more BAO stuff

Some more images from the busy studio day yesterday. Mostly BAO project stuff. 15 lengths (1.65m each) of hand stamped cotton archive tape using archival ink and my favourite rubber stamps. Thats alot of stamping I can tell you! At least 4 or 5 copies of "Robinson Papers" on each length.

And another pic of the tablet inscription in progress.

For more images visit my flickr page: http://www.flickr.com/photos/abithomas/sets/72157626032069446/

Creating an inscription

In the studio at the moment. Creating the fake tablet.

Gathering Archival Materials and Doing Research of my Own

For the BAO project so far I have gathered or bought solid brass paperclips (archival - wont rust), post it note strips for book marking and note taking, small plastic ziplock sample bags, 3 pens; one red, one blue and one archival ink black pen, cotton tying tape (the type libraries and archives use to tie up bundles of documents and falling apart books), brown Fimo modelling clay (to make a tablet with inscriptions on to photograph) and two journals (as seen in the last photo; to use as the pretend researcher's diary and notebook).

As you can see from the images I have also been busy doing a bit of research into inscriptions, scripts, lost languages, and deciphering. Easy really as I work in a museum library by day! Can you see why this project is making me so excited?

I have decided that the pretend archive will consist of notes, photos etc..from a pretend researcher of the Library of Alexandria, and her name will be Miss Emma Robinson.
So, I now need to:

• make up a script/language
• create a clay tablet with that script inscribed into it using the Fimo
• photograph that tablet
• take rubbings from the tablet
• start writing a diary and deciphering notebook as if I was Miss Emma Robinson (the pretend researcher in the Library of Alexandria)
• find suitable, inexpensive A5 boxes 
• perhaps set up a photo shoot of myself (or a friend) posing as Miss Emma Robinson at work; perhaps holding the clay tablet or writing her notes
• find my old fountain pen and try to get black ink for it and make it work

There are probably many other things I need to do but I can't list them all; for one it would be boring for you all to read it and for another I would be here all day! Anyway, here is just a little taster of things to come. Hope you are enjoying the insights into the way I think and work. More soon. 

BAO project - ideas in detail

Me again. Here is the full info on what's been going on in my head and in my hands today: 

After deliberating over using clay, fimo, etc... to make an inscribed tablet, and not being able to make my mind up over what book structure to use, and worrying about not being able to live up to the other amazing BAO artist's standards, and spending time in my studio surrounded by all my 'stuff' I suddenly thought to myself "What are you doing?! Do what you enjoy! Make what you like to make, what you find interesting, what you are passionate about! Make an ARCHIVE!"

It is a text about a library after all...

After looking at some photocopy research I had done a few weeks back of Paul Klee's work on pictograms and glyphs and also seeing again the work of Steve McPherson in Sarah Bodman's book Creating Artists' Books I felt overcome with ideas and enthusiasm. 

I want to be able to recreate a fake archive of a researcher who may have used the library at Alexandria at the time the Winterson text is describing. Perhaps in a box, or in a file? I will need to be able to recreate the same archive 15 times so it was important to do a trial run to see what things I will be able to easily reproduce  repeatedly and which I will have to leave out. 

Now these images are of what I have been doing today in my studio. This is a mock up, a run through, a solid sketch. I needed to make what was in my head to see if it actually was going to work. 

I think I know how to go about it now, and it feels so right, so right for this project, so right for me. 

It is going to be so much fun! 

Book Art Object project-archive glyph research book

Finally in the studio. Funny how ideas seem to come together so quickly here. Very exciting. So ive been working on ideas that encapsulate the Winterson text. Ladders and the written word were two important factors that came out. I was thinking of how to encorporate clay tablet enscriptions into a editioned piece but decided its too fragile. Then i thought, hang on, an archive! The text speaks of a library, researchers, why not?! So now its me thinking how to recreate a made up archive of materials 15 times, but to look unique. Easy. . .