A New Cultural Sector: BOOK-DECO PUBLICATIONS

A New Cultural Sector?

BOOK-DECO PUBLICATIONS

BOOK-DECOS - ‘visually individualised, wall hangable, hand made craft objects, brought out in Limited Editions, sold through exhibitions’. First introduced in 1986. The innovation a reaction against two archaic monopolies which prevailed in the ‘literary superstructure’. Writers are the structure to both publishing and theatre worlds. All other role groups in publishing/theatre only have roles/businesses because writers write. The monopolies? As stated previously - 1) The BOOK (magazine/newspaper design derivatives); 2) The SCRIPT IN PERFORMANCE. The histories of both can be summed up as ‘variations on two archaicisms’. In 1986 they were both monopoly forms and though the internet now allows for writers to be published on screen, continue to dominate output.

As an artist, I am not in the arts to have my work fit into standardised moulds. When MACBETH – THE FLIP SIDE was rejected, I fused my literary/illustrative/painting sides and devised Book-Decos. The ‘eureka’ moment was the realisation that most works of fiction have ILLUSTRATIONS on front covers and are rectangular. PAINTINGS have images on them and are rectangular. Ergo - A BOOK CAN BE WALL HUNG, DISPLAYING THE FRONT COVER ILLUSTRATION. All they needed was a redesign/addition of hanging devices. But to hold an exhibition of 25-50-100 identically illustrated Book-Decos would not be interesting aesthetically for the public. I rethought the ‘FRONT COVER’.
Front covers in books are/have been monotonously repetitive. In each imprint each unit bears the same illustration and typography as well as title and author’s name. In Book-Decos front covers are VISUALLY INDIVIDUALISED. This done on a number of levels. A) The same title/author’s name is used, but using different fonts and placement thereof for each unit. B) The same linear illustration is used, or several on the same theme, on MASTER COPIES, photocopied onto them. C) The different font wording can be cut-and-pasted onto the masters giving the basis of a different front cover. D) This master, or masters, then photocopied onto DIFFERENT COLOURED PAPERS. E) Using a DRY MEDIUM each illustration enhanced with different colour organisations; F) Further colour added with coloured paper strips around the illustrations and typography, G) When the front cover is bound to the Mss, coloured tape used at the top to bind the work. These differentiations create unique aesthetic visual phenomena. More differentiation can be created if five basic illustrations are used, each given the above treatment. One can then, if 10, 25, 50, 100 units are created, hold an exhibition (series of) and sell through those. The units have, to date, been A4 in size or half A4 (cut down the middle ofan A4 Sheet, Mss printed in columns). It’s possible to work larger, in A3, or half A3.

As far as the Mss is concerned. The form is applicable to – a short story, collection of short stories, poetry, play script. A novel would be a too heavy, though could be serialised by chapters or group of chapters. The Mss is keyed into a computer memory stick, attention paid to page lay-outs (lay-out of Mss has been horribly standardised). It is possible to have a different lay-out and font for each page. This adds a decorative texture to the publication. In one Limited Edition I varied the width of the column on each page and inserted illustrations, I also SCULPTED the form by cutting the pages with a guillotine along pre-designed lines and cut the hard back similarly. The overall shape was that of a coffin. The title of the work – CONFESSIONS OF A WIFICIDE a short story black comedy. Arguably the only publication in world history to be coffin shaped.

The units (10-100) are printed from the computer and BOUND AT THE TOP with staples, five to ten pages at a time. These glued together with ‘dry’ glue. A HARD BACK is designed and cut from painter’s mounting board and the Mss adhered, using dry glue at the TOP of the hard back. The completed front covers LAMINATED, stuck using dry glue to the front of the Mss. The whole bound with coloured tape at the top. Drill two small holes through the top, put a hanging thread through them, tie at the back. Voila! You have a wall hangable Limited Edition. Read by ROLLING BACK the pages and holding them against the hard back . When finished, roll them back again and hang on the wall. This is only ONE possible basic design! The Mss in permanently wall hanging containers is another, which was the first I used. No doubt there are others to realise.

What you then have is innovative aesthetic products to be marketed in the world of the arts superstructure to a public who, in the main, have little taste for THE NEW in the arts. But you have a variety of options for exhibition. A) Your own studio/house; B) Rented venue; C) Local library; D) Rented gallery; E) Hyde Park Railings; (all with no assessing moneymen middlemen) F) Commercial Craft Gallery; G) Commercial Art/Craft Gallery; H) Art Centres; I) Fringe Art Festivals; J) Group exhibitions of art societies; K) Submission exhibitions of craft organisations. L) Your website. ‘F)’ through to ‘K)’ need to be approached professionally. No point in approaching a gallery if it specialises in pottery, glass, wood works. Craft work also has to be high standard. The units well made with visually interesting front covers containing well executed illustrations. Illustration is a professional field. Illustrators trained at Art Colleges. So get your head round the skill comprehensively before putting a Limited Edition together. Can be self-taught through books.. There would be no point in approaching an art gallery. All specialise in painting or sculpture or both and the proprietors usually regard the crafts as inferior to painting.

Yes, O.K., to date, books have been MANUSCRIPT FOCUSED. They provide reading matter to modern societies. The CONTENTS have been more important than the FORM. The buying public is habituated to consuming their reading matter in book form. If some do, now, read some of it on the internet.. ‘The BOOK’ is a very convenient design to print, make, illustrate, bind, transport, display, sell, read and store. But ‘it’ has been so standardised, the fundamental design remaining the same for over 1,000 years. CONTENT rules, FORM is an after-thought. Obviously, BOOK-DECOS give consideration to CONTENT (as ‘writer’ I’ve radically innovated as poet, short story, play and novel writer). The development is introduced for WRITERS as a new way to get their work into the public domain. But content is balanced with form. TWO kinds of aesthetic phenomenon coexist in the one unit. A literary art object inside an art-craft object. When the aesthetic experiences provided by the literature become memories, the art/craft work remains on a wall, to visually enhance. When someone else wants to read the work, it is taken off the wall. The art work continues, through the years, to ‘function’ giving aesthetic pleasure.

Book-Decos are a NEW CRAFT, since the maker is involved on a multiplicity of levels. He/she works by hand on – the manuscripts, keying in, design, illustrations, front covers, making and binding. Craft work can sell for high prices. You wouldn’t be competing with cheap mass produced books, but with crafts – pottery, glass, wood work. Though you would be supplying the public with reading material.. Which gives the new craft a slight ‘edge’ It is double dimension, unlike the other single dimension crafts. Production costs can be kept low. A single unit of 50 pages costing less than £1.50 to make (paper, ink, card, coloured paper sheet and surround, glue) if you already have access to a computer and photocopy machine. Your market? At first what market experts call ‘innovators’. People among the public who like to be the first to buy new products.. The ‘bright’ younger, art oriented generation is often ready to try something new. Might be prepared to part with 50/6o quid for a unique interestingly written/made/designed Book-Deco. Such buyers of art/craft in your area might be few. Try different areas. There are lots of them. Try the internet, it is very wide!

‘The literary world’ probably won’t deign, initially, to notice your literary work in these ‘packages’.. Having clustered around the single ‘cave fire’ of ‘The Book’ for centuries the standard authors/publishers/critics, banging out/assessing standardised products, will turn their ‘professional’ (or ‘hackneyed design’ loving) noses up at Book-Decos, since they are not mass market oriented, thus won’t make them lotsa dosh. Thus the projected new cultural sector, like Jazz in its early years, will be ignored by ‘the white establishment’ knocking out their ‘classical work’ for the delectation of the standardised majority. Obviously operating on the belief that ‘the only good literature is clichéd literature’ – ‘The Book’ having, long since, become a cultural cliché., or, ‘the great literary public convenience’ .

Tony welcomes your feedback and he can be contacted here.