well simple in form does not necessarily mean simple in the making... this one had me tearing my hair out!
The idea was simple enough – 12 pages for 12 photos taken of my work Ex libris (installed on the property on the site of a vanished school – just a few hundreds metres from the house and studio here at sams creek)
Ex Libris (9am)
I took a picture of the work on the hour – every hour - from dawn to dusk... and decided I would create a book from the photos of my books - as a sort of secular book of hours (in fact I'm titling the piece 'hora libri' which can be interpreted as 'hour book' or 'book of hours')
for the uninitiated – Books of Hours were personal prayerbooks of the devout and status-conscious society of the late medieval/early renaissance era – the most stunning examples included lavishly painted miniatures, exquisite calligraphy with illuminated capitals executed on vellum – the covers of some had precious gems embedded – all very bling bling!
(A great resource to read/see more about them is the John Hartman volume 'Books of Hours')
I played around with quite a few ideas for my 'book of hours' but concertina offered the best solution – this format offered a linear arrangement for my photos – and by choosing robust materials I envisaged that the piece may be displayed open – and upright – without support
and so off I set to making the piece
I've utilised old encyclopaedia covers (left over from making serpens volumen) to give the piece rigidity, covered with waxed buckram (all one piece – the hinges are integrated) – getting the very long single piece of buckram attached and smooth and lovely was EEEEEKKKK – and of course I forgot to put the internal buckram pieces on for the hinges before I attached the external cover (of course!) EEEEEEKKKK!! (note to reader – this is NOT the actual words uttered at the time.... I've given you the cleaned up family version of what was uttered) - so of course I had to gingerly remove the turn-over, quickly paste in the inner buckram hinges, then re-paste the covers and re-work.... (those corners were hard enough the first time around!)
finally it was looking good
On the inside of the structure I've used some of last years 'network' ink drawings – which work surprisingly well with the content and colours – and on top of these are the individual photos.
The piece stands wonderfully well without support (success!)
I like it arranged as a star – so that the circularity as opposed to linear nature of time is hinted at.
I'm planning on making another 2 concertina 'hora libri' – so that there's an edition of 3 - but I suspect each in the edition will be a bit different...
This looks great - I know how difficult it is to get all that buckram down perfectly and having a few problems along the way must have really had you cursing. But you'd never know to look at the finished product. Very elegant.
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