Finding Home

March 27, 2016

Being alone.

Finding Home.

I moved many times since 2004, my last move was last July to Boise, Idaho. I love our little house, It's cozy and simple, so simple we have no sofa. Why not you ask? Because someone miscalculated the moving truck's cubic feet!

I’m always reluctant to move and our new place still doesn’t feel like home. Though I have a sense of belonging in my half measure studio.

I can no longer ignore the challenges of this move. I compare the aspects of my life to the years before Idaho. Heck! let's face it before 30 years ago.

I dread the future and transitions are difficult. Right now as we say in Canada, “slow as molasses in January” but it’s March!

I have not found myself or the essence of our home/city, I’m uncomfortable. With time and age, my way of life is different. What I want is different and how I want to express myself is different.

What’s next? Who knows! It’s getting to the other side that’s bumpy! Driving over a cliff, bumpy! How do you cope with change?

“Masquerading as a normal person day after day is exhausting”—my motto for this month. While my husband goes by “Sometimes you just have to leap, and build your wings on the way down.”—Kobi Yamada

Michael has always built his wings as he travels. I hate that!!

Before the molasses came, I took my creativity and published an artists’ book that speaks of being alone, missing my country and missing my culture. I present to you Finding Home.

After taking a writing workshop with Paulann Petersen last summer, I wrote the poem for Finding Home.

At home, the sun kisses the foothills

and transforms

the horizon with vivid colours.

Finding home...

Where do I belong?

Longing to be back home,

where the maple leaf

soars above the hills

and

la langue Française

de la belle province

is recognized,

Dreaming of home,

I wake to the sounds

of coyotes

and

live where the light shines till late

—the days are long,

the country wild and free,

A sense of place,

a sense of belonging,

je me souviens

de la fleur de lys,

my roots are deep,

back and forth

as a butterfly flitting

across the miles.

Finding home...

I have made two explosion boxes with the help of Susan Bonthron. I discovered Susan’s Adam’s Error, Only One Bite the day I was exploring 23 Sandy Gallery’s website. Soon after I emailed Susan to guide me to a tutorial. To my amazement, Susan emailed me her instructions. I made an 8 inches square box for my first explosion box. Never start big!!

Susan’s artist book Adam’s Error, Only One Bite is about the myth of Adam in Eden, the intersection of belief and reason, and the mathematical discoveries that represent the ‘bites’ each scientist or mathematician tastes of the whole mythical fruit that represents what can be known of our universe. Susan’s choice of mathematicians was inspired by Michael Guillen’s book, Five Equations that Changed the World: the Power and Poetry of Mathematics (New York: Hyperion, 1995).

© 2012 Susan Bonthron, Adam’s Error, Only One Bite — © 2012 Susan Bonthron, Adam’s Error, Only One Bite

Susan works under the imprint Otter Pond Bindery.

Does your art decode the passage of time?

Entrepreneur

February 21, 2016

The weeks are flying by and I’m still hard at work finishing my book Finding Home. A looming deadline is approaching and panic is at play. As I fold over the last page, I’m reminded of my artists’ book Entre deux. A project that includes Turkish map folds in an accordion book and a flip book. Entre deux is an interactive documentary inviting the viewer to partake in a simple meal with a couple while being privy to the couple’s conversation on love.

I created Entre deux for the exhibition FEAST at 23 Sandy Gallery. I chose the accordion book and flip book format to give the viewer a sensory experience. By flipping the pages the viewer is part of the meal. While unfolding the Turkish map folds—breaking bread, the viewer takes part in the conversation.

In my studio, I am the initiator of each project, I hold the post of artist, photographer, author, designer, binder, printer, publisher, webmaster and lets not forget blogger.

In college, I explored the business side of my chosen career but never thought of wearing so many hats! No clue, that was me in college!

Beginning to live in reality, entrepreneurship revealed itself. Entrepreneur in English is pronounced—ahn-truh-pruh-noor, in French—an-tre-pre-neûr, and in any language—doing business alone.

• Founder and administrator of my domain, I handle each and every activity.

• Contractor and labourer, I organise and manage my time.

• Even as executive in charge, a raise is unattainable.

• I love being im.pre.sa.ri.o; but often can’t finance my work.

• Being an accountant gives me prestige, but the money isn’t multiplying.

My policy is to market, advertise and promote my work six months out of the year. Good luck with that!

Why do it, it’s part of who I am? Without my art I am lost. So, I continue the roller coaster ride of being an artist—life filled with wonder at the next idea or creation.

My first grade teacher—an avid drawer, inspired our class by drawing a new image every week on the chalk board. Rachel Lemire noticed my talent for art. Who discovered yours, your first grade teacher or Ellen Degeneres?

How do you do it? I would be interested in knowing your recipe for a successful artist career.

Oh! the day is passing and I need to print more pages...

Prints, Prints and Printing, Part 2

February 14, 2016

Last week, I met two eclectic artists—best evening in a long time. It was a stimulating conversation on printing, the process, the frustrations and the wonderful results.

Our talk continued as we discussed my last blog post Prints, Prints and Printing. It gave us food for thought on how we label our own final products as artists and photographers.

This week, part 2 of my post on printing, I’m showcasing prints by artists/photographers who use different printing methods.

Let’s start with a Pigment Inkjet Print of my new artist book Conversation printed on an Epson Stylus Photo R3000. Conversation is a limited edition of 3.

© 2014 Louise Levergneux,  photo detail of artists' book Conversation — © 2014 Louise Levergneux, photo detail of artists' book *Conversation*

I met Betty Mallorca and Lawrence Manning at a Treasure Valley Artists’ Alliance exhibition. Both are photographers and founders of Hill Street Studios and TRACK 13 in Nampa, Idaho. Betty and Lawrence have many years of experience in commercial and professional photography, art direction and graphic design. They are contributors and part-owners of Blend Images, a multicultural commercial stock agency.

Betty printed her limited editions on an Epson 3800. Almost Home (copy 1 of 10) and Ghostly Passage (copy 1 of 10) both are mixed media—Giclée and colored pencil prints.

© 2016 Betty Mallorca, Almost Home — © 2016 Betty Mallorca, *Almost Home*

© 2016 Betty Mallorca, Ghostly Passage — © 2016 Betty Mallorca, *Ghostly Passage*

Lawrence printed his photos on an Epson 3880. 5885 Rodeo study #2 and 5655 Depot Study Two are Digital Pigment Prints.

© 2016 Lawrence Manning, 5885 Rodeo study #2 — © 2016 Lawrence Manning, *5885 Rodeo study #2*

© 2016 Lawrence Manning, 5655 Depot Study Two — © 2016 Lawrence Manning, *5655 Depot Study Two*

I met Diane Ronayne when I emailed my move to Boise on the Book Arts listserv. Diane is a freelance editor for books and manuscripts and writer for magazines and newspapers; but her passion is photography.

Diane's Archival Color Print Angry Rabbit was printed on an Noritsu wet-lab printer, model OSS-3411.

© 2015 Diane Ronayne, Angry Rabbit — © 2015 Diane Ronayne, *Angry Rabbit*

In 2010, after my move to Utah, I communicated with Laura Russell owner of 23 Sandy Gallery in Portland, Oregon. Laura is a photographer and book artist who creates hand-bound, limited-edition artist books. Her books incorporate photographs of urban landscape and tell a story about our culture and our communities. Laura works under the imprint Simply Books, Ltd.

Laura's flag book Hit the Road! was printed on an Epson R2400. The flags/pages of this limited edition artists' book are Archival Digital Inkjet Prints. Hit the Road! is volume one in a series featuring Washington, Oregon and California. The artist spent close to three years traveling Highway 99 to photograph and catalog roadside attractions.

© 2011 Laura Russell, Hit the Road! — © 2011 Laura Russell, *Hit the Road!*

© 2011 Laura Russell, Hit the Road! detail — © 2011 Laura Russell, *Hit the Road!* detail

Ellen Crosby a member of the Treasure Valley Artists’ Alliance was introduced to me by Diane Ronayne. Ellen is a dedicated landscape photographer, proven by her 150 sunsets chronologically recorded during 2012.

Ellen worked with fellow photographer Ann Lindell to create this appropriated and altered Inkjet Aqueous Archival Pigment Print Ann's Cat Photo for her series Teeny Abstracts.

2015  Ann Lindell/Ellen Crosby, Ann's Cat Photo — 2015 Ann Lindell/Ellen Crosby, *Ann's Cat Photo*

Vera Greenwood’s contemporary art practice is subjectively personal, placing emphasis on story telling, record keeping, social studies and a conceptual approach to representing the everyday. Her installations have always incorporated text—bookworks became a logical extension of her art practice. Oh! by the way Vera is a dear friend and our conversation on art is always stimulating.

Vera's photographs of sheets of blotting paper with fragments of leaves and/or petals are Giclée Prints. The Flower Press project was printed on an Epson 9900.

© 2013 Vera Greenwood, Flower Press 1 — © 2013 Vera Greenwood, Flower Press 1

© 2013 Vera Greenwood, Flower Press 2 — © 2013 Vera Greenwood, Flower Press 2

© 2013 Vera Greenwood, Flower Press 3 — © 2013 Vera Greenwood, Flower Press 3

Going beyond the codex format for my artists' books, I wanted to create other book structures. I met Karen Hanmer through her article and great tutorial on the flag book structure in The Bonefolder: an e-journal for the bookbinder and book artist. Karen’s artist-made books are physical manifestations of personal essays intertwining history, culture, politics, science and technology. What attracted me to Karen’s work is the often playful content she uses.

Karen printed Big Blue with an HP LaserJet 1320. The edition of 100 computer punch cards are Laser Prints on polyester film.

© 2006 Karen Hanmer, Big Blue — © 2006 Karen Hanmer, *Big Blue*

To Serve and Protect: Containers, conveyances, and cosmic happenings was printed with an Epson Stylus Pro 4000. The artists' book has 32 Pigment Inkjet Prints/pages. In this artists' book the artist’s muses on life in the 1960s and 1970s.

© 2014 Karen Hanmer, To Serve and Protect, page spread of Mood Ring — © 2014 Karen Hanmer, *To Serve and Protect*, page spread of Mood Ring

In 2012, at the Guild of Book Workers’ Standards of Excellence conference in Utah, I met Andrew Huot. The more Andrew described his books the more I was intrigued. Andrew, a bookbinder, conservator, and book artist originally from Toronto, Canada, is owner of Big River Bindery. Andrew looks at everyday situations and enjoys observing the world's small, passed-over details.

Andrew's artists' book Navigation is Letterpress printed on colored paper with hand-cut holes, bound in cloth-covered boards. Navigation, a carousel book that spans over 8 feet when opened guides the artist’s family to their next destination.

© 2009 Andrew Huot, Navigation — © 2009 Andrew Huot, *Navigation*

A Guide to Dogs is also Letterpress Printed with handset type, linoleum cuts, and photopolymer plates. This humorous guidebook helps to identify Man's Best Friend with silhouette drawings and vital information for each breed.

© 2008 Andrew Huot, A Guide to Dogs — © 2008 Andrew Huot, *A Guide to Dogs*

A studio is more than four walls filled with equipment and tools. An artist needs creativity, ideas, time, research and contacts to achieve a piece of work. Communication and sharing brings a different facet to an artist’s world. I’m always grateful for any discussion on art or someone’s opinion or critique. My work thrives when these elements are part of my world.

Thanks to everyone who shared their work this week!

It is late... going back for more ideas!

Flip Books and 3D Printing

January 31, 2016

I found one thing I miss from living in Utah, the Sundance Film Festival in Park City. I took this photo in 2014 on our annual–go see what it’s all about—visit. We had the opportunity to say hello to Sam Shepard and to Gilles Marini.

© 2014 Louise Levergneux, Sundance Film Festival

Getting back to the work at hand. It’s difficult to keep the processes and steps straight with three projects on the go, no four!

I’m waiting for an order of paper to finish the last two copies of my book entitled Conversation. After two months, finishing these copies with my notes might be a challenge!!

Meanwhile, I’m tinkering with Tinkercad for my second book entitled Finding Home. An emotional project that tackles my experience of living in Idaho while still rooted in Canada... I will discuss the many changes and end product later.

I am learning the ins and outs of 3D printing and enjoying the sculptural facet of the process. A third print is happening today and will take nine and a half hours to print over 497 layers. Fascinating!

I thought it might be fun to sit and take photos as my object was printing till I saw this timelapse video of a Ultimaker 2 printing a deer. Have you ever heard the expression “it’s like watching paint dry”!

The binding and slipcase for my artists’ book Xtraction is also in the queue to be 3D printed, hurray!

While we wait for paper and prints, lets look at the steps it took to create the flip book for Xtraction. The idea grew from this X-ray. In this instance I used a mix of stills and video taken with my Sony D-SLR.

1. First, the stills are manipulated in Photoshop and the video manipulated in iMovie

2. Next, I import the frames from the video into layers in Photoshop

3. Once, the layers are all chosen and sequenced, they are resized into another Photoshop template, I number all the pages—yes, number, it makes it easier to sort. Have you ever had 120 unnumbered pages fall to the floor and not knowing the sequence? I have! FUN! FUN! FUN!

4. All the adjustments in the next step is great fun for people with OCD, as all the layers have different opacity between bottom and top layers for each group of images. The flip book has 120 pages counting the colophon

5. Shown are 13" x 19" sheets of pages in Bridge ready for print

6. My printer co-operated, thank God! This does not always happen, everyone knows that! I start the cutting phase after the sheets rest for 24 hours. This time relaxes the paper and removes any curling from wet ink. Dried ink allows the paper to be handled without concerns

7. Each page goes through a five steps cutting process, this ensures perfect placement of image on each page. The time taken in properly cutting each page properly gives a smooth action when flipping pages. I know these steps by heart after cutting pages for 156 flip books in the last 3 years. First cut is done by dividing the sheet in half.

The second cut is done by following the cutting lines for the top of each page.

Making sure that all the pages are trimmed at the exact same place on the right edge is the third cut.

The fourth step is to properly cut the bottom of each page by using a straight edge that will not move.

The last and fifth cut is the left side with a pre-determined length for the flip book.

I sort and stack, then punch holes through the pages to receive screw posts

A small binding with cloth over boards is usually cut and assembled to finish the book. Xtraction has a 3D printed binding so this step is omitted

Voilà, one finished flip book. I will have photos of the completed project next week.

The fourth project I mentioned above is the image manipulation, printing and cutting of the last volumes of City Shields. Forever!

This will take more than a week, need to get going.

What I Missed This Christmas Season

January 10, 2016

I must say I did miss one thing this Christmas, lights, lights and lights! Being new to Boise and trying to catch up on work we did not have our traditional Christmas Eve lights drive. For 30 years on Christmas Eve, we drive around and see what the different neighbourhoods offer and of course finish the evening (when in Ottawa, Canada) with the Parliament Building Christmas light display.

From early December to early January, Ottawa sparkles and shines with thousands of lights

As a Canadian, -40° Celsius is not the weather one goes fiddling around trying to coordinate threads of lights–my opinion! Kudos to the obsessed out there, so I could enjoy your light-work!

I found this video to satisfy my craving for lights this Christmas. The season is over, but you can always enjoy lights! So have a look.

At the end of December, nature surprised Boise with a glorious snow fall that covered the landscape and turned everything to crystals. I took this opportunity to take many photos. Here is one of my favourites:

© 2015 Louise Levergneux, winter in Avimor, Idaho

During the holiday season I always take the opportunity to get ahead with the administration part of running a studio. Oh! a little plug here–Outside the Studio is on sale till the end of January with a 15% discount on each book.

Outside of the Studio was started when I felt I was spending too much time in my studio. I needed to get my mind off book production routines, and play a little.

I decided to make a flip book a week for the next year, after researching artists who created flip books as part of their practice. I was confident that the strict time limit and rapid pace would free up my creativity.

I needed a theme to organize the series around, I soon identified a concept, the Four Classical Elements: Fire, Air, Earth and Water. The Fire element would be represented by light; Air, by wind; Earth by people, animals or insects; and Water, by it’s own differing states of liquid, vapor and solid. The Outside The Studio Series was launched!

The whole series of flip books can be seen at: http://www.louiselevergneux.com/#/out-of-the-studio/

Here is the flip book produced on week 48:

The whirlwind of the holidays has finally passed. Now I can continue with my new artists’ books and decorative boxes.

I started the year without my D-SLR, I had to leave it at the shop during the holidays. Hope it is surviving this surgery!!

My camera died as I was trying to photograph my new artists’ books and finish two “Call to Artists” applications. Great timing! Without a camera, it’s like going through withdrawals...

Below is a sample of my new decorative boxes, more photos will be on my website as soon as my camera is back in my hands.

© 2016 Louise Levergneux, Decorative Box

I need to get back to work–withdrawals and all. I will share later.

Welcome Bienvenue

Hello, my name is Louise Levergneux, I’m a book maker. This blog is where I share and reflect on the approaches and structures used in my creative process, artists' books, photography. and more...

Your comments and stories are welcome.

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