I feel that I am going to work with this idea of the book for a little while. To explore and expand. I am particularly interested in how I can use this book structure as a vehicle for an aspect of my work that people may not be aware off. Before I became involved with the book I was an artist. You know, someone who paints and does arty stuff. It was my living and gave me the foundation for where I am now.
I have always started my bookbinding projects from the artists perspective. To create in my minds eye or on the page of my sketch book the design and then work out how I am going to achieve my goals.
The challenge is not to be constricted by your self and others. To be creative is hard work, really hard work. I do not mean the struggle of being an artist, the starving artist is a thing of the past and largely fiction, the image of the damp room with a lone easel, a stretched canvas and the tormented artist has been created by writers wanting to romanticise the inner soul of the artist.
I agree that there has been throughout history the occasional artist that is strange or not the norm for society as it was but in the main, one never hears of artists dying of hunger. Sex, drugs and rock and roll .. yes. Paint, brushes, canvas, stone and mallet cost money... Away from the pages of the novel, the artist will have a job, perhaps in the service industries, night shifts at the super market or as street artist. In fact any job that will enable them to continue in their passion.
Being an artist is hard work.
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