Almost Book One (self portrait)

The Self Portrait book happened because I liked the looks of a little Moleskine book with accordion pages.  I made some brush and ink drawings of myself in it and was surprised to find that one page after another was pretty good.  Of course that didn’t last.  I had to cut out pages with bad drawings and add pages with better drawings and finally make new covers so it didn’t remain a Moleskine book at all.

I show this small book standing, opened out like a folding screen, so the drawings can be seen to bend over the edge of one page onto the next.  The figures are still but they’re set so that they seem to shift from one gesture into the next.  The action doesn’t stop between the images; it stops in the images themselves, in the intent looking of the figure as she draws.

Perhaps Self Portrait is the most direct way for me to say what I try to do.  Its subject, the subject of much of my work, is process.  The book quite literally shows that for me making art isn’t about making one good image.  It’s about observation.  About thinking and looking from one vantage point then another.  Again and again and again.

Self Portrait was the first book that I made in an edition.  I scanned it directly and was pleased that I was able to reproduce the white gouache corrections that I had made on the original.  I used a whiter paper than in the Moleskine book and reduced the size of the page slightly.  I made and included in each a tiny card showing how to take the book jacket off and open the book out for display. 

Not knowing any better, I made too large an edition.  Several were sold or given to libraries. Some sold at book fairs.  An artist/designer friend took a handful into his shop and sold them, then asked for more and sold those.  And I gave them to friends.  I still have some — but they don’t take up a lot of space.