The Al-Mutanabbi Street Coalition

The Al-Mutanabbi Street Coalition is seeking an additional 12 artists' book makers for its project, An Inventory of Al-Mutanabbi Street. We are seeking the very best people that we can find who will provide us with artists' book responses to the 2007 car bombing of al-Mutanabbi Street in Baghdad. We have an extensive exhibit schedule that will start in 2013, one that includes the U.S., the UK., Europe, Australia, and Cairo, Egypt. This call will run from July 1st - July 30th, 2012. We have but six months until the start of our exhibitions and hope that these new members of our project will be able to complete their contribution (3 books) in time for our first exhibition in 2013.

Background material on the project will be made available to each participant. A good starting place for project information is our project website http://www.al-mutanabbistreetstartshere-boston.com/

You can also view some examples of books already made for An Inventory of Al-Mutanabbi Street on this gallery website http://www.bookarts.uwe.ac.uk/mutanmain12.htm

Interested book artists in Ireland, the UK., Europe, Middle East, North Africa, Asia and Australia should contact Sarah Bodman at sarah.bodman@uwe.ac.uk


Interested book artists in the U.S. Canada, Mexico, Central and South America, should contact Beau Beausoleil at overlandbooks@earthlink.net

Many Thanks,
Beau Beausoleil
Sarah Bodman

Bookmarks : Infiltrating the Library System Project

Home from holiday and straight into the bookmarks project! (I so like to get back down to my shed).

I do sometimes wonder how other people work, because I seem to spend an awfully long time mulling ideas over (and over and over) in my head before I commit to paper, and in the process filling my sketchbooks with STUFF.

Lodged inside my current sketchbook are two small books about pebbles, (made when walking in the French alps at Easter) prompted by stones that I have picked up on my travels over the years and kept as talismans to the past. 

While considering different ways in which to make use of my pebble hoard it struck me that it's quite common to see little piles, or stacks, of stones as markers on the summit of a mountain. Or that they may be used to mark walking and biking trails, to keep people from becoming lost. 

Not unlike a bookmark . . . . To keep one's place - ta-dah! an idea evolves.

So, while walking along the Wolds Way I thought about my pebbles and my bookmarks and pretty much planned what I would do when I got back home. 

And in 2 days I saw the culmination of an idea that had been floating around in my head since, oh well . . . . . that would be since April. 

Playing with colour and font, using digital print and small lino blocks (cut for pebbles) and rubber stamp on the back.

 

Deciding pale colours worked better. Making my own 'library' stamps for the back.

Wrapped up and ready for delivery.

Related to the Bookmarks lX, Infiltrating the Library system, there is a review of a random selection of them by Laine Farley on the Biblio Buffet blog.