During the last week of the August Atelier I went along to
Spacex and had a go at the
Books that Can't Behave Themselves workshop
with
Maddy Pethick.
Maddy is an artist and lecturer in Contextual Practices at
Plymouth College of Art. To quote from
Plymouth Arts Centre blurb:
She is an artist who makes books, performance, video, text and
installation. Her recent works are made from second hand books: They
evidence the recurring themes in her practice including cookery,
cats, gardening, knitwear, and flowers. They include books
constructed from books, taking the form of long concertinas that meander
across surfaces or, in the hands of a performer, reveal their latent
momentum.
This workshop was only two hours long and Maddy did not waste time. She showed us examples of her work reconstructing books (some of which are shown above) and then got us tearing up books acquired from charity shops and working on our own projects. She shared her thoughts, ideas and experience with us while we worked and, after an uncertain start, we got to grips with the destruction and reconstruction of literature. Some of Maddy's thoughts on
reconfiguring charity shop books are outlined in
the programme notes for this November's Resurrecting the Book event.
I produced a piece loosely themed on
Lord of the Flies (pictured below). The afternoon was a fun learning experience and I think this is something that I could usefully incorporate into future work.
It's just a start - and difficult to photograph - but if there is a next time I'll be more confident and will have more time to develop ideas. It was a great workshop, though, and a pleasure to meet Maddy. There are further pictures of other workshop attenders and their outputs in
the August Atelier album on the Spacex Facebook page.
