21 August 2012

Book du jour - not a cookbook

Today we take "the work" to the exhibition space, and the tutors check that it all fits together into a harmonious exhibition - does anyone's space have to be moved because their work jars with that of their neighbour, that sort of thing. I'm apprehensive because there is work that I find very jarring. However, "ours not to reason why" ... that sort of thing ...

I have many small things left to do, but the main work is ready. The long scroll is long enough; it just needs the dark, unstitched bits adding at the top (time estimate - half an hour).

The Blue Distance is ready - it needs a little box making for the cute little LED light that will illuminate one of the four books, shining through from behind. I haven't tried this out; fingers crossed that it will work! Time estimate: half an hour.

A plinth for the memory balls is ready, and the balls are wrapped in a box, ready to go. This part of my display has a title: Memory's Minefield - and some of the individual pieces have names. There's meant to be a book about them all, giving a pic of "inside" as well as of the finished item, and their name, and perhaps a bit of text (a quote) about each -- but this is all still in my head and in the camera. (Estimated time? 4-6 hours)

The real stinker is the bookshelf of "bits" - no title yet, nor are all the books finished. Perhaps more will appear after the assessment, if time permits for finishing some of the abandoned ones. Here's one of them, almost ready -
 The inside won't be shown -
The covers will be glued together, so that the book is "about" the words leaving it; indeed, it's about the inaccessibility of the contents. The words are the verbs that have been cut out of the recipes' instructions. They will be coated with wax, for protection and also for meaning. The (embroidered) title, Kochfahigkeitsverlust, might be a real word or it might not - it's put together as well as I can from my limited German vocabulary because (a) the book is in German and (b) there's no comparable English word - cooking-ability-losing is what it means.

I'm writing this post early in the morning to help get myself going on the things that need doing in the next 2.5 hours. To break through this fast-approaching-deadline paralysis.

2 comments:

Helen Thomas said...

Your writing about getting ready for your final show resonates so much with me - having worked crazily hard doing all the 'last minute' things for my Foundation show - which should have been kept up to date as I went along but were found sorely wanting when I looked critically at it all in the final weeks. My printer nearly expired with churning out print pages from my blog, filling the gaps in research and exhibition references, etc. Hard work, but strangely exhilarating too. So I've been reading your recent posts with increasing sympathy! Your work looks so interesting, so much experimentation and exploration of different approaches to your theme. Good luck with the final, final preparations - and of course with the outcome.
Helen

Judy Martin said...

Congratulations Margaret on your soon to be finished exhibition. I hope everything goes well for you.
I love those memory balls -

They do look like old fashioned mines.

Maybe they don't need a book. ?