The idea for this series first came to me during Documenta 13. 100 days of continuous art: Imagine an artist working live for 100 days, producing one book each day. Is it even possible to do it?
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365 Painted Songs by Suzanne Coley
(a view of books from January 2015) |
In 2015, I
decided to challenge myself. I would make one artist book per day. Here are 3 of the 7 rules:
1. Each book must be hand sewn and hand-bound, with a traditional classic style hardcover and spine. Each book must be 8.75 inches tall, 5.75 inches wide (closed), 11.75 inches wide (opened). Each book must be "numbered" by the day it was created in 2015.
2. Each book must contain at least 16 pages of unique, original artwork. The artwork will be a variety of techniques: paintings, linocuts, screen prints, collages, letterpress, and marbling.
3. Each book must contain at least 2 pages of my original poetry. For each month, I select 2 or 3 poems, and publish fragments of the poems throughout the books. Think of musical themes explored in a symphony, how the composer comes back to them with different voices and arrangements. Similarly, the different books give different visual settings for the poems.
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| 365 Painted Songs by Suzanne Coley |
It has been a very challenging project. It is common in book arts to specialize either in bookbinding, or in painting, or in poetry. Doing all three felt a lot like being in a triathlon. 365 triathlons, to be exact.
Having completed the project, I will use this blog to post a few of the book images every day in 2016.
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page from January 1, 2015
365 Painted Songs, Day 1 |
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