There be beetles, and there be possums
Three new artists’ books
Gracia Haby & Louise Jennison
Bilateral Symmetry
2024
24 page barn fold, pamphlet stitched, artists’ book, with pop up components and narrative (by Gracia Haby), Indigo Digital CMYK on 160gsm ecoStar + 100% Recycled Uncoated, with cover, Indigo Digital CMYK on 300gsm ecoStar + 100% Recycled Uncoated
Printed by Bambra
Bound by Gracia Haby & Louise Jennison, with hand-cut elements
Edition of 100
Looking for green, remaining hopeful
2024
9 page concertina, artists’ book, Indigo Digital CMYK on 160gsm ecoStar + 100% Recycled Uncoated, with cover, Indigo Digital CMYK on 300gsm ecoStar + 100% Recycled Uncoated
Printed by Bambra
Edition of 75
Restoring corridors
2024
12 double-sided image panel artists’ book with 5 text pages, inkjet print on Canson Arches 88 310gsm, with accompanying narrative, ‘A good soft release site is a connected site’ (by Gracia Haby), housed in a box with original watercolour cover (by Louise Jennison) on Saunders Waterford Aquarelle 300gsm white hot-press paper
Printed by Arten
Edition of 4
There be beetles, and there be possums; on the page, the very large page.
At pace, things continue, as Restoring corridors, and other tales, shimmy their way, score by fold, closer to the finish line. From the hand-cutting of pop-up moths within Bilateral Symmetry to the accordion-folding of avian postcards within Looking for green, remaining hopeful, the three new artists’ books we are working on simultaneously are melding into a colourful chorus line of Chestnut-crowned warblers avoiding the dab of a brush, Robert Hooke’s flea “all over adorned with a curiously polish’d suit of sable Armour, neatly joined” and about to leap, and Burrowing bettongs, if you’ve a keen eye and the patience to remain quite still.
After many mock-ups and much head scratching (is it a mirror image on the reverse side?), seeing the two sides of Restoring corridors successfully laminated together, at Arten, proved both a relief and a delight. As Louise cut the pages to size, piece by piece, slowly, steadily, Restoring corridors, grew into an actual, near finished piece. Now all that remains is to assemble, sign, and to cut and lay protective sheets between the pages.
Because Restoring corridors is three metres when extended, each of the four editions will come with a pocket-sized version so the reader can map out their composition, should they be hanging it upon a wall. A mini box for a mini book takes form in the space previously inhabited by the ringtail joeys, Celeste, Linus, Lute, and Sylvie, who will be ready to graduate to the outdoor enclosure, just as this work is ready to be shown. This time next week, we’ll be threading ropes through the enclosure to fasten branch swings instead.
And though she’ll be ready on the day, Bilateral Symmetry is taking a little bit longer to complete. With 100 covers to have a slot for a title card and a tree bough sculpted to fasten the fore-edge of the book together, 200 moth text pages to hand-cut, joined by 200 pop-up Scott sisters moths on the central pages, and no less than 500 three-hole pamphlet-stitch stitches, it is something of a flea circus, the assembly.
Pictured, below, on the Bambra floor, Bilateral Symmetry, hot off the press. It will be launched at the 2024 NGV Melbourne Art Book Fair. It will be finished.
One, two, three, on the 23rd of May, she’ll get there.
We’re looking forward to releasing into the wild, three new artists’ books from our stall at the tenth NGV Melbourne Art Book Fair.
Swing by our stall to see Restoring corridors, Looking for green, remaining hopeful, and Bilateral Symmetry in all their finished relief. We’d love to see you.
NGV Melbourne Art Book Fair
Great Hall, NGV International
180 St Kilda Road, Melbourne
Friday 24th of May
10am–5pm
Saturday 25th of May
10am–5pm
Sunday 26th of May
10am–5pm
Free, no booking required
artfair.melbourne
On Sunday the 2nd of June, we’ll be at the CAM Art Book Fair, and we’ll have copies of Bilateral Symmetry and Looking for green, remaining hopeful, for you to peruse.
CAM Art Book Fair
Sunday 2nd of June
10am–3pm
Free, no booking required
Castlemaine Art Museum
14 Lyttleton Street, Castlemaine
You can pre-order an edition of Bilateral Symmetry, with the option of collecting it in person at the NGV Melbourne Art Book Fair.
Pictured tweeting below, you can also pre-order Looking for green, remaining hopeful.
Image credit: Common kestral (Falco tinnunculus), Red-necked spurfowl (Francolinus afer), Rusty pitohui (Pitohui ferrugineus), and a Southern boobook owl (Ninox novaeseelandiae) within a postcard collage within our forthcoming artists’ book, Looking for green, remaining hopeful, 2024. (The title of this post, ‘There be beetles, and there be possums’, takes on quite a different meaning when placed over such a quartet.)
