Fruitmarket BookMarket 2014

Last Saturday I met up with some friends to go check out a between-exhibitions event at the Fruitmarket Gallery in Edinburgh! It was the Artists' BookMarket that featured over two dozen independent presses, book artists and printmakers. It. was. fabulous. I mean, how could it not be, when so many of my favorite things come together in one event? Art/printmaking/illustration and poetry/literature and bookmaking. Gah, it's so great.

I set out to pick up some pieces. I haven't picked up much in the way of ephemera during my stay in Scotland, and I thought this would be the perfect excuse to pick up some things that I can add to my personal library/collection and also work as arty souvenirs over the long-term.

I found a wonderful photography book by photographer Fergus Jordan who was there representing his own work as well as the publisher the velvet cell which has put out some really streamlined, gorgeous photography books.

One of the numerous exhibitors // via //

But aside from the arty photography books and the gorgeous presses, there were some really beautiful independent Scottish publishers as well, some of them with more of a focus on Scottish literature and poetry. I scooped up an amazing little gem called 'Twelve Sea Pictures' by Leonard McDermid, which is something of a concrete poem printed on various papers by Stitchill Marigold Press. Good old fashioned letterpress printed and hand-stitched pamphlets, just gorgeous. And Leonard was awesome.



I could have gotten really carried away, but I controlled my purchasing urges and stuck with a few choice things that I dearly treasure already. I think that printmaking and bookmaking is something, though close to my heart and a part of my background already with experience at the used bookstore, that still maintains an aura of mystery and wonder because I know so little about the process. But the fact that books, so mass-produced these days, can be seen in terms of art... that's just wonderful.

Cheers!
Kate xx

I Give Everything Away

The other day I hopped down the hill to one of the best contemporary galleries in Edinburgh, The Fruitmarket Gallery, where they just opened a new exhibition of Louise Bourgeois works to complement a major exhibition at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art. I'm actually not sure I've ever seen any of her work in person before this, so I'm excited to get to the Gallery of Modern Art as well. The exhibition is titled I Give Everything Away, after a suite of large drawings by the same title on display. The Fruitmarket exhibition goes through February 23rd, 2014.

The Fruitmarket Gallery exhibition presents Bourgeois's Insomnia Drawings, 220 drawings made in that blurry phase between sleeping and waking. She used sheets of paper that she had on hand, including sheets lined for music and lined notebook paper, and did combinations of writing and drawing that are at times very personal. The clustered line of drawings wends throughout the rooms of the ground floor, roughly in chronological order, starting in November 1994 and ending in June 1995.

On the second floor (first floor if we're in the UK; this gets confusing) there are larger works on paper made at the end of her life, in 2010. They are a mix of hand-colored etching, writing, and drawing which were, to me, a bit more evocative than the snake-like procession of Insomnia Drawings downstairs.

It's a really wonderful exhibition in a fantastic space. I like very much how the first floor is almost overwhelming, "labyrinthine" as the info pamphlet says, in the sheer number of pieces and how tightly they're displayed. The other part of the space is much more open; the works on display and the two different exhibition spaces really complement each other that way.



The Fruitmarket Gallery has also published a catalogue to accompany the exhibition, titled Has the day invaded the night or the night invaded the day? Insomnia in the work of Louise Bourgeois. They have copies sitting around on benches throughout the gallery and it's a really beautiful little book with many of the Insomnia Drawings shown both sides, where in the gallery they are obviously only able to display one side of a sheet of paper.



Cheers!
Kate x