Record of meeting 20/22/20
Present: Kit, Tony, Frances
Projects report:
Twelves – Almost complete
Do Not Bend – Complete
Random (dos-a-dos) – Kit will put together the books received so far and we will assess whether we need more, and if different sizes or formats would improve it or not.
Theatre Boxes – 5 boxes complete. This is an ongoing project as several people have expressed an interest in doing additional boxes. Can be regarded as complete, but fluid.
Stitch in Time – in progress, first round of exchanges mostly complete.
Tangram – Tony now has almost all the books and is ready to make the box.
Cigar Box – No contributions yet. Have all compartments been assigned?
Discussion:
We discussed ways to improve our overall standard, and concluded we should share individual strengths to enable work to be completed to a satisfactorily similar standard. A sort of clinic approach where we can handover work at the point we are weakest, to someone who has more skill at that element of bookmaking.
Photographs: Frances has most of the completed work and will photograph as much as possible and share the images to check they are representative and of sufficient quality. They will then be placed on the public area of the website in a gallery.
Website:
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We discussed the purpose and usage of the website, which we felt should be used to promote ourselves specifically as book artists and to raise awareness of book arts. Kit suggested that we could offer editions of books that are components of collaborative projects as spin-offs that are reasonably priced. We could also offer to provide high quality editions to commission. This would need to be taken into account when creating contributions.
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We could also offer finished projects for exhibition, for example the theatre boxes could be offered to be shown in a theatre foyer (under glass).
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We thought that the website should include a gallery for each individual artist’s work, as well as links to individual artists websites, Instagram etc. We could promote book arts specifically in the Book Band website, and link to other work: prints, collage, textiles through external links.
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We need a short summary of our purpose for the website “About Us” page – Kit has suggested the following:
“Our purpose is to promote our work, collaborative and individual, and book art more widely whilst sharing skills, ideas and encouragement within the group. If we sell some work along the way, that will justify our existence.”
BB Stamps: Kit has these in hand.
Online exhibition: Frances to investigate further. We could set up an “event” online that could act as a focal point for highlighting our presence.
