Ravages of Time: A Collaborative Artist Book Project

Tom Lascell

Black & White Photography

Ravages of Time:
A Collaborative Artist Book Project

"Ravages of Time" is an artist book project created in collaboration with Drew Luan Matott, a paper and book artist from Columbia College in Chicago and Tom Lascell, a traditional black and white photographer from northern New York. It is comprised of a series of twenty-four black and white photographs, plus cover and end pages, depicting the power of weather and time on man made structures and artifacts. Created in the spring of 2007, the hand crafted artist book features both accordion and gate fold pages designed to be viewed one page at a time in a traditional manner, or by pulling out one of four accordion arrays, to view a “gallery” of six images at a time. The 8" x 8" x 1" square format is meant to be viewed closely in hand; the tactile feel of the handmade book and the unique page turns are as important as the images themselves.

The images are from original silver gelatin prints, scanned to digital at SUNY College at Oneonta. A limited edition of thirty books is planned on Stonehenge 100 pound paper with letter press text. Books will be signed by the artists on the colophon.

Because of its unique design and construction, copies will be placed in college libraries and “book art” archives to be accessible to aspiring book artists. A limited quantity will be available for sale. A proof and several of the original prints that inspired the collaboration were shown in exhibit at the BluSeed Studio in Saranac Lake, NY in June of 2007.

About the collaboration …

Drew contacted me just before Christmas of 2006, asking me if I was interested in collaborating on an artist book with him. I was, of course, flattered that another artist liked my work enough to consider doing a collaborative book. So, I said, “Yes! Absolutely”, even though I hadn’t the vaguest idea of what I was getting into. As it turned out, Drew didn’t understand much about black and white photography, nor did I know anything about making an artist book. And so the adventure began…

We corresponded by email over the next few months, pitching ideas and concepts to each other, learning a little bit more about each other’s medium with each exchange. I didn’t know a signature from an end page. He didn’t know about wet darkroom process or rendering highlights or finding details in the shadows. So we learned together as we embarked on our collaborative venture.

Drew is an MFA candidate at Chicago’s Columbia College studying paper and book arts. I am a traditional black and white film photographer from upstate New York. We met professionally at the Green Door Studio in Burlington, Vermont, home to The People’s Republic of Paper where I rent darkroom space and am a member of the studio collective. Drew was the founder of the studio before leaving Vermont to earn his masters degree in Chicago.

As we began our creative collaboration, we began to discuss the meaning of working collaboratively, how did we stay true to our respective aesthetic sense and mediums, yet create something unique for us both, marrying the two art forms. The first paste up was slapped together in January, 2007 to better understand the mechanics and aesthetics of our original concept. Lots of paste; little sophistication. But it gave us a model to hold in hand. And, best news of all, the unique page turns worked.

"In the course of our discussion Drew and I have, of course, come upon the very real problem of working with two very different artistic mediums, each having its own distinctive characteristics. For most fine art print photographers, there are normally only two methods of exhibiting work; either matted and framed for a gallery show, or presented as a ‘coffee table’ book. Each approach highlights the quality of the print (assuming good print reproduction). For the book artist, the challenge is not how to mount and bind beautiful photographs (that’s been done already, quite successfully), but how to create a distinctive book form that shows off the paper and binding. For a collaboration to work, each artist must feel uncompromised as to their individual standards, yet be able to produce a work that meets both their needs. That is our challenge: How to remain true to your artistic self and medium while creating some sort of artistic synthesis, without creating a ‘thalidomide bastard’ in the process."

As we discussed our vision for the book, back before we had selected images or suggested a title, or even a theme, we focused on how the book would feel in hand. We wanted a dynamic tactile experience. We wondered about intimacy and size and heft. We wanted to inspire a different way of viewing the contents. Not just another coffee table book, viewing one image at a time. Turn the page … view another. Turn the page … view another… turn the page… We wanted to provide freedom of choice for the viewer, provide them with a medium for creative exploration. After all, it’s the viewer who brings his own sense of wonder and discovery to the artist’s table. If you can’t engage the viewer, why bother sharing the book? We ended up with a traditional gatefold for the timid, and an accordion for the more adventurous, combined in one viewing experience. (And it has been a joy to watch the first time viewer pick up the book. They start by opening the cover, then slowly turning the title page to view the first image, then turn a second page … then a smile comes over their face as their fingers discover the deckle edge that screams to be pulled from the spine revealing the first accordion array. We think of it as tactile learning; once discovered by the hand, there is a compulsion to pull out the full array.)

The images ultimately chose themselves. They are a series of silver gelatin prints taken over a span of two years that had not found a proper “home”. A few had been shown in a gallery exhibit, but they needed a new venue to effectively tell their story. By cropping them to a square format, they came to life in book form. The theme flowed from the images, and ultimately the title to capture the mood. The end pages became “visual” bookends; the cover completed the symmetry.

We knew there would be text, but didn’t know what would compliment the images. A poem, a social commentary? Original words, or borrowed from another artist? We started with a short poem by Kip Matott. It had the rhythm, but the words didn’t resonate. We then moved on to a brief artist statement I had written, thinking it would be printed on the back end page. It had some of the words, but it missed the mark. Drew rewrote the passage, focusing on the developing theme. Now it had rhythm. A final editing matched to the images; we were able to generate page turns.

We had agreed on the concept and mechanics, selected images, written the text and developed a paste up version. But we still had to bind it. While our creative spirit helped us solve aesthetic problems, we were stumped by the practical considerations of devising a binding that would support the pages and page turns, yet let us attach the cover to the dynamic contents. We thought of a glued perfect binding, but the spine would crack with repeated use. We explored a screw post binding, and while it seemed strong enough, we didn’t like the way it restrained the page turns. And aesthetically, it looked and felt too much like a scrapbook. No, we needed a sewn binding to fit our aesthetic needs. But how do you sew signatures together that allow for both gatefold and accordion viewing?

Images were scanned to digital and saved in high resolution format (1440 dpi for the cover, 720 dpi for the pages) at SUNY College at Oneonta. They were laid out in Illustrator in Chicago and at the Green Door Studio in Burlington, VT.

After adding text, we printed on Stonehenge 100 lb paper using an Epson 2200 inkjet printer at the Community College of Vermont in Burlington. And it took forever to print a three page image array, then flip it over to print the next array on the back, always preserving the original deckle edge. But we were disappointed. Even though we had solved our layout and print quality problems through trial and error, the pages appeared too brown. Our original concept was based on a classical black and white rendering; these were too “chocolate”. Interesting perhaps, but not what we envisioned. So we printed enough to bind three complete books – new paste ups so we could work further on our binding problems. Frustrated, we walked away from the project for three days, trying to find a new perspective. We didn’t want to look at the printed pages; we needed time to refresh.

We regrouped at the St. Lawrence University paper studio to assemble and bind our books. We had book board for the cover, needle and thread, lots of binding paste; but no black book cloth for the spine. We improvised with black artist paper, backed by Japanese rice paper for added strength.

And our chocolate pages? Shazaam! Now they were black! Stupid us! As artists, we know that light is made up of a full spectrum of colors, not just white. In Burlington, we were printing black ink on a warm cream-colored paper, viewing the results under fluorescent lights. No wonder they looked brown! But in natural light, the brown had given way to a soft black. What we had considered an aesthetic disaster had been rectified.

We bound three books, using slightly different techniques on each, to see what worked best. Different gluing patterns to join the page arrays, different end pages printed on different papers, different binding stitches to see which was strongest, different spine attachments to see which functioned best given our intended viewing mechanics. Back in Chicago, Drew printed and bound two more; he changed the font and bound the spine with black cloth. We now have five volumes to ponder. We’ve watched new viewers engage the book for the first time, seeing their interest as they discover the unique page mechanics. We’ve strengthened the binding so it feels more solid in hand. We’ve repositioned the cover image to be more dynamic. We’ve scored the accordion pages to fold more crisply and lie flat when constricted. We’ve tipped in end pages and colophon so they provide extra strength when sewn into the signatures.

The revised paste up has been shared with Vamp & Tramp Booksellers. They were so intrigued by the model, they’ve agreed to carry it after our limited production run. A proof was shown in exhibit at the BluSeed Studio in Saranac Lake, NY, along with several original silver gelatin prints that inspired the collaboration, in June 2007. Proofs have also been shown in exhibit at Northern Kentucky University, the University of Alabama and SUNY College at Oneonta, and will be shown in a juried exhibition at the Suffolk Museum later this spring. A limited letterpress edition, not to exceed thirty hand crafted books, is in production and will be available for sale.

Tom Lascell
February 2008

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