Friday 27 December 2013

Artist's Book: Headroom



290mm x 110mm folded dark pink stationery card cover with cut-out title revealing metallic barley pattern. Leather tie, metal spiral binding. Graph paper trace fly-leaf. Main body of book printed on to accounting paper french-folded.  14 pages with ending with edition number, signature and maker's emboss.

The book is a visual response to the drive to fit more and more people into an ever diminishing space. The UK is under pressure to find more housing and every patch of land, including gardens, are being built upon. New housing is tightly packed with little concern for the environment or the needs of the new residents, leading to a breaking down of community spirit. New housing does not seem to be designed with people in mind and ironically this can isolate individuals - even when they are so close
to everyone else.

Do you know your neighbours?
Increasingly in cities we do not, choosing to keep ourselves to ourselves - fearful of others.

Whilst browsing Roget's Thesaurus, I noticed the thematic listing of words was taking on a poetic significance for me. I used the word lists in the order they appeared in the Thesaurus to convey a sense of melancholy amongst the crowds. The book is printed on accounting paper to show financial pressures, the drawings are a mixture of my photographs of buildings and drawings of imaginary future towers unintentionally imprisoning their tenants. The text is rubber stamped. Loss of identity and community are the main issues in this book.




To read the whole book scroll here:



This book was created specifically for the exhibition, Shelter - Unique Visions of a Universal Subject Through Artist's Books

"A traveling exhibition it that calls attention to a universal issue, homelessness..."I've always been interested in the subject of housing and shelter and the problem of homelessness, which is so rife in this country," said Veronica Morgan of Gloucester, the organizer of "Shelter," subtitled "Unique Visions of a Universal Subject through Artist's Books." Morgan...cited statistics from the National Association to End Homelessness, which states that 600,000 families with 1.32 million children are homeless in the United States. Morgan said she wanted to bring the issue of shelter into the public spotlight through the artistic medium of book arts. The exhibit includes 66 works by 50 international artists...All address the themes of home, the psychology of personal space, homelessness, the loss of historic fabric and personal memoir, according to organizers. Thirty percent of proceeds from the sale of works will go to River House Inc., a Beverly homeless shelter."
....................................................................Excerpt taken from, The Salem News - October 02, 2008
April 10 - 22, 2008 -
Wedeman Gallery, Yamawaki Art and Cultural Center, Lasell College, Newton, MA, USA

May 9 - June 19, 2008 - Pyramid Atlantic Art Center, Silver Spring, MD, USA

July 9 - August 15, 2008 - Fleet Library, Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, RI, USA

Oct 6 – 31, 2008 - Montserrat College of Art’s 301 Gallery, 301 Cabot Street, Beverly, MA, USA

April 8 - May 3, 2009 - Wells College, Aurora, NY, USA

January - February 2009 - Holy Cross College Art Gallery, Worcester, MA, USA

Babylon Lexicon
New Orleans, 14-30 Nov. 2008
Damp in Ditchwater and Headroom will be on show at the New Orleans Bookfair - Babylon Lexicon.
Future Fantasteek! Issue No.5 will also be exhibited, at the same time, during the New Orleans
Zine Fair.

Place, Identity and Memory – books made by artists
Opens 23 May to 28 June 2009, Gracefield Arts Centre, Dumfries, Scotland.
Then the exhibition tours libraries and other venues across Dumfries and Galloway, ending at Stranraer Museum, 55 George Street, Stranraer, DG9 7JP, Dumfries & Galloway, Scotland between the 26th September – 31st October 2009, to coincide with the annual Literary Festival at nearby Wigtown, Scotland’s Book Town. This is a travelling exhibition by IRIS. The aim of IRIS is to develop Dumfries and Galloway as a recognised centre for book arts in Scotland and internationally.
Headroom and Damp in Ditchwater both feature in the exhibition and catalogue.

Artist's Books: Running a Secret Society No.20


The book measures 18cm x 12cm with a brown & orange manilla cover
Saddle-stitched binding with 12 pages on 130gm cartridge paper and fly-leaf.
Produced in editions of 20, First Edition produced in 2000
The book is altered for each new edition
.


I am fascinated by secret societies, especially the bizarre rituals that the members indulge in, in order to be recognised by one of their colleagues but unnoticed by non-members. This book purports to be a manual for running your own secret society. There are sections on ‘secret handshakes’, ‘how to remain unnoticed’ and a loose card ‘courtesy hand-markings recognition chart’ as well as a free ‘computer enhanced match’ to burn the book after it’s been memorised. The introduction explains how it is better to be the only member of your society in order to remain secret in this nonsensical book.

Each book contains a turquoise chart, small envelope with a secret password and ‘match’
to burn the book.





To read the whole thing scroll here:



This book is featured on the V&A website under 'artists' books' alongside an interview with me and five other UK book artists.
http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/articles/a/artists-books-interviews/

PRESS and RELEASE, Phoenix Gallery Brighton April - June 2013
As part of the Phoenix Gallery's Press & Release artists' books exhibition, I will be showing everything in the Damp Flat Books catalogue! All 22 artist's book titles, along with 14 issues of my artzine Future Fantasteek! and a selection of sketchbooks. I will also be giving a gallery talk and running a zine workshop.

Message in a Bottle Exhibition : Secrets, Cyphers, Codes & Mysteries, Jan 25th - Feb 15th 2013
Light Grey Art Lab, 118 E 26th Street #101, Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA

Medal Winner - 2nd Seoul International Bookarts Fair 2005
3rd June - 8th June 2005 - COEX Pacific Hall, Korean Publishers Association, 105-2, Sagan-dong, Jongno-gu, Seoul 110-190, KOREA.
Running a Secret Society No.20 was submitted and awarded a medal in the Book Arts competition. The 2nd Seoul International Book Arts Fair is the only fair of it's kind in Asia, information about the fair will be sent to major TV broadcasting companies(KBS, MBC, SBS etc) newspapers, magazines, galleries, museums, and libraries. There were 200,000 visitors to the fair last year.
Click to see a list of all the winning competition entries

The Peculiar
This book was showcased in The Peculiar, a comic of collected works by artists and designers in the U.K., who explore humour visually, this book featured in the 2002 edition

Pink as a Soft Idea
Running a Secret Society No.20 and Anxious Homes both exhibited in the University of Brighton North Gallery as part of the conference LIAM:3 living in a material world, 2001 where I also presented a paper.

Secrets Exhibition
Group exhibition, The Hague, The Netherlands, March 2000
Click to see the Private View/Advertisement

Exhibited at Making Unmaking conference, University of Portsmouth, August 2000

London Artists' Book Fair
Barbican, London and ICA Galleries London

This book is held in permanent collections at:
Modern British Collections, The British Library, London, U.K.

The V and A Museum, UK

Golda-Meir Library, UWM LIbraries, Milwaukee, USA

James Branch Cabell Library, VCU Libraries, Richmond, USA

Book Arts & Special Collections, San Francisco Public Library, San Francisco, CA, USA

The Culture Archive, UK

Chelsea Library, UK

Joan Flasch Artists’ Book Collection, Chicago, USA

Center for Fine Print Research, UWE Bristol, UK

Eton College Library, UK

St. Peter's House Library, Brighton, UK

Knights Park Library, Kingston University, Kingston-Upon-Thames, UK

Artist's Book: READ




135mm x 190mm, containing 12 pages and printed endpapers.
Saddle-stitched, with red book-cloth bound hard cover with lasercut lime acrylic title: READ.

Bound into the book is a small red acrylic lasercut magnifying glass that slots into a small wage slip envelope bound into the back inside cover.
Title page has a library-style insert, dated, embossed, numbered and signed.

The book also contains a bookmark to be used as a aide memoire.
Brighton, First edition of ten produced in 2012.

This book was created for the exhibition Beyond Dickens. This exhibition of international artists' books was held in Portsmouth in November 2012 as part of the Dickens bicentenary celebrations held in the town (Dicken's birthplace).

READ was inspired by Our Mutual Friend and takes the first 20 pages of this novel but hides within them a Dickens' quote about the act of reading. The quote describes reading as being like a code, whereby the initiated can open the world of books. The quote is hidden word by word on each page in pale turquoise that can only be seen clearly when viewed through the red lense on of the magnifying glass (see images below). The endpapers are images of monochrome violent waters since Our Mutual Friend begins and ends with drownings.









  



Artist's Book: Notebook 57


160mm x 137mm, containing 20 pages.
Saddle-stitched, with red card cover to resemble an exercise book.
Brighton, first edition produced in 2003.

This book was inspired by researching into alchemy and chemistry. Old medieval illustrations reveal the belief that a human servant could be conjured-up from ancient recipes. The fabricated human was an exact replica except that it had no soul. The replica was called a Homonculous. The book represents a notebook kept by someone who not only believes Homonculi can be made, but sees them everywhere in the form of shop and display dummies, then documents them in the form of notes and photographs. The paper-clipped pages are actually printed within the book as are the ink spills and typewritten notes.

There are some elements added by hand such as a punch cut, rubber stamp and drawn marks.
The body of the book is printed on 130g cartridge paper.








To read the whole book scroll here:



Notebook 57 has been exhibited at the following venues:

Poetry Books: Reading Books - 25 January 2007 - 24 March 2007
Exhibition will be at the Broekhuis Bookshop, Enschede, The Netherlands.
http://www.bookarts.uwe.ac.uk/bruik07.htm

New Orleans Bookfair - Babylon Lexicon - 28th October - 30th November, 2006
Selected Damp Flat Books, incuding Notebook 57, will be appearing at the New Orleans Bookfair - Babylon Lexicon. Selected books and my catalogue will be on display in this showcase of artists' books and book-related art.
Barrister's Gallery
1724 Oretha Castle Haley Blvd.,
NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana, U.S.A

2nd Seoul International Bookarts Fair 2005
3rd June - 8th June 2005
COEX Pacific Hall(www.coex.co.kr)
Korean Publishers Association, 105-2, Sagan-dong, Jongno-gu, Seoul 110-190, KOREA
Notebook 57 was submitted along with two others: Which Filter Works? and Running a Secret Society No.20, the latter was awarded a medal in the Book Arts competition. The 2nd Seoul International Book Arts Fair is the only fair of it's kind in Asia, information about the fair will be sent to major TV broadcasting companies(KBS, MBC, SBS etc) newspapers, magazines, galleries, museums, and libraries. There were 200,000 visitors to the fair last year.

This book is entered on page 133 of the Artist's Book Yearbook 2006-2007 by Sarah Bodman (Ed), Impact Press, Bristol, UK. ISBN 0 9543810 9 2


Artist's Book: Anxious Homes




Subtitled: Cursory-Cleaning for the imminent arrival of visitors, or 
How to Give the impression of a Clean House in under 20 minutes.

The book 190mm x 125mm, pink single-section sewn binding.
The cover is satin card backed with pink patterned paper.
It contains 18 pages on 130gm cartridge paper.
Produced in editions of 10 - First Edition produced in 2001

Anxious Homes, is the antidote to all the 'Life Instructions' that surround us. Far from being outraged
at the patronising tone of 'How to do it' books, I have always found them funny. This book provides a
step-by-step guide of how to appear like you're doing everything properly. It contains explanations in
detail of how-to-get-away-with-it. It is a manual for people with better things to worry about than housework.

There are sections on; anxiety and the home; nearly cleaning floors; the bathroom and kitchen; washing clothes; dealing with emergency visitors; and a chart of serenity and anxiety. Anxious Homes seeks to
take away the homemaker's feeling of inadequacy by promoting shortcuts as if they are perfectly normal.

Anxious Homes was inspired by my childhood experience. As a 10 year old, I remember being amazed
at how my mother used to frantically tidy the house before visitors arrived. When I asked her what was
wrong with letting our relatives see us how we usually lived, she was horrified at the idea.
When I started living in my own home I noticed I had inherited 'pretending to be tidy' from my mother.
When my parents (or especially parents-in-law) visit I rush round picking piles of papers off the floor and making sure the bathroom taps are shiny. Cleaning-up thoroughly is a long job and despite my collection of Good Housekeeping Manuals there's just not enough time to be the ideal woman, when you have good books to read, drawings to make and tea to drink.

Anxious Homes is essential for the busy woman.









Tuesday 17 December 2013

Saturday 16 November 2013

To tweet or not to tweet


I went to a great event at the University of Portsmouth yesterday, 'Blogging for academic purposes'.
I feel inspired to give Twitter a go, not sure quite what is is though so might have to bear with me a bit...
https://twitter.com/JackieBatey

Tuesday 5 November 2013

The 4th Sheffield International Artist’s Book Prize Exhibition

READ has been accepted as part of the The 4th Sheffield International Artist’s Book Prize Exhibition, As in previous years, this year’s exhibition will feature artists' books and will be staged as part of the Off The Shelf Festival in Sheffield in October 2013.

Exhibition dates: 5th October - 30th November, 2013
SIABP, Bank Street Arts, 32-40 Bank Street, Sheffield, S1 2DS, U.K.


The catalogue of this exhibition has also just been published.






Tuesday 8 October 2013

Work in progress

I'm currently working on a long vertical drawing that will be able to fold into an artist's book, working title: Drip Drip Drip.  The drawings will form an imagined cross-section through London from the Bank of England down into the earth past the Underground then past one of the hidden underground rivers and into the Underworld. Hidden within the illustrations are two quotes about economics by Dickens. 
For research I visited the Bank of England Museum, Bank station underground as well as researched the lost rivers of London and engineering cross-sections. Images of the Underworld have long been an interest since writing my degree dissertation on Apocalypse Manuscripts many years ago. I also read The Inferno (Hell and Purgatory) and Paradise Lost (which has given me some great ideas for future projects - thank you Mr.Milton).

Here are some photos of work in progress, I'm using technical pens, Japanese papers and a light box, which explains the yellow tinge in the pics here. I'm planning for the book to be in black and white with one spot colour, maybe magenta, maybe not.







Saturday 3 August 2013

Future Fantasteek! issues 14 and 15 now on ibooks

I've just made Future Fantasteek! Nos. 14 and 15 available to view on ibooks via an ipad.
You can download both issues for free from itunes.

On itunes (if you search 'Jackie Batey' ) you'll also find an interview I did with Grey Art Lab Gallery in Minneapolis earlier in the year for their 'Secrets' exhibition.



Issue No.14
https://itunes.apple.com/gb/book/future-fantasteek!-no.14/id681350675?mt=11




Issue No.15
https://itunes.apple.com/gb/book/future-fantasteek!-no.15/id681188775?mt=11



Tuesday 30 July 2013

Future Fantasteek! No 15 OUT NOW


Softback zine laser printed in black & white on cream and blue (for a boy) paper.
A5 size with 20 printed pages, saddle-stitched.
Manilla cover in laserprint black with hand-pulled yellow sérigraphie screen print.
Brighton, July 2013, edition size of 40.

Issue No.15 Here Comes Another One
What's been happening in the BIG WIDE WORLD... Who cares!
Look at the BABY that'll take your mind off things, the Wefare State can cope with one more...

Still free to libraries and zine collections, email me: bateyjackie@gmail.com
Also available to buy online: http://www.freewebstore.org/storepage1952940.aspx

Read on Issuu NOW...


This issue will soon also be available from the ibook store ...





Here's issue no.15 'Here Comes Another One' being printed.
For a change I printed the cover using a 30yr old serigraphie  (French children's mini screen print toy).
It prints a bit erratically (or maybe that was me) using cut out paper stencils.


Here's how they came out, I printed yellow on brown wrapping paper, after laser printing the black first.