Last week the photo book dummy award winner was chosen at the Unseen Photo Fair. My "Ulysses, a personal journey" was on the shortlist and was on display at the fair. The winner was Heikki Kaski with "Tranquility". I wish I could have seen all the books, I'm sure it was quite a sight! There were no honourable mentions but I was gratified that my book was mentioned in the announcement of the winner. See here.
More from "Ulysses, a personal journey"
These two images were taken in Sandycove at the old swimming spot The Forty Foot. My father loves to swim there every time he goes to Dublin and for these images he agreed to swim in the cold Irish Sea just after sun rise (at about 5:30 am). In James Joyce's "Ulysses" the med student roommate of Stephen (the artist) swims at The Forty Foot in the morning while Stephen watches. And so having my father, the doctor swim while I photographed seemed appropriate to our adaptation and reclamation of the novel.
Another image from "Ulysses, a personal journey". This is a window in the Joyce Martello Tower in Dublin. Martello Towers are a ring of circular towers that were erected as a way of keeping an eye on the Irish Sea and fortifying Dublin. They were then decommissioned and rented out to citizens. James Joyce lived in this particular tower for a short period of time and "Ulysses" begins in the tower.
The show has had a good run but it comes down tonight. Hopefully it will travel and find another home in the future. Let me know if you think of somewhere specific that it should go!
An image from "Ulysses, a personal journey".
This photo is of a classrooom wall in Belvedere College, a Jesuit school in Dublin. James Joyce went to Belvedere (and this wall is unchanged since before his time there), as did my father and grandfather. In fact last summer we officially confirmed that Joyce was in class with my great-great uncle Edward Hutchinson. Edward was the son of Joseph Hutchinson (my great-great grandfather) who was Lord Mayor of Dublin from 1904-1905 and is twice mentioned in "Ulysses". This is one of the connections that my father and I made to family history and my father's favourite book.
Only 3 books left. A qui la chance!
One more week till my exhibit at Warren G Flowers comes down (open till Friday May 13th).
A few snaps from the book making process
First off the cover is made from a thick Japanese card stock and Chris brought the trimmed covers to our friend Paul's house so that they could letterpress the covers together. It was an intensive and full day process to get the 25 covers done and Chris took the photos below of the process.
I had the pages printed by a commerical printer who calibrated their machine for me so that the colour and density would be what I was looking for. This left me with a huge box of almost 1000 sheets of thick paper. They were trimmed but then they needed to be folded. Here is my folding station at Concordia:
After folding the sequenced and grouped pages would come home with me so that I could sew them while watching (more like listening to) movies or crappy TV:
Pencil marks added to where I will make my holes in the pages:
In the middle of sewing a group (the groups are also called signatures):
One book where the sewing is finished:
A cover that is scored and ready to glue to the body of the book:
So there you go. It has been an interesting process, and one that I have really enjoyed so far (still have some sewing and glueing to do!). Many people have asked me: Why a hand made book? Why not a blurb book? Why not a digital book? I guess I thought it would be interesting to try and do it myself, to see what it takes to put a book together. This way Chris designed it to my specifications, and I got the exact cover that I wanted, and the size that I wanted, and the paper quality that I wanted, and the printer calibrated the way I wanted it. And then doing all the work myself also makes it a bit cheaper in the long run. And I am so happy with how it turned out, much better that I ever could have hoped. There are still a few left to sell so let me know if you are interested in owning your very own copy!
A copy of my book! This book accompanies my "Ulysses, a personal journey" exhibition which is opening this week. Facts about this book:
Contains 79 colour images, image notes and an essay about the work
144 pages in length
The book is hand stitched and hand bound
Is in a edition of 25
For sale for $100 (email me if you are interested in reserving a copy: kate@katehutchinson.com)
The book will be present at the vernissage (which is also functioning as a book launch), but will not be in the gallery during the rest of the show.
For this book I must thank Aislinn Leggett for tutoring me in book binding, Paul Lessard for doing the letter press of the cover, and of course my husband Chris for the layout and design.
Also the show was hung yesterday and even though the vernissage is not till Wednesday the gallery is open to the public as of this morning (hanging took less time than I thought so the show opens one day early). I think the exhibit looks great, go visit! Hope to see you Wednesday!
Another image from my upcoming show "Ulysses, a personal journey", which you may have previously seen on the Hey Hot Shot! blog.
A very brief summary of what this work is about:
The images are all set in Dublin, Ireland and feature Hutchinson and her father as they try to connect and understand their place of origin through James Joyce's Ulysses.
Vernissage (opening) on Wednesday the 20th (info in my last blog post). This evening will also serve as a book launch for my limited edition artist book version of the work. More on that and images of the book making coming up in the next week or so.
Invite to my exhibit, opening next week.
Here is the info in case you have trouble reading the invite:
Exhibit runs from April 19th to May 13th.
Vernissage is April 20th 6 to 9pm.
The gallery is the Warren G. Flowers Gallery, in Dawson College. The College is a big place so the easiest way to find the gallery is to enter by the de Maisonneuve entrance (just West of Atwater).
Hope to see you there!
The Natural History Museum, Dublin
Another image from the series that I am working on these days: "Ulysses, a personal journey". I am giving you this sneak peak because a print of this image is being included in the most recent Daniel Cooney Fine Art auction called "Of Gods and Monsters" and curated by Andrew Mroczek. You can see all lots from the auction here, and my specific image and some information about it here. Bid early and bid often!
Both the colour and B&W images were taken at the same location in Howth, Ireland. The B&Ws were taken in the summer of 2000 and the colour version ten years later this past summer for my "Ulysses, a personal journey" project. What is so uncanny is that when I came upon the scene this year I did not realize that I had photographed it before. It was only upon looking through some old negatives last month that I found the remarkably similar images.
I often feel like I am being led around by my subconscious when photographing and this definitely seems to be the case when I was twice made to stop at the concrete and yet ornate wall on which seems to float an island.
An image from the series that I am currently working on, "Ulysses, a personal journey". I will be having a solo show of this work, which I shot in Ireland this past summer, in the spring of 2011. These days I am scanning the many successful negatives, as well as thinking about sequencing and how to incorporate quotes from the book "Ulysses" in the exhibit.
Soon after returning from Ireland I submitted some images from the series to the "Hey, Hot Shot!" competition. Yesterday I was featured as a contender. Take a look, it will give you a sneak peak into what I am working on and the issues that I am dealing with in this work. I am so thankful to Emma who wrote the post on my work. Her comments are thoughtful and so true to the heart of this project. I'm glad that the short artist statement that went along with the submission communicated my intentions.
