosts
93. Now I’m a cowboy
94. Just add water
95. Paradise lost
96. Knowledge
97. Snow falling in daylight
98. Deirdre
99. Throwaway
100. An exercise