Bookmarks in Libraries

I’m continuing to use public libraries as a mechanism for distributing my large edition letterpress work. I printed about 270 bookmarks with the second (hopeful) part of my Big Storm poem, the storm dates and this URL. I also embossed the Te Kowhai Print Trust kowhai blossom onto them because it is such a pretty decorative element, and to honour the wonderful place where I do my work. And then I mailed* a little stack of bookmarks to every library in Northland with a letter asking the librarian to put them out where people could see them and take one if they wanted.

The idea for printing bookmarks and giving them away through libraries is lifted directly from Centre For Fine Print Research's Bookmark project. A kind reader of this blog directed me to their website in response to one of the Addicted to Capitalism posts. Unfortunately I was too late to sign up for this year’s international project, but the idea of making some bookmarks was too compelling to be postponed until next year.

I like the way that sending out the After the Big Storm bookmarks links up the libraries and gifting elements of my Addicted to Capitalism postcards, and the creative and emotional epiphanies of my Big Storm books, and grounds those themes in the here and now of my region this winter, Northland in July 2007.

I’ve also been thinking about what it means to have created what I think of as tiny pieces of art, multiples, a hand-made, hand-crafted edition of poetry and letterpress: the words set letter by lead letter and every one of those strips of card handled by me through three different pieces of cast-iron antique technology; and then to put it out into the world to sit on a table surrounded by the social marketing ephemera that is also given away in public libraries.

My thinking weaves ideas about ‘new genre public art’ and non-traditional audiences; creativity and compassion; how art and books and text and letterpress are valued and recognised (or not) and my place in/out of the Art and Literature Worlds; the history of letterpress printing as a catalyst for radical change… all these ideas woven together like a kete (basket) carrying the bookmarks out to little libraries in little towns digging themselves out of the mud while it just keeps on raining**.

What the bookmarks will mean to the librarians and library users who receive or choose them, I would love to know. I hope that someone who encounters an After the Big Storm bookmark is moved to comment here or contact me directly and tell me their reaction. But my rigorous non-attachment training through writing poetry in chalk this wet winter makes me feel (mostly) equable that I may never know the fate of a single one of my bookmarks. I am free to imagine some crumpled in the recycling bin and some treasured in precious books- both outcomes seem likely and while I prefer to envision more of the latter, the possibility of former doesn’t distress me.

* Delightfully I was able to stamp the envelopes with these very cool stamps which play with language and some kind of heat sensitive technology in a kooky and kitch manner. Sometimes I love New Zealand’s civic quirkiness so much.

** Last time I went to the library I didn’t borrow an otherwise desirable book because it was so freshly moldy and damp that I didn’t want to bring it home. Another book I did borrow turned out to be more discreetly rotting and it’s pungent fumes hit me whenever I go near the pile of books. Another legacy of the weather, like all the fallen trees everywhere. I wonder how many library books have been damaged or lost in the storms? Is anyone counting that cost to Northland?

Pixted live to my phone from a library somewhere...

Gift Economy

You too can be an Addicted to Capitalism collector! Remember those powerful pink cards I was making a couple of weeks ago? Well, the whole set of postcards has been launched and are yours to discover, collect, swap, buy, sell, give, trade, display, send, use as bookmarks or greeting cards, and otherwise enjoy.

Each card has one of the following phrases:
Drink Coffee- Capitalism's drug of choice.
Go Shopping - Capitalism needs your addiction
Sell Art- Capitalism values your creativity
Use Pornography - Let capitalism commodify* all your desires
Watch Television - A capitalist occupation.

The aphorisms on the cards came to me as I mused on how to price the books I plan to create with letterpress and how the work I want to make might fit into the art and book marketplaces. As I printed the cards I continued to wrestle with ideas about how to value my work appropriately and yet also share it widely. Finally I decided that I really want to give away most of these Addicted to Capitalism cards.

I thought about lots of possible methods to give them out and but settled on slipping them into library books because I love libraries and I hope that library users might be more likely to appreciate the gift of a thought-provoking, letterpress, kitchy-looking postcard.

And so, with the help of seven enthusiastic collaborators in four different countries, eight libraries around the world have been infiltrated and 160 Addicted to Capitalism postcards are secreted in books for lucky readers to find. Most will be found by random chance but a determined searcher could enhance their letterpress/art print/Meliors Simms book arts collection. There are plenty of clues to be found in past and future posts of this blog and those of my collaborators (e.g. Courtneyspondence) leading you to the libraries and the books where the postcards can be found.

I hope to hear from some of the folks who find the cards, whether by chance or otherwise. If one of the cards has come into your life, please share your story in the comments section.

For those who miss out on the library cards, or who particularly value the trappings of the art/fine press worlds, I have put aside 15 sets of cards as a limited 'collector's edition' which are signed and numbered, and housed in printed origami envelopes. These sets can be purchased for $NZ50 by contacting me through the comments function of this blog.

BTW I promise photos of the cards just as soon as I can borrow a decent camera...

*a thing that can be bought and sold or exploited within a market

Fascinating Phenomenon

Along with a big carton of leftover inks Murray gave me two boxes of old fashioned invitation cards, the kind with the scalloped edges, some edged in gold, some in silver and some in lolly pink. They are irresistible, especially arriving just as I was planning to print a series of postcards.

I do like the invitational resonance for the series which is called Addicted to Capitalism and consists of a collection of 5 aphorisms I made up in the middle of the night recently. Sample text: Drink Coffee- Capitalism's drug of choice.

Anyway, with these cards I am indulging the Arab's capacity for mass production- though my runs of 50 at a time are just a warm up for this enthusiastic machine. Thus on Friday afternoon I had a table top at TPKP covered in 150 postcards drying their ink. A third of them were the lolly-pink cards printed with Use Pornography - Let capitalism commodify all your desires.

I've noticed that the couple of men who encountered this aphorism prior to the print-run had misheard or misread the phrase (none of the other cards seem to have this problem for either gender). My nascent theory, that the word pornography has the power to make men's brains stall, was reinforced by the reaction of a visitor to the word in wet pink multiplicity.

This guy came in, as many people do, but instead of a quick look and a quick chat like most, he lingered. And lingered. He did run home for his portfolio to show me some of his (impressively realistic) drawings but then there was no getting rid of him. I just kept printing as he told me about his life in jail, drawing superheroes on commission for gang members (fee: two joints for a small drawing). Finally the conversation petered out and after a long pause he asked, "So what made you decide to use pornography as your gag?"

Of course I've been just dying for someone to ask me something like that, so as I continued to pump the treadle and print Watch Television - A capitalist occupation, I launched into a cheerful exposition on how I want the whole series to provoke consideration of personal preferences in a socio-economic context and how pornography is an example of a market-driven mass addiction pervading public spaces with compelling, fascinating images, how it conditions (especially, but not only) men to perceive (especially, but not only) women as a product-line of body parts to be consumed, and co-opts fetishes into a niche-marketing paradigm channeling intimate relationships into pre-determined narratives of desire and gratification...

Well! That got rid of the malinger. I don't think I had really understood the phrase 'slunk out' until yesterday when I paused in my monologue. Perhaps he had thought I was a pornographic enthusiast and hoped that we could bond over a shared appreciation of the genre. Anyway, whatever he was anticipating, he looked utterly crestfallen when he slunk out of the building in the wake of my feminist rant.

Luckily the porno cards will never be seen en masse again so their apparent brain-numbing powers will be diluted by isolation or in the context of the other, slightly less provocative, cards.