Sequences

I found this piece of writing when looking through a notebook and thought I would share it here as I have already posted some images of folded books made over the last few years. Perhaps this gives a context to why I was lead to their making.

“For some time now, maybe forty years, I have been interested in sequences. In the past it was how one idea changed into another over time and familiarity so that in a year of drawing you could observe the thoughts and preoccupations as they evolved and developed. In the end it was this change that interested me more than the individual piece, with the occasional exception. I remember that when applying to Art School and preparing my portfolio, it was how an idea developed throughout the time I had been working towards the application that interested me the most.

More recently this linear progression intrigued me enough to become frustrated by the edge of a page or canvas and this frustration coincided with my introduction to Japanese albums or concertina sketchbooks. Since then I have been on a quest to learn new things and have been to north Devon to be shown how to bind a concertina, to North Uist to perfect the methods involved and a month ago, to the isle of Iona to learn some simple bindings. But as with many things, especially when you don’t live in the hub, books and all things papery and with pages, seem to have become The Thing. Everywhere you look, people are making artists books and limited editions and perhaps it is another way of getting art off the wall and out of the grasp of the gallery owner.

My latest edition to this genre is a three meter long strip of photographs of a walk round the garden. The pictures have been taken over ten years by Norrie, myself and the occasional other. They are printed in one long strip and then folded into a concertina with a simple binding, title and wrapper.”

Barra, folded tissue drawings in a bought
Seawhite A5 concertina sketchbook with case.

Isle of Barra, Monoprint, folded.

Rock Sequence, Summer Ilses.
Giclee print, available from me. £15 + P&P.

Watercolour, Loch Hourn.

Barra, folded tissue drawing with gannets, diving.

Lochaline, a folded drawing of the shore.
SOLD.