From late March and throughout the better part of April I've been visiting London with my partner Shane Jones.
With an unwanted
souvenir from the UK finally discarded, namely a severe, lingering dose of flu,
there is much to catch up on - but where to start? It seems to me that as good
a place as any is from right where I left off - namely preparing for Biblio at Clunes Booktown.
After a nightmarish
return flight to Australia (we left London on Monday 28 April and, due to a
series of chronic mechanical faults with the planes on both legs of our journey, didn’t
land in Melbourne until Thursday 1 May). In total, we were 32 hours late; there
was just enough time to snatch a little sleep before setting off for Clunes to
set up my stand for Booktown, which ran from 3-4 May.
Biblio, the section in
which I exhibited, focused primarily on artist books. It was great to reunite with book
artists I’ve long known and admired: David Frazer, Angela Cavalieri, Gracia
Haby, Louise Jennison and Dianne Longley, and to have the pleasure of
meeting and admiring the work of Deanna Hitti, Tai Smith, An Kyunghee and
Nicholas Jones (the latter was also Biblio’s curator). The State Library of
Victoria and the Baillieu Libraries also exhibited selected gems from their vast
collections. We received hundreds of visitors and an overwhelmingly
positive response to our work.
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| Wesley Bluestone Church, the site of Biblio - Artist Books |
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| At the close of Day 1: raising a glass to toast the birthday of the State Library of Victoria's venerable Des Cowley |
For more about Biblio at Clunes Booktown, visit Moth Woman Press HERE.