Magical Notebooks and Clamshell Time Trials

This week, I made some books and boxes for myself, something I don't do that often. It's fun and good practice, I often make things for myself to try out something I don't normally do or brush up on techniques. I made myself a notebook with a "magical symbols" print I made while at Paper Book Intensive for end papers. 

:: egyptian inspired symbols, relief printed end papers ::

:: rounded spine with cloth headband, the cover boards are beveled to fit the curve ::

:: embossed leather, it was one of my samples from Paper Book Intensive ::

In order to solve my problem of not enough flatfile storage space, I've also been practicing my clamshell boxes, in various sizes and shapes, and seeing how fast I can make them. It's like doing time trials to qualify for the imaginary Bookbinding Olympics. 

:: Deep clamshell box for storage ::

:: ephemera storage problem solved ::

When I'm in between projects or not feeling the thunderbolt of inspiration, getting my hands moving clears my head and reboots the thinking process, and if not, I have a new notebook and some fancy clamshell boxes!

Oracles

I've been working on a project titled "Oracles" that combines digital stills with experimental writing pieces. The project emerged from an interest in the concept of "creative utterance", the ability to create by speaking specific words. The source text of all these pieces is the Egyptian Book of the Dead. To create these poems, this source text is run through translation software in dozens of languages to intentionally mistranslate them. Through this process spontaneous new content emerges. The results are unexpectedly lyrical and strikingly visual and the original text is completely transformed. The texts are then edited into short poems.

I would like to make these into an artist's book and video installation. Sight and sound shimmering in and out of focus. Interpreting the oracles.



Cataract

horses
come into sight 
as the stars 
come down 

it seems strange
this empty sky
an insomnia
of whiteness

a cataract
of gold
drawn
from the well


 

Reason





:: Marianne Dages, Reason, letterpress, lead, cord, fur, silk, found image, 2014 ::

Reason

In this life
there is no reason
but the heads of dolphins
diving, diving
burn the tree
to its bones
heap its wood
and sign to me
-
wood
wood
mouth
-
so we can remember
that there is no reason
but the heads of dolphins
diving
diving


:: Marianne Dages, Black Column, 2014, letterpress ::


:: detail of Black Column ::

Paper Book Intensive : Part Two

Part two of my time at PBI...

I took a Relief Printing class with Ryan O'Malley, where we learned to carve MDF boards, and a hand papermaking class with Ann Marie Kennedy. The theme of that class was "Paper and Place" and we experimented with fibers found around the area and adding inclusions to the paper.

 :: relief print on japanese paper ::


 :: handmade abaca paper with thread, newsprint, and deer fur ::

 :: handmade hemp paper with thread and elk bone ::

  :: handmade hemp paper with thread and elk bone ::

:: handmade flax paper with brazilwood and walnut dye ::

Paper Book Intensive: Part One

I just got back from the Paper Book Intensive, a two-week series of workshops in book arts, printmaking, and papermaking. It was amazing. Here are a few images of the books I made in one of the workshops, Leather Embossing with Bonnie Stahlecker.

 :: two books debossed with plastic cordage I brought back from Iceland ::

 :: front cover of book with symbols ::

  :: back cover of book with symbols ::

:: spine with tacket binding ::


:: close up of back cover ::

The Great Expanses


:: The Great Expanses, Detail ::
 Painted and natural wood 

:: The Great Expanses, Process Detail ::
Ceramic, bone dust and volcanic ash on black paper

:: The Great Expanses, Detail ::
Ceramic, bone dust and volcanic ash on black paper


:: Marianne Dages, The Great Expanses, 2014, 50" x 60" ::
Paper, wood, ceramic, bone dust, volcanic ash, ink, animal fur, found hooks and cords

House






A dream I've had several times.  I live in a little house inside of a community garden. In the dream, the garden is in a park near a river where I grew up and the setting is always a warm and humid summer evening with crickets singing. There is industry nearby, old abandoned factories and junkyards but the park is quiet and the garden is down a long dirt road. A few other people have chosen to live in the garden. The house is small and rustic with robin's egg walls. It's a very nice house, except the hallway to the kitchen is too narrow for a person to pass through.



I was standing in a wet marsh and I was with a medium brown dog. It was revealed that the dog's true name was Horus. When he heard his real name, the dog grew in size and became immensely strong. I remember holding him around the neck and chest trying to calm his shaking fear.

Mushrooms growing in peach pits. A primordial toothed and legged serpent guarding them, silhouette recessed in the mud.

This one is tied with the left hand.

Alum Aleut.




:: 




Vertical

Today I spent my time in the studio cleaning up, photographing work, making envelopes to hold prints and drawings, and finding places to store them.

Vertical.

In college, I turned a Bolex film camera on its side thinking I could film a vertical image that way. It didn't work. 

Marianne Dages, Dictionary Drawings, 2013
June, Collaboration with Amze Emmons 
for the 2013 SP Weather Station Portfolio


January

:: studio thoughts :: coded odes ::

January has almost come and gone, a month when long trains of thought finally arrived at their stations...

I will be starting a new job, adjunct teaching 2D Foundations at Temple University's Tyler School of Art on Monday! I'm so grateful for this opportunity and can't wait to start.

At the Crane Arts Building, the Due North exhibition is closing today. If you didn't get to see it, there are images and reviews on the show's website. As mentioned in The Inquirer's review, Cindi Ettinger's etchings on plaster and Julia Staples photographs of mountains in Iceland at night were among my favorites.

 
Geekadelphia Review of Due North 

The Due North Invitational Portfolio was also on exhibition this month at C.R. Ettinger Studio.
 

Philagrafika Invitational Portfolio at C.R. Ettinger Studio

Coming up, the opening reception is February 5th, I'm very excited to be a part of R/W: Reading & Writing Visual Experience a group exhibition curated by Gerard Brown which "investigates the uses of reading and writing – from punctuation to publication – in contemporary art. I will be showing prints from the Small Fires series.

:: R/W: Reading & Writing Visual Experience ::

Also coming up, Oculus Song will be traveling to Printed Matter's LA Art Book Fair courtesy of The Center for Book Arts in New York. Have a great trip little book!