Houston Book Arts Guild

Houston Book Arts Group’s 2011 collaborative book project – The Exquisite Corpse!

Binding meeting – Saturday July 23 in the Bindery at the Museum of Printing History
We measured the box and tray board sizes, made a mock version of the accordion, planned how the accordion would be assembled into the box and be opened, measured the rough cut book  cloth and made a template for stamping on the spine title and the front cover art onto the book cloth .
Next meeting (Aug 4 before the general 2012 planning meeting) we will cut the boards and book cloth.

Next after that (date to be determined) we will stamp the book cloth, make the decorative lining paper, assemble the boxes / trays / lining paper. We will bring our ready art and see if w have time to assemble the accordions. 

Materials:

Drop spine box case and tray walls: black bookbinding cloth, probably from the Paper Source

Lining paper for tray bottom and inside of box case: Strathmore drawing or watercolor paper, 80 lb. weight, to be taken from a shared pad and inked with a brayer and block printing ink in paste paper style (pad available at Texas Art Supply)

Accordion paper base for exquisite corpse text block: Arches cover weight in black (available at Texas Art Supply). Accordion will begin UNDER the tray bottom and fold in an accordion stack on the tray. To read the book, flip pages open to the left and mix and match parts – there will be two “corpses” viewable when the book is opened.

Cover art: The images shown placed on the cover of this mock-up box will be made into carved stamps and stamped with block printing ink onto the black book cloth cover of the box binding. Carvers: Kristin, Marjorie and Anne

Binding notes:

• Out-of-town participating artist Marylinn Riker’s artwork will be featured on the top page of the accordion text block.
• Marjorie is drafting a colophon.
• Artists are encouraged to submit a sentence or two as bio info. Relationship to reality not required.

Materials to bring in addition to your assigned part of binding parts:

Your art in 9 sets!

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Final art meeting: June 2, 2011

Based on the mock-up participation at the April meeting, all the participants will make two (2) images, one in color and one in black and white, same dimensions as previously stated.  We will look at having all the colors on the recto side and all the black and whites on the verso side.  That way, when we pull the accordion out, there will be images on every side and they will automatically be diverse. 

Please bring your two mock-ups to the June 2nd Collaboration meeting at 5:30 pm and ideas for materials to use in binding.  The art does not have to be on black accordion folded paper because that will happen as part of the group binding session. At this meeting we have a final count of the number of images we have and we are moving on to binding after that (using the image count to estimate material needs for binding).

May meeting – cancelled due to scheduling issues

Dress Rehearsal Meeting – APRIL, 2011 –

1.) Bring your draft artwork in the correct size so we can test it how it plays all together.

2.) Bring material ideas for binding / cover.

• Idea for magnetic snap closures

At the March 2011  meeting, we decided:

• the finished size of the corpse pages = 11″ height x 5″ width

• the sizes of the three body sections (head and neck section 3″ height x 5″ wide, shoulders and torso to waist section 3″ height x 5″ wide, hips & legs section 5″height 5″ wide)

• the body parts should be centered so that as we mix and match body parts, any head will connect reasonably with any torso, and any torso with any legs.

• the binding will likely be accordion folded pages (in the three body sections), attached to a paper backing which will be set into a case binding which has two sides and two overlapping top pieces closing with a magnetic closure. Snap!  This will be discussed more later. We should bring ideas for materials to use in the binding for the April meeting — book board and what? Book cloth?

Participants can work individually on their bodies / art, and we will plan to do the assembly & casing in together to ensure consistency in our edition.

Next meetings:

• Dress Rehearsal Meeting – APRIL 6, 2011 – artwork in the correct size due so we can test it how it plays all together,  bring material ideas for binding / cover
  Cover and binding finalized – MAY, 2011
  Actual Binding of the collaboration – JUNE, 2011

Past meetings:

• January 2011 - - discussed overall format of book.
• February 3, 2011 — cancelled due to weather
• March 2011 — agreed on finished size of the corpse pages

Initial planning information in PDF format.

Exquisite Corpse is a game originally played by European surrealists in the early part of the 20th century. There are written and pictorial forms of this game; both involve the same principle, that the players each make a contribution to the whole. The pictorial form of Exquisite Corpse (also called Picture Consequences) is for each participant to form a picture of a body in multiple sections.

Each participant will have their own book as a result of this collaboration, plus we’ll make a book for the Museum of Printing History for their archives, and another book for sending around to national or international book arts shows.  Each participant will provide (draw, paint, stamp, letterpress, etc.)  a separate head and shoulders, a separate midsection of the body, and a separate legs and feet.

Anne Rita Taylor and Kristin Aaker Flanagan have volunteered to head up our 2011 Book Art Collaboration.

Hope to see you soon!