Presentation, Conversation and Next Ideas

Participation in the 2019 Small Publisher’s Fair on 15 – 16 November, enabled the final version of Feast to be viewed for the first time. Presented alongside Recorded/Recovered and Kept (the first two books in the trilogy) enabled ideas about research interests, social history and possible stories of times past from the whole project to be shared with the audience of the book fair.

Alongside talking through something of our own working methodology with interested viewers, conversations were exchanged around the opportunity to organise ideas within books, the documentation of art history, the preferred colour of dinner plates, and the systematic investigation of found colour within vegetables. The theme of the project appeared to resonate with many of the audience, who were initially drawn to both the tiny fragments of china contained within the presentation of Recovered/Recorded and the traditional recipes presented within Feast. Discussions connected to the process, making and realisation of the project also took place, and these enabled us to begin to formulate ideas for our next book.

Alongside talking to others, time at the book fair also enabled us to reflect upon our preferred working styles, techniques and approaches to book making and to consider new ideas.  Dialogue prompted memories of previous ideas around routine and everyday objects which have not yet been realised and to which we could return.  These included documenting belongings or ideas of others through objects we have inherited, or through the passing on of information from mothers to daughters, friends to friends, or teachers to students. We were both drawn to the idea of hand me downs from mothers to daughters and agreed that it would be interesting to present information beyond domestic tips.  We were also reminded of information, which was shared by the assistant of a second hand shop in Oxford, about the previous owner of a typewriter I purchased.  The typewriter was sold to me with used correction papers which document words previously written and may contain an interesting story. We agreed to think around these ideas independently over the next two weeks and discuss further at a pre-arranged face to face meeting in two week’s time.

 

Final Hiccup before the Finished Feast

Following the making day, the only element left to complete the books was the over-printed letterpress type; this would have to be undertaken by hand as I have no access to a press at present. It was a daunting task – whilst there were only 26 words to set and print, each one had to be hand-inked and then printed approximately 18 times – 240 prints in total. The intention was to print in black – however having proofed the type, I realised there was too much of a contrast between the typed blue text. I resorted instead to Prussian Blue and had to use it in pure form as the over-printing would have to be done over several days, therefore I couldn’t rely on having to mix a non-standard colour accurately time and time again. I test printed the wood type using different surfaces under the paper, the best result was gained from a thin piece of felt, and I found that by placing a metal rule on the top of the type I was able to apply equal pressure to the print – resulting in a crude but effective method. It was a laborious process and finding space within the studio to place the wet prints was another challenge! Once the prints were dry I started to fold and cut each book – an easy process, however, it was whilst doing this that an error was discovered.

Within the typed matter that I had pasted up for T to photocopy, I had inadvertently included a repeated line of text. A text message to T explained the problem; this resulted in several phone calls whilst we explored solutions, finally deciding upon a double rule through the unwanted text.

Decision Making, Production and Presentation

A pre-arranged making day afforded opportunities to share and exchange ideas, explore, trial, and undertake part of the production and presentation of Feast together. We selected imagery to represent the key ingredient within each recipe, and explored thoughts around providing something of the context of this book as a typewritten introduction. Drawing upon text written by SB in response to our project within the September issue of Printmaking Today, we were reminded of decisions made in response to cataloguing and location and agreed a short sentence to convey this.  Mindful of the time remaining to complete this book, we constructed lists and agreed timescales for the completion of Feast ahead of Small Publishers Fair in London and began to work through these alongside each other.

Having completed as much as possible, we spent a significant time planning for the exhibition of our research, development and final books within cabinets at UWE from the beginning of December.  We mapped the height, width and depth made available to us in order to get a sense of scale, and re-visited the journey of our project by listing the title of each blog posts written.  These became titles for each of the individual 16 spaces within the cabinet and very much enabled the ordering of the project from start to finish. Throughout this process, we established a system to display starting points, research, documentary photographs, work in progress and final books making use of the wall and base of each section. Once agreed, the contents of each section were collated and recorded with the outstanding tasks distributed between us.

Plates, Perfect Pies and Printing

Having confirmed book content and structure, I began by connecting individual photocopies of the blue and white china edges to the rims of plates, tracing around these to suggest the possible size of an original dinner service. These drawings produced a pattern of overlapping lines and found fragments in a similar style to those employed within the first book of this series. Once confirmed as the illustrative style, each collection of edges was photographed and shared with P, in order for 8 pieces to be selected to be made use in each book.  Trials of traced plates were produced which informed the positioning of selected fragments on the bed of the copier machine.  Within the coping process, alterations were made to background density and colour image quality to sharpen pattern and avoid shadows.

Research into regional food of Northamptonshire was more straightforward than Rutland, and I found a range of recipes linked to different villages. I began to be drawn to the stories of social history which prefixed these, noting that recipes were passed from mother to daughter and friend to friend which seemed appropriate for this project. I read around dependence on the environment and the agricultural focus of the county which enabled labourers to have access to a variety of food – both home grown and found.  Recipes selected were linked to festivals, football teams and times of the year with many of them still being made to this day. One story recalled how each person would return home with some food to add to a pot of water cooking by the fire . Allegedly how this tasted, and what each person ate, was ‘pot luck’ as each ladleful was removed!

Working to the time schedule and word count agreed, I edited a series of 8 recipes and suggested words of note and key ingredients from each to be used  in the final design and presentation of the books.  These included stories of perfect pies, free food, spinsters, sailors, and old friends.  Within this process, links emerged to the canals of Northamptonshire, and village life. These were sent to P, whilst I began work on the illustrations.

To conclude the project, P returned the typewritten stories to me pasted onto A3 sheets for printing using the copier machine.  By altering the background density I was able to remove drawn guide lines, and then print the text in blue to maintain the theme of blue and white throughout each of the 3 books.  I altered the colour balance, increasing cyan and black and reducing magenta and yellow in order to print a blue more closely linked to those within the china fragments.   The china pieces were printed on the reverse, making use of the trialled layout and carbon paper was used to record a traced rim of each plate which enabled a blue line to be produced to suggest the original dinner services which the china fragments may have been part of.

Decisions and Conclusions

Following a short time period that had enabled us the opportunity to work individually to test and experiment with media, content and composition – another pre-arranged FaceTime meeting was a chance to review and share the project’s progress.

We started by looking at the work T had done on the plate composition and decisions around working methodology and materials were discussed and finalised. The type experiments had been considered previously via email – but a conversation regarding title and position led T to suggest that the structure of the book could be reversed to enable the back stories to form the inside of the book rather than the outer. We also debated whether any aspect of the individual stories could offer a reason for the ordering of each book – we concluded that where possible the sequence would follow any references to calendar months. Whilst considering the content it was noted that we both had a story relating to feast celebrations – T proposed that the title should reflect the food theme and we agreed to the one-word title Feast; the position of this would now fall within the plate image and I suggested using the rubber stamps as a simple, understated solution. Going forward our only remaining decision was how to present the pair of books – a wide range of ideas were discussed and rejected and we concluded that a white paper bag, stamped with the title and one individual illustration was the solution.

We turned our attention to the schedule – and the logistics of completing the book – setting deadlines for each element; we recognised that this edition has started to follow a similar working methodology to Sewing Secrets, with the book being exchanged at regular intervals to enable us to each input into its production

The lack of access to a printing press has also informed the development of this book, and enforced limitations such as paper size and weight, however we have responded positively by pushing boundaries with the use of low-tech methodologies and solutions that have hopefully enhanced rather than diminished its production values.