By the Book: an exhibition of booky things at Firestation Print Studio was an unexpected delight: I hadn't realised how many people were interested in books, making books and including booky things in their artworks. The standard was very high and very interesting indeed. The exhibition went from the 8th to the 26th February 2017.
At Firestation Print Studio our association with Books has been of recent origin. We started in 2013 with a Book plate exhibition which touched a nerve across Australia. We had no idea what we were doing, nor that a “bookplate” had rules! To our surprise we were inundated with people who were fascinated by the bookplate and that led to Robert Littlewood having an exhibition here of his collection of bookplates, and to our members learning more about the genre.
At the same time FPS was learning about making books… artist’s books, not ones made under the master bookbinder’s arts. We had Adele Outteridge from Brisbane and Guy Begbie from Bath teach us techniques to use. And we were off! We now have a small but very passionate Book Arts Club who meet once a month. We have since sold two of our books to the State Library of Victoria.
So I thought it was time to find out what our members were doing with Book related themes and got a shock! This exhibition was amazing – in its content and its technical mastery. Artists are beavering away with their images and formats and producing really interesting works. We even had one bookplate. By Richard White, it’s a green frog – a linocut – and was sold instantly!
This may be the first exhibition about books and booky things, but certainly won’t be the last!
Edith May
At the same time FPS was learning about making books… artist’s books, not ones made under the master bookbinder’s arts. We had Adele Outteridge from Brisbane and Guy Begbie from Bath teach us techniques to use. And we were off! We now have a small but very passionate Book Arts Club who meet once a month. We have since sold two of our books to the State Library of Victoria.
So I thought it was time to find out what our members were doing with Book related themes and got a shock! This exhibition was amazing – in its content and its technical mastery. Artists are beavering away with their images and formats and producing really interesting works. We even had one bookplate. By Richard White, it’s a green frog – a linocut – and was sold instantly!
This may be the first exhibition about books and booky things, but certainly won’t be the last!
Edith May
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