Friday, November 9, 2012

Today Only

Today Only - artist book - accordion style

The Today Only artist book began in Leuven, Belgium and moved to Paris, France and finally to my studio in Connecticut.  It started with an impromptu series of performance documents by the Seeking Kali Artist Collective (Ria Vanden Eynde, Belgium, Susan Shulman, Canada and myself)  

 tests on a variety of papers and press pressures

Beginning with the concept of impermanence, the temporal and the idea that action only happens in the present we produced a series of pictures taken in thirty locations in Leuven, Brussels and Paris. A final ten were selected and matched to short statements and poetry concerning time and the location where each photograph was taken.

photogravure on solarplate

The images were first transferred to acetate positives then to solarplates.  The photo above shows the solarplate hardening in the UV light of the sun. The book unfolds to an approximate length of 20 feet.  Each page is also embellished with blind embossing.  Cloth covers with embossed lettering encases the pages.

detail of blind embossing

acetate, imprint and plate 

studio shot showing prints drying in foreground and potential order of pages on wall 

accordion folds

Video footage showing the inking and printing of a page from Today Only.




 Colophon

The entire project is even more special because as an international working group most of our collaboration is necessarily web based as we are rarely together to physically work on projects.

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