Richard Orjis Erica van Zon Simon Esling Peter Madden Andrew McLeod David Merritt Arch MacDonnell/John Reynolds Tara McLeod Peter Simpson Brendan O’Brien Greg O’Brien Megan Jenkinson Max White Mary-Louise Browne Simon Denny Fiona Jack Kate Newby Gail Keefe Tom Irwin

Books in my practice operate in numerous ways. They function both in an archival sense and as a work of art in I started making small artists books in 2001 when I was still at AUT. I started o! making catalogues using formats that I I think the ‘book’ I made operates mostly as an artwork and then as a document of the sketchbooks that I no longer have Mostly my books are vey small runs, i.e. one o!s. Being a collage artist I think a lot about were my images come from The books are mostly for my drawings which are mostly b&w and so are cheap to copy. I’ll give a copy to my friends and a One day I was on tour around the top of the South Island with a group of musicians called Curbside Cabaret and they TO DO ONE'S LOLLY / LARRIKINISM! / CRAP-TO-GRAM Always a problem, the de"nition of 'artist’s books'. The Holloway Press aims to honour the tradition of small press publishing in New Zealand, as represented by people like The projects that I have been involved in do resemble something a juggle of varied intentions, but most signi"cant As someone who works as a writer as well as a visual artist, the 'book', in its broader sense, is very much my most natural A book is a small, portable container that invites the viewer to enter the intimacy of its expanded spaces. My book-based work was originally produced and exhibited as part of an MFA I did at Elam in the early 2000s. My books are meant to operate as single objects even though they exist in small editions. They are conceptual artworks One recent book Video Aquarium Broadcast was a 'compilation' of exhibition projects that masqueraded as a DVD, in size Most of the books I have made are objects in themselves, not documentation of something else. Some have been My books are intended to operate in many ways – as collaboration, artwork, a di!erent kind of documentation for ideas The collection began with the donation of books from Alberto Alvarez’ printmaking students at Elam. Beginning in 1985, My role at the Fine Arts Library is as one of two Subject Librarians for the departments of Fine Arts and Art History. themselves. The artist's book is a very open and versatile platform that operates successfully for many di!erent purposes. copied from institutions like The Auckland City Art Gallery (local artist's series) that I initially intended to make a or make. An epitaph to the sketchbooks I made before and during my Masters degree. At some point it occurred to me (mags and books). The books I have made are extensions of these thoughts. They are nearly always intended to be art few copies to Parsons Bookshop and they distribute them through their networks which I don't know much about. They were ribbing me about my lack of merchandise. I already had a nice rubberstamp set and a old i-mac that could dtp Ron Holloway, Bob Lowry, Pat Dobbie, Robin Lush, Denis Glover, Leo Bensemann, Bob Gormack and Alan Loney – by among them would be the prospect for collaboration, the construction of artworks and documentation. The “Pine” within the con"nes of commercial publishing producing extraordinary work, books loaded with character and energy. I’d habitat. It is a zone where words and images can strike up relationships, go about their separate and joint business. This three words in the last poem in my book Days beside water ... I would like to acknowledge the long-term commitment of Elam librarians past and present – speci"cally Valerie in a domestic residential setting, can for the most part never be. For this reason hand-made books are ideal for present- in the guise of a book that serve as a vehicle to address socio cultural and socio political concerns. and organisational principles. I wanted to tap into certain histories of video documentation, and to confuse purposes and exhibited, many not, but most have circulated independently of an exhibition. and to think though projects. I have made several publications over the past years that I consider components of the Alberto set his students an assignment to make books. They had to make two copies of their books, and one copy was to Together with the Fine Arts Librarian we develop and care for the library’s collection to best meet the academic require- The playful jack-in-a-box nature of CLOUD BOOK signals our shared sense of wit as an accelerated vector for blurring The gradual unfolding of a book is a necessary foil to the overabundance and rapid confusion of much contemporary For several years prior to that I was making paintings based around The Whau Portage, at Avondale and its environs. renegade 'donation' to their library as a means of distribution. In the end I sold catalogues through Parsons, which were that the sketchbook was no longer a signi"cant part of what I did. I tended to go straight into making a large drawing, so works. go on my website as pdfs. If you call them 'zines' the political-punk-comic kids might look at them and if you call them pdfs for photocopies. I bought a $60 stapler, staples, a gluestick or three from Warehouse Stationary, and started - My press (The Pear Tree Press) is based around letterpress print technology, so all the work undertaken is within the using letterpress technology to print materials unlikely to be suitable for commercial publishing but which have literary, project with Bill Manhire and Ralph Hotere worked primarily at these levels. The work on “Pine” involved a sharing of like to imagine my book work #oating (or perhaps even bouncing) between these extremes. intimate juxtaposition of words and images (and their merging in the case of Colin McCahon or Ian Hamilton Finlay) has Richards, Gail Keefe, Jane Wild, and Tom Irwin – to the establishment, and ongoing enhancement, of Elam’s signi"cant ing subject matter which is in some way culturally contentious: it is a format which may more underline the compromised, somewhat dusty dissemination methods that books o!er. exhibitions that I have made them in support of. be donated to the Fine Arts Library. This continued for a number of years and was the start of the Artists’ Book Collection ments of the University and achieve the objectives of the Library. I have made several books through the years, from six page books that I printed on the colour printers at art school and Winter I was was an exhibition as well as a book. There's a lot of tra%c going to and fro, between the writing and then distributed or made free ones to give away. making geek prayers, which had just been published earlier that year by Kilmog Press in Dunedin. I got books from the boundaries between the "elds of design, publishing and art. It seemed very appropriate that a collaborative project limitations of the process. always inspired me. When I was a teenager, I bought a copy of Colin McCahon's 15 Drawings (published by the Hocken media. In a similar way I "nd the control inherent in an imposed sequence, such as may be established within a book, is Artist’s Book Collection. In addition Elizabeth Eastmond, formerly of the Art History department at The University of Photography was part of my practice as documentation for this work. I made several books between 1979 and 1982 while at Elam School of Fine Arts. These books "t into my wider practice as I have made a large amount of books – since I was a teenager. Something happens to a collection of papers when they at the Library. However, before that the Library was buying books such as Edward Ruscha’s Various Small Fires. These it seemed redundant for me to try and make preparation drawings. In this sense the clipboard became a device that 'artists’ books' the more academic people might look etc. But there's only so much acceptance I can expect from anyone artistic or historic merit. ideas and skills; it involved the re"nement of the unusual techniques that were incorporated to create an edition where book-making and drawing (and, when I get the chance,) painting ... and now printmaking has entered the equation too. stapled together to large one o! books like the one I did for 'My Empire of Dirt' series. This book was a yellow volume that The content was always my own original work – in some cases more of a documentation of various artworks and events. I I have made lots of di!erent kinds of books: loose leaf ones, casts of books, concertinaed books, books with holes, books conceived as a fragment of Cloud, a vast massing of written New Zealandisms, should toy with 'the book' in some form. - Printing from metal type, hand cut printing blocks: linocut, woodcut, wood-engraved. Plus photo mechanically Beyond the function of books as vehicles for commonplace communication, they can assume critical roles as gathering preferable to the random oblivion of hypertext. Auckland University, also greatly enriched students’ appreciation and understanding of rare manuscripts and contempo- readily avoid censorship. Amongst other texts on a shelf, hand-made books can even be hidden in plain view and as they my work was then as now, preoccupied with the material qualities of language and the notion of ‘translation’ from one Another book that I am working on now, Cruise Line, consists primarily of commissioned texts (one science "ction, one are bound together that I am repeatedly drawn to. Something ends, perhaps. But then there is always the possibility of When I have made publications I have done so in order to talk about the ideas that I am talking about in my projects but My relationship with the artists’ books is a close one. Since becoming Subject Librarian in 2007 I have organised the allowed me to gather together these random pages into a strange, Frankenstein-like artist’s book that could possibly be who is not really into painting. dumpshops and opshops, a lot of readers digests condensed, for example. every page in each copy is unique. The result documented work that had not previously existed in book form. Library) and I collected the books of American poet/artist Kenneth Patchen. William Blake I also loved (but had great Whilst doing the Masters I found myself re#ecting on my time as a student at Elam in the late 1960s. Among other artists were published artists’ books in contrast to the hand-made books from the Printmaking Department. These books were was professionally bound and contained original mud paintings and found images o! the internet. I'm currently working tried to encompass a large range, or variety of themes, thoughts and ideas into a small space. Catalogues such as It's a that are more like boxes. Books and mags nobody has seen. I suppose they are an expression of my frustrated desire to produced (photopolymer) plates. Most Holloway Press books have some kind of visual element (beyond typography), ranging from photographs to spaces or relics of encounters. They document the happenings between art and text, of individuals and events. For the rary artists’ books through her writing and lectures. are very portable they may also be easily circulated to interested parties. These transgressive, or samizdat properties of medium to another, exploring the interface between author and reader. I am still concerned with how meanings can scripted architectural analysis and translations into German) that I have chosen several solved mazes to illustrate. This another edition, so it’s not a de"nite end. I like that they take on a portability that enables them to keep changing hands, in di!erent kind of way. With a book you can take it away from the gallery and spend a di!erent, perhaps slower and selection and purchase of the majority of new additions. Their care and treatment is part of my job, as is facilitating altered in the future. We also wanted to create a work that not only operated as a collectible fragment of Cloud but o!ered real inroads into di%culty fathoming). As someone who, very early on, wanted to paint and write, I liked these ambidextrous "gures, The circuitry between the di!erent media is loosely wired and purposefully erratic – as it should be. My poems often end Although I am a visual artist, text is supremely relevant to my work, as either a source of inspiration or a way of expand- from that era in whose work I had always been interested, a particular in#uence was Ed Ruscha. As an ‘homage’ to him I catalogued in the normal way and put on the Library shelves to be borrowed. The handmade books were not borrowable on publishing a book with designer Warren Olds that is a survey of my practice from the last "ve years. It's a really nice chic place to Be tried to emulate the format of a photo album to distribute a pictorial essay, or From Bos en Lommer to be a writer/poet. I see books as objects that contain huge amounts of imaginative potential like batteries. I make books - I’ve done about 25 books. I'd "rst recycled a book (a Je!rey Archer haha) for a reading I did a few weeks earlier. Until then I'd have a pile of papers - The bookmaking process then also encompasses discussions with the writer, artist plus the physical aspects: design, commissioned drawings to original art works. This re#ects my interest as director in both literature and the visual arts and There is also something of an ‘act of gathering’ around the work I do – a belief that certain things, such as a group of artist it is vital that, unlike in the commercial publishing world, there are no rules or conventions – that books can be artists’ hand-made books also interest me. proliferate and how text that is literally expressed can be metaphorically articulated in an artwork. new book includes many people's input – but books tend to be that way for me because of distribution, cost, technical and I think that "ts in with my wider approach to art making. About half of the art projects I have made to date have longer lasting time with it compared to an exhibition that ends. workshops with academic sta! where students come and experience selections from the collection. the core values of the work and yet had its own distinctive pleasures of display and presentation. writing-pen in one hand, paintbrush in the other. up in my exhibited drawings, just as my drawings end up in my published books (see Afternoon of an evening train). The ing meaning. When text enters the work itself, in a signi"cant way, a book will sometimes emerge. referenced some of his titles in the books I made. but could be looked at on request.

a © ISBN 97 choice of paper, binding. A way to bring all my work together in one place and see the progression and links with various works that normally live - I’ve done a few posters too. T

s to understand this. everywhere, boxes and boxes of papers to sort through before each reading. Then I just started to put sequences of the cross-over points between them, and in fostering collaboration between writers, printers and visual artists. made one-of-a-kind, distributed free, priced at the level of an expensive gallery artwork or whatever. The boundaries are skills etc. This book is also 'previewed' as part of an exhibition that I am currently opening in the NAK in Aachen – as a been not related to any kind of art institution. I very much like the discourse and contextual relations that can occur h I’ve never made any other books but I have used the clipboard as a device in other collage works. I think of the clipboard c Brooklyn was a photocopied diary of travel stories and images. I had always intended the catalogues to operate in a poems or images, have a character that means they belong together. Ideally this might be on a gallery wall but, failing 20

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'book' exists very much in the thick of things ... it does not necessarily come before or after or at the same time as a

The thematic content of my photographs relates to the ‘debased’ and perhaps ‘banal’, ‘marginal’ or ‘utilitarian’ sub/urban c

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- Bookmaking is only one part of the overall work, other print work is undertaken, though generally 'non commercial’. ta

- Something to do with my drawings ... "ts with the natural artist’s desire to show everyone your work. The legacy of people such as Robin Lush (Elam print technician) and Alan Loney (Auckland University Poet in Residence) I also make publications to draw in ideas, images, people, friends, and bits of writing in a way that would not always I should mention that what I have learned has been mostly from the former Fine Arts Librarian and custodian of the 10

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apart. I'm hoping it will let me move on to a new phase after they've been recorded and stored this safe little object. I've written books that have been mass-produced and mass-distributed (e.g. the two books of art for young people and When I began working in the Library I became very interested in artists’ books and, with Valerie Richards the Librarian at lo as a bureaucratic tool for gathering information, analysing it and then ultimately storing it for some unknown future poems into books and read from them like a ‘professional’ poet. It’s hard to rip up books, (feelings range from Nazi to only where the book maker sets them to be. lo-res 'sample' projection that gives a taste of the book a little like an Amazon as an artwork in the show. within an artistic context, but I also like to make work independently of it, for a variety of reasons. on ta

‘unique’ way, with a craft aesthetic – small scale and as an addition to, not the main part of my practice. The catalogues that, the concrete alternative is between the covers of a book. A sublime example of this would the Kowhai Press

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8- CLOUD BOOK completes an arc of language assembled from Harry Orsman's giant Oxford Dictionary of New Zealand - Proof-reading and editing at some stage before printing. 'writing' or 'drawing' ... It's one part of an organic whole. A book can, at times, function as a handbook, or guide, to a body of work. For example Between the Waves accompanies Although my photography was mainly "lm based, I was using a post capture digital work#ow, scanning negatives and gu

lo environments to be found at The Whau Portage near Avondale and in its environs between the Manukau and the fr

0- Any artist, writer or individual who has stepped into grace with a book, I am interested in. Holloway Press deliberately references the tradition in New Zealand whereby modernity in typography and book design and the production of poetry and prose through hand printing presses have informed my practice. Specialist book make a lot of sense to do so in my installations yet they are something that I really want alongside and talking to the collection Gail Keefe. All of the books we have collected and work we have done since, has been with the signi"cant a

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ra also A nest of singing birds—100 years of the New Zealand School Journal). But I have also made a great many books that time, I organised an exhibition in the General Library of some of the books in the collection. Later, when I became om th southern Baptist hell"re preacher book burner) but I'm pretty selective. I get them by the banana box load from the St 98 were always small in scale – A4 broken down, because of my budget, and sometimes copied at libraries so that I could purpose. It’s a totem for redundant information than only remains redundant until it is discovered to be useful. I think my production of Tony De Lautour’s “Book of Heads” (2006). From my own work an example would be Pip Culbert’s “Air re - And overall: working to high standards of design, typography, print production, binding. ti

- Richard Killeen was a proli"c pioneer on the visual side of photocopy artists’ books in NZ. English, through the massing of over 7,000 terms and phrases on small canvases across huge wall spaces, and "nally back the photographic series The Colours, and features those sections from Virginia Woolf’s novel The Waves that inspired the positives and printing to inkjet. This coincided with the emergence of digital capture technology. My "rst digital camera e

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wa I grew up in a Catholic family and the bible was introduced to me as something magical, literally the word of God, so T

was intimately associated with the introduction of modernity in literature, especially poetry. In many cases without the The books that I believe are most successful create within them a form of a dialogue – not necessarily just between the binder, Rosemary Tomerory instructed me on traditional techniques for the binding of my books when I was at art school. Among the books in components of a special collection: a collaboration with the University of Auckland Fine Arts Library I have always loved encyclopedias and dictionaries as a proposed complete set of knowledge. The obvious failings of work. For my exhibition ‘Thinking with your Body’ that was held at Gambia Castle in 2008 I made a publication that I very support of the current Fine Arts Librarian Jane Wild and the generosity of the University of Auckland Library. 46

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that are either unique or printed in a small edition (usually by my brother Brendan, although I've also made books with Librarian my interest in the collection continued. I made a point of buying artists’ books, mainly those produced by rd approach to this work was to make a document for future examination. This ties in to my wider practice in terms of an - I have a big library of books about painting and design. Johns Ambulance book fair in Whanganui. Otherwise they are in the skip. No literature or ‘interesting books’ (I'm pretty - Private press work usually requires a devotion to the ideals of quality. I think there is a tradition of New Zealand illustrated books, which I have been shaped by. This might go back as far as the e make them full colour with the least amount of money. Pocket”. 20

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I am very taken with the intimacy of a book – its ever so slight erotic textures – my books must be touched, leafed into small 'explosive' book form. work. The prevalence of colour description in Woolf’s text accentuates the acuteness of her nature-inspired vision; each was a 20D. Digital capture gave me the opportunity to produce many smaller image "les. roa

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books have always held the possibility of something special. As a teenager I was obsessed with magazines such as ub small presses the literature would not have existed. Many of our titles refer back to this period, for example books by contributors and audience but also between generations, locations or technologies. I feel the “Pine” project resembles a However my production of ‘hand made’ books was purely practical. It was a means of getting a book made at low or no is one I made as a student at Elam – a shrunken, translucent version of a kind of directory-for-alternative-services such a proposition make them so interesting in terms of their hidden (or not so hidden) agendas, subtle hierarchies of much considered to be a part of the work in the show. The installation itself was quite sparse and something that I -

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, - I have a good collection of children's book illustration. liberal) no bibles or Korans or religious books, hardly any NZ, mostly RD condensed and rain damaged 10 cents / 50 Tara McLeod (Irishman and Industry) and John Denny (The long fall from splendour to splendour). I really have no idea School Journal (a publication very much centred on the image-text interface) and also the literary journal Islands, edited present and past sta! and students of Elam, and also some books by other artists. th interest in science "ction "lms: the technocracy of Metropolis and Brazil, the dystopian visions of Blade Runner and A Trace li

It is an area representative of urban ‘backwaters’ everywhere. 6

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through tenderly, as they are mostly damaged. page is literally saturated with the colours of her childhood experiences in Cornwall. The colour patches overlaying her As I see it the main objective of the collection is to collect and preserve the art research in book form produced by past ca

s Pavement, The Face and Dazed & Confused. I never read the articles but viewed the fashion spreads as still movies that e

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- Collaborations with artists do not happen often. In much of my print work the images are produced by myself, mainly as Allen Curnow, Kendrick Smithyman, Leo Bensemann, Janet Frame, Charles Brasch, Maurice Duggan and others. dialogue or conversation, perhaps even a game of ‘Chinese whispers’. Bill Manhire’s poems have their own life in his cost. publication from the US that was mostly acting as an object in an installation also. This book acted as kind of a focus information, or shifting relevance and meaning in the course of time passing. The vademecum can be a handy portable considered a structure for people to operate and move in. The publication “Holding onto it only makes you sick” spoke a ful Between 2001 and 2006 I made 11 self published catalogues. I stopped making them at the end of 2006, mainly because - There is a big connection between modernist painting and typography. It means a great amount to me to work with the old printing technology, hand-setting type letter by letter, followed then ti

e cents stu!. Most of the pages on the inside are recycled by digging a hole out on the farm wetting and burying along This massive play on scale and wordiness de"es a single total viewpoint, and we wished to underscore that quality how many of these small press books I have worked on to date. They’re hard to keep track of. Sometimes books resurface by Robin Dudding, during its heyday in the 1970s. I still have an issue of Islands 23 (1978) with a Murray Grimsdale Books seemed the most viable means to publish the recordings I was making. I envisaged them as a homogenous on Clockwork Orange. y

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l p text are my interpretation of that vision. The photograph series, on the other hand, exposes a di!erently coloured world, and present students and sta! of the Elam School of Fine Arts. To this end I liaise with academic sta! at Elam to try and

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W took me to another place, a more exciting world outside my suburban existence. - El Lissitzky is beloved by painters and designers ... The fact that the books printmaking students made were donated to the library meant the collection quickly grew each :

relief blocks. books, but they also gain other lives as they meander in and out of Ralph Hotere’s artworks. “Pine” collects and records point for a sprawling sculptural diagram of champagne socialism that I made … and the other publication of mine version of something like this, and I like these too. The process of editing something down, the ‘summary’ as an idea in little less generally to these ideas. There were two commissioned texts by David Levinson and Ruth Buchanan where I co

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of their scale and zine-like status. I miss making them, but when I made a conscious decision to change some aspects of by the printing on a handpress. The practice is slow but immensely satisfying. However, the motivation is not just keep Therefore, the notion of ‘fragility’ and ‘preciousness’ suggested by my books; their pristine white covers, so easily soiled, i

ll I am probably more inclined to view them (books) as Waka, as ships, as visitations ... that said: there is no point in isolating with a mixture of horseshit and other organic detritus, recycled co!ee grounds etc. to eventually make raised bed through a micro palm-sized version, which could be read page by page or ultimately opened up and elongated for which I have forgotten about. Recently, someone showed me a book of my poetry, c.1990, called In Rain ... that I had collection and because most concertinaed, I liked the idea that they could be displayed open as a continuous sequence, th

drawing on the cover. As a 17 year old, I was blown away by this journal ... it included Gary Tricker illustrating poems by ia

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Most of our books are fairly conventional in terms of the relationship between form and content though the design of where arti"cial, chemically created colours dominate the natural, skewing our primal vision beyond any hope of return. I was very aware of the way books function when making them and how people read them, but I was trying to present identify the best examples before contacting students with the aim of acquiring their bookwork. s

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ca - Certainly I am interested in ideas from artists, though personal preferences do sometimes in#uence choice, as 'artist' ponents my practice, I had to let the small publications go for a while. I still have all of the physical templates, if I ever want to I was looking to make something that was not terribly book-like. I guess this is a tradition of sorts. So it would fall into the the tradition alive. I believe the opportunities are limitless to "nd fresh applications from within this tradition – it seems the spirit of these encounters. As with Ralph’s earlier work on the “Pine” series, the printing in 2005 was carried out in the their fragile paper jackets, their capacity to #ow or even burst their covers; invites an experience of dissonance between featured is in the format of an advertising #ier – housed in a giant slipcase/box that one might expect a major hardback itself, or even then way the portability of a small reference book suggests a universal relevance – the problematic aspects had asked them to write, however they wanted, about ideas of lived space and ordinary movement. I also included a text year. up

ti those looking to any given territory ... I love books ... I have too many books. It seems as if they come from an in"nite gardens. display. forgotten about! Bill Manhire, Robert Ellis illustrating Ian Wedde, Gordon Crook illustrating his own poems ... By this time I was also very even on a wall. a

p Whenever I think about books I think about narrative or #ow. I imagine that the reader will spend time and there's room I love laying images out exactly where I want them ... parallel with how important the hanging is to me in a painting on For me the book is the more successful part of the work. something more challenging. For instance, by printing white lead on white paper, or black ink on black paper there is a nd does not necessarily mean a good illustrator or images best suitable for a particular book. the books always aims to be appropriate to the texts and images presented. or

category of an artist’s book that confounds the traditional spine-bound format. Bibliography Room at Otago University – the old press technology was re-employed and even some of the same wooden to be contained in … So working with expectation somehow too ... of which I "nd interesting. I guess the iphone is the ultimate portable encyclopedia. Maybe this is why I haven’t wanted by the artist, dancer and performer Simone Forti that reinforced these ideas. I wanted to set up the exhibition where it i

t from the Na stand next to a photocopier for a few hours to re-issue. to me there are many uses and techniques that more modern technology cannot provide. I work at home with a Golding the tactile page turning experience of reading them and the viewer’s appraisal of the ‘mundane’ and ‘utilitarian’ content

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library. I only hope they have a place for me. The Artists’ Book collection is also a bit of a ‘hold-all’ so we would place books there for other reasons; overseas works,

a keen, not surprisingly, on Bill Manhire's work with Ralph Hotere. Through them, I probably came to a fascination with o to o!er up quieter images. Looking at a book is an intimate experience, normally read by only one person at a time. show. At the time the collection began I was not in a position to de"ne its objectives, but I would say that at that time the he

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- Images by other processes: intaglio / litho can of course be amalgamated with relief printed texts. drama of legibility in relation to the reader. Everyday, yet mythical, the words carry extra-textual elements. A book work v

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a A few years earlier I had participated in an exhibition / installation in Christchurch at the Physics Room called geek The dimensions, materials and appearance of CLOUD BOOK were to repeat the elusive silver on white properties of the type was used once more. Sometimes I collaborate with writers and/or artists. The wolf of Horeke and Great Lake are two collaborative books I I made nine titles in editions of three books each. to buy one – the limitlessness seems just too much for a pocket. did not have any excess information so making the book was a really important way to tie it all together. U

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Platen press, circa 1850. The old machine can provide something of a messy wrestling match to get it to do what is displayed within. s

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peci Holloway Press books have a somewhat tangential relationship to ‘artists books’ as generally understood. Our starting concrete poetry (a form I still work in – there are two examples in Winter I was). The Virtues series of photographic collages attains a second life in the self-published book Under the Aegis. Although examples of "ne printing and books in original and unusual formats which would be di%cult to replace or hold on the a

Books are also about pairs, which are romantic in a way; pages always have a direct relationship to the page next to it. intention was to continue to build the collection. I know that Valerie Richards bought artists’ books while she was b In my wider practice a lot of the thoughts, generosity, sentiments, heavy-handed methodologies (which I love) and the I have to confess that I’m not interested in the idea of reading on a digital tablet. I can understand the excitement about could be described as interactive – it can be read and responded to. I have made like 6 or something (books) … I think the books help spread material further and organise it in a way where v

le a o'sphere where I grew silverbeet plants in a mixture of shredded obsolete proprietary computer manuals and co!ee original work's individual canvases, thus achieving an a!ordable 'chip o! the block' for the lucky collector. made with the Sydney-based painter Noel McKenna. In those cases I provided the words--as I did (along with Jenny) for e

al - Internet. Letterpress print has a long provenance, (back to Gutenberg) so those 500 odd years have developed and re"ned the point is the Marshall McCluhan mantra, ‘When technology becomes obsolete for industry it becomes available for art’ (or intended, but I "nd the physical aspect of the technology – handling type, paper and ink – to be an integral and mass-produced, it has been given the same attention to detail, and consistent conceptual overview, as an artist’s book. In open shelves. rsity

t t colle This pairing has the power to either create harmony or tension – like any relationship this very futuristic approach to information, but I’m of the belief that books are an important tactile experience. The Another deeply satisfying aspect of “Pine” was to produce something of a companion volume to one of Ralph Hotere’s - The Whau: River Portage one has a lot of control over the way a viewer receives that material. This organisational advantage is particularly I have tended to adhere to quite traditional methods of book making. The standard #ow of information in a book, the I have always used printed matter in some way or another in my work. I started in my third year of art school when I Librarian. t

nature of the approach I had to the creation of the books is still current in my practice. I plan to make a slightly bigger What feelings does a reader have when, through the materiality of the book its-self, they are maneuvered into handling io

he - NZ publishers and designers go to book fairs. grounds and water. Knowledge in the computer industry is quickly redundant, and keeping up inside a digital coal face the books Air pocket by Pip Culbert and the book of Mari Mahr's photographs just published by the Holloway Press, Two In 1985 I saw a great exhibition of artist-books at the Victoria and Albert Museum, ‘From Manet to Hockney’, and that of A grounding part of the process. na

ction: ction: traditional book in a way that is hard to break out from – good typographic rules, balance, proportion, suitability of words to that e!ect). We simply look for the richest texts and images to put together and print as beautifully, interest- reproducing every image, in the sequence they were shown, it is a miniature version of an exhibition. What is reduced is a - Avondale Shopping: Every Building on Avondale Main Street I was not aware of other artists' use of books as a means of expressing conceptual notions in New Zealand at the time of N

opening of the page and the coarseness and smoothness of the paper, the weight of the book, is all signi"cant in the And, while the printed content of the concertina pages was constant in each of the 250 copies, they each featured a other book projects: Ian Wedde’s “Pathway to the sea” (1975). I also regard “Pine” to belong in the little family of the important for me. indexes, chapters, formats – I like the way all of these things function and like to work within their limitations. I have a made posters and business cards for my sign writing company Newby Signwriting. After that I used the printed form to l I

a scale, more computerised, slicker catalogue on a singular topic soon-ish. - Dealers at international art fairs take their artists’ books. ‘respectfully’ visual texts depicting aspects of the ‘built’ or the ‘natural’ environment which are conventionally considered uc

nstit can be hard as software and hardware and the interweb evolve at a speed dictated by Moore’s law. walk in Edinburgh. Working from the other direction, I illustrated Delicious by Bill Manhire, and Ode to the Little Hotel by rocked my world. I was hugely in#uenced by the French tradition of Artists' Books – the collaborative productions that Another thing to mention is that collections such as this are a microcosm of our main collection where many fabulous ti

o The contemporary art I see in galleries in Auckland seems to be involved in an international conversation and I view the letterstyles, etc. ingly and appropriately as possible – a fairly simple and no doubt somewhat old-fashioned notion. Holloway Press books sense of physical presence – in particular scale and "ne detail – and the ability to negotiate the works within space. On - The Unmentionable: Canal Road Avondale (Both titles reference Ed Ruscha’s ‘Every Building on the Sunset Strip’) their production, however I would like to think my work could now sit alongside the work of international artists such as When I was Librarian, artists’ books were included in the Fine Arts Library Collection Development Policy. The objective k

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la enjoyment of reading a book: its unique physical properties. Tapping and stroking a screen seems limited by comparison. - Artists should heavily design their own websites and books. They are usually more interesting that way ... but not unique grouping of terms hand-drawn on the front and back covers and box top – ultimately creating a limited edition earlier Hotere/Manhire publications, “Malady” (1970) and “The Elaboration” (1972) – “Pine” certainly gathered much book binding diploma and learnt some tricky binding techniques and formats through that, but I never use those skills as make books for my modeling agency Newby Models Inc as well as spring catalogue, posters, #yers and perfume na

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co I do see making books as fundamental to all my work – my "rst two gallery exhibitions of collage pieces arose from to be unworthy of either aesthetic recognition or cultural/ecological preservation? nd

Jenny Bornholdt. I like the idea that these small press books lead a #eeting, elusive existence. There wouldn't be a library artist works are freely available to be borrowed. Where possible for published New Zealand artists’ works, we will try and l

te > characterised French art, particularly early in the 20th century ... French culture really values the limited edition '"ne' Walking the Course L books created by artists in very much the same way. I think the future will probably see more online books that more was to buy at least one book per year produced by sta! and/or students at Elam. I often purchased far more than one l the other hand, much has been gained through the addition of six scholarly essays, ranging from the origins of the Lawrence Weiner. There are always other publications and traditions that inform the books. I have looked at books documenting video labo depend on the design skills and typographical expertise of our printers Alan Loney, Tara McLeod and Brendan O’Brien. ib I would say that the best advice I heard in terms of catalogue production is that if at an exhibition people put a catalogue everyone has the time I suppose. I use the box set to create installations in public institutions and to provide a record of the previous dozen or so books set of 'unique multiples'. direction from these collaborations. I prefer to keep it fairly simple. swatches. o r With this in mind I wanted to create a very tactile object that allowed the user to unclip, shu$e and #ip the pages, to projects illustrating collections of poetry (“Winter I Was” and “Millionaires Shortbread”). I’ve now been involved in over 50 f

- Standard issue: Nineteenth Century Sublime (Title reference to Ed Ruscha’s series of ‘Standard Station’) a The end reader, the artist’s / writer’s vision, the artist’s book for pure visual enjoyment, the contents – poetry, prose etc. all in the country that has all of them. I don't have copies of all of them myself. These books I consider artworks in a book in a way that New Zealand is only getting to. In those collaborative or solo projects – Picasso/Eluard, collect two copies, one for the main collection and one for Artists’ Books to give patrons the best chance of seeing them C

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re people can access. These could be scans of the original artefact or projects designed speci"cally for an Internet context. in their back pocket straight away, it isn't an interesting catalogue – it doesn't work. Good advice from a great artist. I theme of virtue in literature and art, to the motif of the book in art, the history of the emblem, and the word/image Initially I didn't see myself as "tting into the book making tradition as such. Using this medium was simply a way to practice for Video Aquarium Broadcast. As another example of research I also looked at screen design, certain typeface book each year. y

of New - A lot of artists have visual blogs. Is a blog part of the art school curriculum yet? tion treat it as a three dimensional object: with the small military vehicle as sentinel. I've made using a particular sequence of ISBNs. They are also for patrons and fans. - Greywacke a have a primary in#uence on the "nished product. Then of course: sometimes in#uences can come from time and costs – books. Sometimes the role I take in these book projects is as printer/designer/binder. For other projects I’m involved also fundamental sense. now and in the future. ti Our desire to leverage art through design and publishing [and vice versa], springs from a shared sense of the genuine Delaunay/Cendrars, Braque/Char etc. – I found a model for the kind of work I wanted to eventually make, on my own or v

e always look at people when they are given any catalogue to see if they shove it in their pocket straight away. - If Amazon had an artists book category that would be a big deal. Outside of New Zealand the artist’s book seems to have been long accepted as part of the creative tradition. Alongside conjunction integral to the emblem. Whilst some of these texts touch upon the work either indirectly or relatively lightly, e!ectively deliver work within certain economic and aesthetic constraints. histories etc. for this project. We used Apple Garamond – the typeface used by Apple for all their promotional material I like trading books. I am not sure if that is relevant, but that is one function of the book I really enjoy. They have a certain I always try to design the poster or invite to any project I am doing and think that it plays a really important part in things. w

- Avondale Palaces: Real and Lost Realestate Opportunities (References Ed Ruscha’s photo book ‘Real Estate Opportuni- A with visual or text components; but what underpins the direction and shape of my work in general is the opportunity for ith

r Books also hold a very special role in the history of art in New Zealand – magazines and books were the only way many paper, binding etc. Elizabeth Eastmond, who was lecturing at Art History, brought groups of students to the Library to look at the artists’ Zea - No one in any other country looks at New Zealand art. But we look at theirs ... and so the bookshelves where the with others (you've got to aim high in this, as in any other business)! ts a I think book-making is another avenue for experimentation. It gives rise to niche book markets in an age where I have made chapbooks all my poetry career since the 80s, from very small print runs. I've been fascinated with value in cross-disciplinary projects, a anarchic collaborative spirit, alongside the happy failure to accommodate the that there is an enduring history of institutions and patrons supporting and collecting these, often ephemeral, volumes. Sometimes we have made 'artist-books’ to coincide with exhibitions. During my time at City Gallery, with some printing- they create a broad and dynamic "eld of reference through which the work can be read. Finally, even though The Virtues ties’) until 2002. For Cruise Line the designer David Bennewith is using fonts developed during a certain period for the screen. evenness of value, relatively speaking. I was in awe of a Lawrence Weiner exhibition that I saw a few years ago at the Whitney where he had walls "lled with the This can be a tricky path to navigate, weighing up the need for current access with the responsibility for preservation. In the

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New Zealand artists could see the developments happening in America and Europe, which still holds true in many ways books and Elam students, either alone or in groups, frequently viewed the books. There were also viewing requests from univ Hand making books was very encouraged when I was at AUT. There were a lot of student-made publications and books international artists books will sit side by side with NZ artists’ books will be in NZ. I have always been intrigued by 60s conceptual art made to arbitrarily self imposed rules: as for instance when Ed Ruscha, n conventions of typical industry models. I everything tends to be going digital. So it helps to continue an understanding of the book as unique cultural artifact. publishing since I used a gestetner at intermediate school and later at uni when I edited Craccum. I have been Within New Zealand the interest in artists’ books seems a relatively recent phenomenon, while "nding support and photographs are now dispersed, Under the Aegis preserves the series in its entirety, enabling the work to exist beyond - All the Numbers 1 to 96 Naturally there is always a lot of looking at older material or other disciplines when preparing a book. poster designs that he had done for various things over the span of decades. d. In my work, the books produced by the Pear Tree Press and the Holloway Press, (with which I am involved within the area help from my brother Brendan, we produced catalogue/books to accompany exhibitions by Juliet Peter, Janet Paul and this way the collection is a living archive, available to be seen and enjoyed but kept safe for the bene"t of posterity. I n

ers even today. I'd like to think I am ever mindful of the context/function of any book project. Perhaps it is worth mentioning that I began MIT students. Group viewings entailed bringing out a number of books, providing a list of those on show, and talking d #oating around all the time – maybe it has something to do with the fact that we weren't online constantly. They even - NZ books are no less 'good' it’s just an international assumption that all so called high culture in NZ is a joke ... on the way to visit his parents back east, decided to take a photo of every service station he passed on Route 66. This Each place and practice is unique so it’s di%cult to make comparisons, but in my personal experience I did sense more ustri However, I would say the book, as its own art-form, as core to an artist’s practice, has yet to be fully realised here in New interested in zines and self publishing all my life. I have just been patient and waited for technology and the means of funding remains di%cult, the possibility is there. Again, following behind the example from outside New Zealand, local that of an event; a continuing presence one may return to, repeatedly, at will. - Short People (Title references Ed Ruscha’s ‘Colored People’ and Randy Newman’s ‘Short People’) it of design and print), do compare favourably with private press books produced overseas. Many of these books are sold The democratic aspect of printed matter is very appealing – I like that I can make something that can be distributed as Joanna Paul, using photocopying technology and letterpress-printed covers. Insu%cient funding to produce orthodox would like to see this dual purpose continue in the future. y

as an illustrator. The "rst book I co-authored was Paris by C. K. Stead (AUP and OUP 1984) ... from early on, I was stepping of - There is no reason to care about this anyway ... artists’ books are never going to be an important export commodity ... brie#y to students about the collection. e

There is more publishing in bigger countries naturally … Books are in places where one would expect them to be. I guess general interest in artists’ books when I lived in the USA than I do now here in New Zealand. Stores like Printed Matter in I am not sure how many books I have made but I guess, if I were to count the larger edition sizes, I would say 7 so far. s

had book-binding courses that you could sign up to, and an artist workshop on catalogues given by Julian Dashper. chance element seems to o!er a refreshing spontaneity. And for Ruscha, showing his material in book form and

au Zealand. I understand that there are artists overseas who use books as a core part of their practice. So there remains the production and turning 50. I "gured by then I'd be a passable writer. widely or narrowly as I wish. I enjoy too the idea that I can make a unique artwork then to create another piece that artists’ books are shifting from being the fringe activity of an artist’s work to being accepted in a more considerable a

nd haha. into collections overseas. Though again, these are not strictly artist books – though some are books about artists. catalogues for these exhibitions meant we had to be inventive and use modern and old technologies to "nd an a!ord- very carefully over the boundary between the written and the drawn ... That same year I illustrated a long extract from Some of these titles are also in the collections of the Auckland Public Library, the Architecture Library of The University of ck

The Cloud of Unknowing uses as a starting point two other books: ‘The Cloud of Unknowing’, a manual of medieval the web would be a place where at least in terms of possible distribution, country of origin doesn't have to be an New York do a great deal to maintain a high level of interest in artists’ books though, and considering New Zealand’s E Students would go out of their way to make something extra for their end of year shows. I have loads of small catalogues sub-contracting out the making to recently mechanised book manufacturers, was, paradoxically, both a self imposed One objective we have hoped to achieve for some time is to increase access by creating digital representations of the land potential for local artists to engage with books in this way. Currently artists in New Zealand tend to deal with books as a central role. From my point of view the possibilities look likely to continue to develop and the opportunities to grow – l might include that artwork and to provide it with another less rari"ed life – the ‘having your cake and eating it too’ In the library situation there is con#ict between use and conservation of the collection of artists’ books. People viewing a able solution. (The most beautiful one of these is the catalogue/anthology beauty, even for the Joanna Paul exhibition.) Michael King's forthcoming book Being Pakeha for New Outlook magazine ... The "rst time my drawings and writings Auckland and the AUT Library. My "rst major book was called ‘My Blues Song’ and I made it in 2001 or 2002 and it was a book where I asked a whole lot m S at home from that time. I wanted to engage with the act of publishing myself, out of a cardboard box. I wanted to recycle. I wanted to be spirituality (thought to have been written by Julian of Norwich), and ‘The Universal Geography: The Earth and its discipline and a means of access to the random. My sequence, taking a shot of every property on, for example, Canal organising principal. population is less than a ¼ of that city alone it’s very doubtful that a shop like that could function in the same way here. ! - I have had few involvements with purely artists’ books. My work by nature of the technology used does tend to fall books; in particular ones which are fragile or di%cult to view because of their format. To this end and for this exhibition, ne arts singular project, or part of a project, and not as an integral part of their practice. scenario! the future looks bright and rosy! Alongside those 'cottage' productions, while at City Gallery I was involved in making a whole lot of commercial-scaled appeared together was in the journal Islands in 1985. Books, you could almost say, have been a kind of gallery for me. of people I knew to contribute a page (for the book) and a song (for the accompanying mix CD). I photocopied this at my them were asked to either wash their hands or use cotton gloves. It is important that the books are treated with care and ch copyleft. I wanted the process to be transparent and localised and most of all visible to others. Poets and writers within certain traditional perimeters. Inhabitants’, a set of Victorian geography books or atlases. The title of the book and broad concept originates from Road Avondale, was alert to this pragmatic/impulsive tension. Though I contradicted Ruscha by hand-making my books, I with the kind permission of the artists, a small number of stop motion videos showing selected page views from books oo

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Hand made photo-books are a format for which I feel considerable a%nity and I hope in the future to develop more work this is especially important in the case of one-o! books, but it is equally important that they are made available for l Another thing was books and catalogues showed a generosity of spirit to share your practice. I used to go through NZ publications (Hotere—out the black window, Parihaka—the art of passive resistance, Fiona Hall—force"eld, etc). Somewhere to hang the work. mothers work for about 3 days straight and had a major working bee in the studio that I shared with Sriwhana who ibr publish. Enough said. f former, whilst the imagery (fragments of sky extracted from engravings of landscapes) is derived from the latter. F

- Hard to get away from the codex structure, into more (sculptural) forms – book as object. I found the “Pine” book an extraordinary experience but in some respects the project resembled a ‘recovery operation’. Bill think of their artisanal qualities as provocatively highlighting the arbitrary nature of their thematic content, in a manner ar in this medium. have been put together by sta! at the library. These have been done really nicely and more videos of the books ‘perform- in

y post to get special stamps made, which were add-ons to catalogues, or make a mix CD and make the catalogue into a ended up working as hard as I did on it. A lot of energy came from the chance to work with others. It was a lot more viewing. Though there is likelihood of damage to books while they are being used (and this has happened), it is o!set by e - The work is mainly text related, but also working with experimental typography, once again, within the limits of the Manhire’s poems "rst existed as postcards sent from London to Ralph Hotere in Dunedin in the 1970s. About that time Connecting these sources is the aim for universal truth: in the medieval book, the reader is encouraged to discover in keeping with the spirit of spontaneity apparent in Ruscha’s aesthetic. A In passing, I've always liked poetry books and art books because people tend not to read them in a linear fashion. They ing’ could be one way to increase access and raise the pro"le of the artists and the collection, without putting works at r Chapbooks have been the staple publishing tool of poets and bards since the middle ages. Now we can say the same When I walk around exhibitions like ‘Two Walking’ (Mari Mahr's work, currently at City Gallery) or the ‘John Pule—Hauaga’ the need for people to see and handle them. ts

rewarding than working alone. I had this idea that I did not want to do anything that I could do alone. This has changed a . ‘pack’. process. Ralph was using the large hand-press in the Bibliography Room at Otago University and combining printing with universal wisdom through contemplation; in the atlases, wisdom is considered to stem from universal knowledge. In my Ruscha outsourced the production of his books because paperbacks at that time could be produced quite cheaply. Of for zines since the 60s. Overlay a geek culture of Apple, Adobe postscript and pdfs, Pagemaker, Quark and Indesign, can be entered at any point, lingered on ... left open around the house. (Fundamentally, I was always drawn to poetry exhibition, which I co-curated with Aaron Lister, I like the feeling that the gallery has been transformed into a book-like risk. - So, craft or art – my work tends to lean toward craft, but could be part of supporting elements for artist created books. book, the universal (or global) is reiterated through a di!erent strategy: by emphasizing the sky, the sense of place is lot now but at the start it was a huge idea for me. I always look for re-occurring themes, humour, interesting combinations of content, and, funnily enough lately, I have wooden type with hand-painted texts, so the "rst ‘sheets’ of “Pine” existed from around then. However the poems, and because a poem is always, "rstly, a form on the page, a shape, a visual unit. That's probably an important point. And a space, the works are pages. The Graham Percy exhibition is like that too ... the 'space' of a book and the 'space' of a gallery course book production is still relatively cheap, but I liked the idea of contradicting Ruscha’s methods in the decision to The thing I "nd fascinating about artists’ books are their various forms and formats: some consist of images only, some of E-books and ipads and podcasts and web 3.0. - The book designer is trying to bring together artistic, creative ideas as well as practical skills and respect for the content A search of the catalogue retrieved 317 (books) and we have purchased a few more very recently. been concerned whether I can read books in the bath. In the past I was obsessed with layout – how I could get the Ralph’s treatment of them, had never been converted into book form. The project unearthed two poems from the series book of poetry is, amongst other things, a sequence of shapes ...) (architectural) and the 'space' of the world beyond are brought together in a very productive synthesis or melee. While I diminished. Lines #ow across each double-page spread, from one page to the next, sequenced according to the patterns show my work in the hand bound craft tradition of the book. I suppose folk like Ed Rusha struck a cord with me when I "rst encountered their work. In a really di!erent kind of way only text; others contain a combination of text and image. Often they are enigmatic and not easy to ‘read’. For this reason and materials. amount of information I needed to get across on A4 with a minimal budget – with all the time in the world to fold, glue By turning books inside out in the recycling process I am literally trying to be part of the movement of change inside - But I see opportunities to learn from the artist’s more creative approach, which stretches the concept of the book, that Ralph had not previously worked with; while discussions with Ralph about the curious e!ects he achieved ‘inking’ think of it, Colin McCahon was a great transformer of the gallery into a book-like space ... think of The Wake, all fourteen of prevailing weather. Whereas the atlases originally celebrated di!erences – ethnic, geographic, cultural – this book Francis Stark and her writing practice also really in#uenced me. I think what mainly got me into making books was the I asked students to provide a short description/explanation of their books. I've spent much of the past few years writing about art in a critical/historical capacity – which is a pretty natural thing to I had been involved in workshops with students executing briefs that required them to use bookbinding facilities so I had The Fine Arts Library has speci"c strategies regarding the collection of information about New Zealand art and also Elam and sew it together. I have since been obsessed with the detailed processes of the making of books and magazines. the publishing industry. I am turning literature inside out so to speak, exposing its inner patina of glue and cloth and challenging established ideas of what a book is. the type unearthed some unorthodox techniques (numerous cleaning brushes, clothes and sponges all featured in the 'pages' of it ... also Gavin Chilcott's assemblage 'Letter to Ed Allington' ... a 'letter' which "lled up an entire room ... Hotere's considers the extent to which such ‘di!erences’ have been minimized, homogenized or erased. revelation that it was something that I could do myself and print myself and it did not have to take a long time or lots of do if you have one foot in the literary camp, the other in the visual arts camp. That said: I do di!erentiate the kinds of some degree of expertise with the techniques. Sometimes artists’ books do not resemble books at all, but most of those in the collection adhere quite closely to the and the University of Auckland (as outlined in our Collection Management Plan). So the artists’ books are part of our plan, Currently I'm working at an institution that has a publishing output, and have noticed the change between online- cardboard. Staples are an honest post modernist method of binding. mix). The “Pine” project served to recover the missing Manhire poems, the ‘lost’ Hotere printing techniques and to ‘Song Cycle’ banner-scrolls ... etc. money. I used to read a lot of zines and some of these became extremely precious items to me even though they were works I have been commissioned to write (for publishers or for galleries) and those that I have generated myself. Two of The most noticeable aspect of The Cloud of Unknowing is its extreme scale, the dimensions of which arose out of book format. The fact that books are three dimensional enables the artist to explore sculptural aspects. Books enable but as they are a little bit more special than regular published works we refer to them as a ‘special collection’. This kind of publishing PDF essays as opposed to the time and process that a book takes to make. It makes printed books, and produce a book that somehow escaped publication 30 years earlier. At the same time I was also gaining experience in software applications, ‘In Design’ in particular, so the area of book only a few bucks. It was their directness and the way that they did not take themselves too seriously that motivated me Skill sets are pretty basic to manufacture the way I do. Some DTP, a squint in the direction of design to create a look and necessity rather than a desire for grandeur. In the original engravings, black lines, dots, or crosshatchings suggest tones artists to communicate intimately with their audience: they are held in the hand, pages are turned, stories are told. What collecting is also part of the greater Library’s strategy and this can be seen in the excellent Special Collections depart- certainly hand-made ones seem all that more special. the books closest to my heart are News of the swimmer reaches shore – a book-length essay with drawings and other In terms of "ne press printing, there is a strong international network ... so books produced here by Tara McLeod, John to do the same in the context of my art practice. As a teenager in Auckland I remember stumbling upon the collaborations of printer Bob Lowry and poet A R D Fairburn – ranging from white, through grey, to black; the closer the markings, the darker the suggested tone. These images have design was of interest to me in its own right. ment of the General Library. feel, patience and a longer term view of a poetry career in NZ and the world. visuals – and my recently published book about the illustrator Graham Percy, A micronaut in the wide world. Both those Denny or (a little earlier) Alan Loney are very much part of the global "ne-press tra%c. I recall back in the 1980s being is especially delightful for a librarian is that artists’ books, though they are works of art, have a valid place in the Library. “How to Ride a Bicycle in Seventeen Lovely Colours” and “The Sky is a Limpet”. I was drawn to the wacky free-spirited been enlarged to the stage when the lines open up su%ciently to create an optical e!ect. The dynamic linear #ow I'm living in Wellington now and there are loads of zines and zine fairs and the like, as well as the national archive, which books are 'non-"ction', but they both exist at the very heart of my creative enterprise ... along with the books of poems, interested in the kind of 'alternative' book productions artists (usually women) such as Robin White were making. Megan One of my MFA supervisors, Megan Jenkinson, also encouraged me to use the photo book medium as an e!ective way to I think it comes back to this idea that a book is something that one can choose to engage with or choose to ignore. I am The Library can serve as a gallery for these book works and at the same time preserve a record of the work of Elam sta! I dropped one once. In my defence they were packaged in particularly slippery plastic for a time (which I have been The early Caxton Press publications from the 30s to 50s, the soviets in the 20s and 30s, the Dadaists and Situationists. anarchy of design in these books – the intoxicated collision of illustration, design and text created something greater subsumes the original image and its precisely delineated meaning, allowing for new readings to emerge in this greatly artists are using a lot to inform various print-based projects. the hand-made books etc. Both of these non-"ction books have a very strong 'book concept' and something I would call Jenkinson's work, around that time, had a fascinating relationship with the 'book' and with notions of illustration and show the wide range of photo material I had gathered. interested in the fact that they are portable and can be kept and held onto. The time spent with a book can be private and students. replacing with archival pockets) and to my horror it skated down the stairs from the mezzanine where we keep them. Hippies on acid making psychadelia and whole earth catalogues. The little red school book. Web o!set student media than the sum of individual parts. These books looked to me like a good time was had in their making and that appealed expanded world. 'character'. illumination. I was also inspired by the rustic woodblock graphics of artists like Philip Clairmont and Nigel Brown – both and in an environment that suits you where as sometimes looking at art needs to be done during the exhibition hours. Thankfully it was one of our most robust specimens and no damage was done. It was witnessed by only one other sta! In Auckland there is access to two of the best art book shops in the world – Parson's and s/f. They always have great at uni. David Carson, raygun and deconstructed text as visual object. The challenge of reading. to me, further nudging me along the path of book making. Another crucial encounter from around the same time for me Handmade artists’ books have a very long tradition. Many artists have used them as a vehicle to get their work to Though I am tempted to say that I would collect artists’ books from all over the world, I think really that I would keep the used 'illustrative' approaches (in the best sense), and usually outside the setting of the book. Cilla McQueen's handmade, member who drily commented: “I’m glad that wasn’t my artist book”. examples of books there, and buy artist's books. If you aren't in the circles of artists who can get a book published you was with Colin McCahon’s “15 Drawings”, the hand written text and loose sheet binding signaled to me the existence of Increasingly I have been working in the "eld of printmaking (working with Cicada Press in Sydney) ... this appeals to me specialist communities and/or out to a wider audience. The display of work in handmade book formats is initially collection within its present unique parameters. This supports, in a small way, Elam sta! and students, and in the years to There are no such things as wealthy poets, especially when you choose to operate on the fringes outside the photocopied books I collected; also the broadsheets of David Eggleton and Michael O'Leary. Colour Codes takes the form of a portfolio comprising nine large folded sheets or folios. Each folio features three just go out and approach a designer or make one yourself. With this independent spirit I would say that we are very clued an alternative universe to the poorly printed, perfect bound books I was familiar with. greatly because printmaking bears such a close relation to book-making. I love the process, the ink, the paper ... And also unmediated by curatorial selection and may be more accessible to people who don’t have access to institutional art, or to come it will re#ect the changes and trends of the work produced at Elam. One of the things I "nd fascinating is the endless diversity with which the books can translate artistic expression. In a ‘established’ publishing industry. I am Marxist and believe in ownership of my own means of production. I am a recycler components: a reproduction of a painting; a text that describes the painting in terms of its colours; and a colour palette up. the fact that, like books, prints are editioned so can be dispersed widely and with less expense. I've also been collaborat- You could say some of this NZ work is lacking a certain re"nement or decorum when compared with book-arts/artist- those who see art circles as a sphere in which they would not be welcome. So an egalitarian, unauthorised, accessible digital world where it may be claimed that books are losing their signi"cance, our collection shows they are still one of because that’s how I am as well. You are either part of the solution or part of the problem. A lot of my books are These books made me aware of the wide-ranging possibilities not only for the author and artist but also more signi"- sampled from the reproduction. These folios require no speci"c sequence, as each is a work in itself. Collectively, With regard to the organisation of the collection, I would like to have it housed in conservation quality hanging "les, or in ing with John Pule on a series of etchings we’ve made 10 so far – these incorporate words and images by both of us. It's book productions from America or Europe ... but that's a generalisation. Certainly, because of technologies at the time, aura may attach to work presented in this way. the best methods for capturing ideas, concepts and craft. The book is a very forgiving and robust format and can be deliberately designed to be easy to replicate and copy and I make sure that texts are available on the interweb on cantly for the printer and designer – that these roles could greatly in#uence the appearance of the book and they could however, the texts and images enable the reader to undertake a comparative study of colour perception and personal acid free boxes specially made for each item. an intriguing, surprising, illuminating opportunity. Two ambidextrous people working together – that's four hands! there is a ruddiness and crudeness to some book productions of the 1970s and 80s in particular. (Have a look at the almost anything in form. They will carry "ne drawings or pasted in pieces of magazine without discrimination and are facebook, etc. be extremely artistic. vision. Remove one of the sheets and a palette of colours is available for use. If the work is formally acquired for preservation in book collections, Librarians to some extent, take on the critical aspects journal I edited/published back then: Rambling Jack ... some very wobbly paste-up ... but the visuals – by people like Fatu truly a faithful companion to the artist. We are very proud of our collection and hope you enjoy the exhibition. Our In the past I have tended to link exhibitions to books. My "rst exhibition at RKS ART in Auckland (in 1990) was titled ‘Great of the curatorial role. However, their selection of texts may be made for archival purposes as well as on the basis of We are all in the same boat. Zines are an expression of peoples’ publishing ful"lling niches inside and outside the Feu'u, Nigel Brown, Carole Shepheard and others – seemed to cope ok.) thanks to Taarati and Tracey for putting this together. Following on I became aware of the work of other practitioners such as Alan Loney of the Hawk Press and, in Australia, Lake’. It included many of the ink drawings included in my book Great Lake, published by LCP in Sydney the following aesthetic criteria. This suggests an inclusive dimension to the institutional acquisition of hand-made books. publishing industry. It’s a global village now, everything a $15 Fedex parcel or a 55 cent letter away anywhere in the Ken Bolton’s Shocking Looking Books imprint. Although their work might be described as being polar opposites – one year. The second show at RKS was called ‘The rockstrewn hills’, which happen to be the "nal Perhaps it is also worth noting that, for me, ultimately 'the book' is a gathering of energies, whether disparate or singular world or this country. Writers and poets are taking advantage of new ways involving technology to disseminate and Note: * Contributors responded to a set of questions by email a set of questions by to responded * Contributors Note: its original form within this publication. and the text close to they supplied has been retained being "rmly in the "ne printing tradition and the other demonstrating an ingenious low tech aesthetic – both worked in nature. It is a room with as many doors or windows as there are pages. Viewing visual texts in handmade books can be a private experience in a way that seeing work in a public gallery, or even earn an income.