I never mention the exhibitions at the John Rylands library.  I'm not sure why, I often manage to get to them.  I think maybe the impact on me of their various shows is quite muted or sometimes too muddled for me to work out what I think - and if I can't work out what to think, how can I possibly work out what to say?  Their frequently quiet effect on me means that I nearly always intend to visit again, and there, of course, we run into the old, old problem that I nearly always don't visit again, and the moment is lost.

In the past, I've visited a number of bookbinding exhibitions, A Clockwork Orange exhibition, a tiny modern gothic show in a shed and a generous handful of others, many of them excellent so far as I can remember, that have now apparently completely dissolved into the mists of time.  The library doesn't appear to keep a record of previous exhibitions, so I can't even check that out and 'remember'.  Currently there is a William Blake exhibition (should visit again, probably slower) and a collection of artists' books from the Al-Mutanabbi Street project.  I should definitely visit that one again, too, but I do think artists' books always run into the problem that, in display cases, they're just things.  Some of them work as sculptures (for lack of a better term) and aren't meant to be opened, if indeed they can be opened at all, but most of the books really need to be handled, to be pored over in order to function as books - they lose something when that can't happen.

In July there's going to be a big to-do over Boccaccio (700 years since his birth?  Death?  Not sure which right now) and apart from all the academic stuff there should also be an exhibition of new artists' books to go with it.  I had a bash at joining in with my own - admittedly very simplistic - proposal, but alas never even got told 'thanks, but no thanks, not quite what we're after', which would have been nice.  Nothing to do with John Rylands, that was another strand of the whole collaborative set-up.  Doubtless it was all for the best (in this best of all possible worlds). 

Any ideas I had for the project have already joined that throng of lost possibilities, because I've finally realised that ideas are irritatingly lacking in staying power.  It goes like this.  I have a moment of startling clarity, or more often I hack away at some vague notion until something starts to emerge, and the seed of a possibility results.  Then it sits there in my mind.  If it was never going to get anywhere, it quickly shrivels and disappears, but a few of the seeds don't die.  Instead they get knocked back and forth, swirled about, reconfigured into slightly (or very) different shapes.  This is when I start to obsess, getting very excited at what might be growing.  Even then, plenty of ideas reach the point where I realise, no, it's still too self-indulgent or empty or a dead-end.  Every now and then, though, one will start to feel like the real deal and the mind goes into overdrive, providing all sorts of detail and planning.  At which point there is a very limited window of time in which to plant that seed.  Nothing necessarily has to be done with it immediately, but it's very important to fix the idea while I can, because soon after that it starts to decompose, and before long it's dead dead dead.  It's happened often enough now that I've realised what's going on.  Which is sort of useful, I suppose.   

Saw Royal Exchange Manchester's latest production To Kill a Mocking Bird yesterday.  It was so good!  I've never read the book (I find the idea of depression-era USA writing too potentially miserable) but it's hard to get through (mumble mumble) years of life without picking up at least a broad outline of the plot, so that in spite of a slew of excellent reviews online (apparently - I'm not the one who looks them up) I wasn't exactly looking forward to it.  However it was a pleasure from end to end, if admittedly an intense experience.  I find it quite hard to pick out highlights, but Shannon Tarbet (21 or possibly 22) was unbelievably convincing  as Scout (9 or 10).  I thought too that the starved and presumably rabid dog, a wire sculpture hound, was amazing.  I suppose people had a point when they carped about hearing everything clearly, but I have to say that such small patches didn't diminish my enjoyment at all - after all, it always takes me a measure of time to 'tune in' to Shakespeare, which isn't a problem either - and yes, the dog was so close that the shot by Atticus didn't seem impressive, but personally  I was happier to have seen the sculpture than to to have them create some invisible hound offstage as the target.     

My one uncertainty was moving the narration around various actors when throughout it was so obviously Scout's - I felt it worked only once with the other actors, when Tom Robinson told what happened to ... Tom Robinson, while Scout listened.  Still, brilliant play, but I can't recommend folks go see because apparently it's completely sold out - you could queue for returns, I suppose.  It would be worth it.

A few other arty things.  Hot Bed Press has a shared exhibition at the moment with Highland Print Studios at An Talla Solais in Ullapool - I don't think I'll be making a trip, though I'd love too.

And then a couple of recommendations to go look at other people's blogs - both old favourites for me.  First up, Gemma Lacey's recent beautiful shadow drawings, which I love (and envy) and second Sarah Morpeth's blog just because I love (oh, and envy) her stuff in general.

Well that was busy.  Another bookarts fair, another dash for stock.  So much for my heartfelt protests that it would Never Be Like That Again.  In my defence, it truly wasn't as bad as the Tiger Blue run-up to Glasgow, but only because I didn't take on quite such a daunting challenge.  True, I did again make a book in a week (I have to stop doing this), 'Guilty', but it didn't include several multi-layer linocuts or laborious stamping of words or - and this might be as crucial as anything else - unbacked bookcloth.  It did include embossing so fine that it was difficult to see (oh clever!  but there was, natch, no time to make a plate with deeper cuts) and oodles of paper that had to remain clean, including the binding, but it worked out ok and that's good enough for me.  Gratifyingly (boast alert) a copy was bought for the Tate Special Collection (or whatever it is that the Tate call it) which feels like a form of official approval.  My work here is done.  I can ascend to another plane of existence.  Or something.  Actually, having seen the Tate collector disappear later on with a number of gently bulging carrier bags, I assume my book had plenty of company, but that doesn't have the the slightest effect on my delight.  When I've taken some decent photos (ie the emboss needs to show) I'll stick them on the website.

However, having virtually no books ready to lay out, and a whole table to lay them out on, most of this last week has been spent printing and cutting and sticking and binding until there were books to lay out.  I got there in the end by dint of staying up too late and getting up too early and feeling hung over with exhaustion at times, but as ever I only have myself to blame.  Because the house only had me in for this last week, I transferred a certain amount of operations here, with the result that the floor in the dining room is disappearing under a layer of finely snipped scraps of paper and hastily discarded unnecessary larger sheets.  Not to mention (so I shan't go in to detail) the rest of it.  But for tonight I'm doing nothing.  I'll deal with all of that tomorrow.