extra! extra!

DSCF0006.JPG, originally uploaded by aesop.

records, but not the ones I wanted

DSCF0065.JPG, originally uploaded by aesop.

I had had great plans to take a lot of pictures at Bristol record office, but they wouldn't let me. Darn. however, I took some more pictures at work for my forthcoming book about the old place.

more work

I've been working hard on some outlining I have to do on my PhD, trying to produce concise and meaningful structures to the guiding questions I've been able to generate with the help of my advisors. This has been more difficult than it sounds, because I'm simultaneously trying to generate a sequence of research goals, (which may turn out to be the developing structure of my thesis), and engineer the practical methods I'll need to create the data that will inform my writing. Although the structure I've chosen is roughly chronological (from the inception of the idea of an artists' book, through its production to its ongoing post-production identity), clearly, examining the phenomenology and heuristics of artists' book production raises issues that can't be examined fully in one pass. At the moment I'm seeing my thesis design change as I build several passes on the data into its structure. Thus there are three iterations of the notion of a cycle of intention, the building up of the idea of artistic intention in relation to the medium, before the book is constructed, during the construction (how it turns up in the strategies of production employed by artists), and, finally, how it persists in the created object, now lonesome and at the mercy of critics who may have no truck with the artist's intentions at all if they're not evident in the work.

Something like this, which is an important notion in the work I want to do, bleeds off into many other areas, (intention and intentionality: theory of mind: theory of culture: cognitive characteristics of media, etc) and I think a strategy of iteration, so that the many different layers of influence that touch on the notion can be slowly glazed on the support of a simple armature, is the only way for me to proceed.

I'm finding that some of the reading I've done is starting to gel, albeit in a fairly brittle way, but I'm attached to the scope of the idea, and I think that my premise

that the practicalities (the problems and the tools) of artistic production need to be understood alongside the works and their historical placement in terms of technological and social possibility in order to describe what is best described as the practice of artists' books (as opposed to the "medium" or the "movement")

requires and deserves a proper breadth in backgrounding the significance and mechanics of artists' heuristics in motivating their choice of material. For this reason, I think that my examination of writing about media and cognition, of intention, of culture and communication, have been anything but redundant to my aims. However, collaging all of these things together, the task of creating the firm guidance that such a widely-populated arc requires,  has been a difficult task for someonelike myself.

drops at Liberty's

London trip. May 2005, originally uploaded by aesop.

Recently L and I visited London and saw, amongst other things, the "Turner, Whistler, Monet" exhibition at the Tate, whih was pretty good. I enjoyed Whistler best, perhaps because I'm least familiar with his work: it also seems the closest in sensibility to Scottish painting, which I grew up with ready access to, and which neither JMWT nor the prince of Giverny come close to. There is a certain Japonisme in some of the Scottish colourists and suchlike that I see echoed in Whistler more obviously.

We also attended a concert at the Wigmore hall, Dejan Lazic throwing down some mad Chopin, Bartók, Brahms, etc. for the assembled cough-suppressing massive. The man in front of L fell asleep. My favourite was the Chopin, but I have at best a limited appreciation for long tracts of piano music I'm unfamiliar with, so Lazic's encore of some rapidly twinkling Scarlatti was a boon because of its stimulating tempo, and a little welcome to my philistine heart, since it signified the iminent flinging wide of the doors to admit us into the cool, virtuoso-free London night.

We were once again accomodated by L's friends M & F (sorry about the developing roman a clef of initials here), who entertained in a generous and sumptuous manner not soon to be forgotten, particularly not the delicious cheeses and what M referred to as the "Levantine mayhem" of the Edgeware road, from which we procured hearty, if exotic, viands.

I also kept my appointment at the Victoria and Albert museum, and had a chance to show them my books. I haven't yet heard anything back from them, but they did express interest and enjoyment, so I have some hopes of their including my work in their collection. I wait in hope.

Pheasant Moon

I recently finished this book, Pheasant Moon, which is part of my Whistling Copse series. It's a neat little thing, and my first completed book project in about ten years that wasn't printed digitally. I've been immersing myself in the alchemy of Lithography and getting pretty reasonable results. It's very much a "don't run before you can walk" situation, however, and I've been fairly strict about setting myself a very simple project that I can have some chance of completing and learning something from. That said, there are two plates involved here, one for the book-body itself, which is a sort of reverse prefect-binding, with the foredges individually glued (there are only 4 folios, so this is an acceptable amount of labour).

Within, it's based on ceramic decoration, printed in a blue colour reminiscent of Spode and with designs reflecting both my (newish) interest in ceramic decorations, and the research I've been doing on Whistling Copse and poaching. The cover, as you can see, is printed in translucent white on blue card, and looks, if I may say, rather dashing. I'm rather pleased, which probably presages dreadful difficulties with my next book. We shall see.

(This drawing is printed in blue in the original)

I'm also rather glad to have finished it in time to be able to show it at my upcoming meeting at the Victoria and Albert Museum (National Art Library) on Friday. I'll be meeting with Jennifer Farmer, Andrew Russell and Margaret Timmers with the intention of introducing them to my work and making their acquaintance. I do rather wish I had a little more stock to show them, but I'm pleased to have this little thing to show them.

Of course, going to London also means I'll have the chance to do a little research (again at the V&A) and perhaps see a couple of exhibitions. I'll be travelling with L, whose kind friends M&F have offered their hospitality for a few days. It's a little holiday for me, and the weather couldn't be nicer. The one fly in the ointment is the necessity for me to do some more work on outlining my PhD proposal. However, it won't intrude too much into what promises to be an exciting trip.

camera obscura

walking-to2, originally uploaded by aesop.

site wrangling

After expending some effort and exhausting my supply of expletives for the month, I have succeeded (fingers crossed) in integrating the Oberkampf code into www.andreweason.com. Briefly, what this means is that the albums containing my books are now hosted on Flickr, and get piped-in via the Oberkampf scripts, on demand. It means I can create many more albums, and with the ease of the Flickr interface, I can make better use of annotations and titling. It does mean sacrificing my existing notes pages (to be replaced as text images in my current plans), and there are a few details I'll find it somewhat difficult to alter without learning a great deal more about scripting of various flavours. It also means the return of the Obscura gallery, so that the world might once again see me in breeches and stockings...