Last year I thought it might be fun to make one-off books from time to time. For fun, I repeat. For no purpose other than fun. I started with a simple concertina monotype book, in response to spending endless hours scarcely moving in a traffic queue - just a verge, with a list of the plants I identified on the back of the monotype.
I put it out at the Manchester Artists Book Fair. People liked it, which was, of course, a very acceptable state of affairs. It sold, and a couple of people asked if I would make something similar for them. In my innocence I thought, well why not? It wasn't in the spirit of a unique book, I suppose, but I'd enjoyed making the first one. Whereupon I discovered that, while making a single book with no purpose seemed a simple undertaking, making more of them, with people in mind and some kind of a deadline (which I spectacularly failed to meet), was somehow infinitely more difficult. I would do a monotype. I wouldn't like it. I would do another, think I liked it, then find it wasn't so very different to the one I didn't like. Eventually I ended up with half a dozen, each based on somewhere, sometime. Later still, they acquired lists, covers, and now, finally they are finished. I'm moderately happy with them but they took much much longer than I ever would have dreamed. I won't say never again, but in any similar future situation, I'll think very hard before I say anything at all. They're on the 2015 Books page (accessed from Book arts).
I put it out at the Manchester Artists Book Fair. People liked it, which was, of course, a very acceptable state of affairs. It sold, and a couple of people asked if I would make something similar for them. In my innocence I thought, well why not? It wasn't in the spirit of a unique book, I suppose, but I'd enjoyed making the first one. Whereupon I discovered that, while making a single book with no purpose seemed a simple undertaking, making more of them, with people in mind and some kind of a deadline (which I spectacularly failed to meet), was somehow infinitely more difficult. I would do a monotype. I wouldn't like it. I would do another, think I liked it, then find it wasn't so very different to the one I didn't like. Eventually I ended up with half a dozen, each based on somewhere, sometime. Later still, they acquired lists, covers, and now, finally they are finished. I'm moderately happy with them but they took much much longer than I ever would have dreamed. I won't say never again, but in any similar future situation, I'll think very hard before I say anything at all. They're on the 2015 Books page (accessed from Book arts).
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