Monday, February 25, 2013

sams creek counting book...




 


sams creek counting book

for BookArtObject Edition 4

laser print on Magnani Revere
Canson Mi-Teintes fold and slit covers
sumi ink and creek water on Bemboka* paper spine

edition of 15


Sams Creek Counting Book - was created in response to the story title 'knowledge'  taken from 'an exercise for Kurt Johannessen' by Sarah Bodman. 

For more than 20 years I've lived beside the tiny watercourse - Sams Creek - I've been playing next to (and IN) the creek all my life - it might be a small and insignificant creek to others, but to me it is the most important waterway in the world. 

Many of you already know that for the past few years I've been quietly working on my MFA project - a part of what I've been thinking as I've been researching, writing and making is the nature of knowledge - in particular, the differences between tacit and explicit knowledge. Tacit, or experiential knowledge is something hard to quantify and almost impossible to transmit through written instructions - swimming, riding a bike, moulding clay to form a pitcher, the ability to tell a storm is coming from smelling the air.... this is tacit knowledge. Tacit knowledge is the sphere of artists and artisans, farmers and gardeners, athletes, dancers and singers... This is the knowledge that I'm acutely interested in.
 

On an afternoon in early December 2012 I walked to my creek, as I often do, collecting a handful of small things found along the way. These provided the content for my sams creek counting book - the humble, simple, everyday, bioregional (yet sometimes also global...), personal, small, known things of my creek-home...

Held in these simple items are innumerable personal stories, myths, histories: tacit and explicit knowledge of birds and creeks, wind and weather, insects and trees... representatives of the fundamental stuff of existence. This is the knowledge worth counting.



here it is - sams creek counting book

page by page...






 




its a simple, small, humble 
black and white book



....

*Bemboka is a small town in my shire – for a brief moment in the 1980/90s a family operated a handmade paper mill there – the venture didn’t continue.... In 2011 I met the Australian distributor of Magnani Paper... imagine the mutual surprise when he told me how he used to manage a paper mill in a small NSW town and I told him where I was from and that I had a stash of that Bemboka paper... yes these small, often hidden histories and tales of connections drive much of my thinking about knowledge and place...

.....

20 comments:

  1. Magnificent Ronnie, congratulations on the completion of the edition. Your drawings are exquisite!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I wish I could claim these are drawings - but you know I'm a tricky gal - and these images are the result of a whole mess of alchemy.....

      Delete
  2. exquisite. if you had a spare one and wanted to trade....

    ReplyDelete
  3. Replies
    1. thanks vicki - so nice of you to drop by - hope your BAO project is coming along swimmingly

      Delete
  4. Just as beautiful as the sneak preview promised! A beautiful book and full of meaning. Lovely, Ronnie!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. thanks carol - always appreciate your lovely words of encouragement

      Delete
  5. What a wonderful "small, humble and simple book"!
    (Not sure about the simple, maybe beautifully designed).Love the link with your personal meanings.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. it IS a simple little piece (at least in terms of book construction) --- the covers are just folded and everything is slotted together... kinda like my life really .....

      Delete
  6. I love your black and white book, the content, the style, the stories.
    Super work, Ronnie. CONGRATULATIONS!!!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I'm not really much of a colour gal -- monochromatic (or even better still - just black and white) is where I feel happiest...... and anyway I like the allusion to knowledge being a 'black and white' issue..... I think the world is more 'shades of grey' .... oh and more than 50 at that!

      Delete
  7. An equisite little book, you have captured the wonders of the large and small worlds outside our doors. Beautiful.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. thanks so much for you sweet words - muchly appreciated x

      Delete
  8. What a masterpiece Ronnie - it is a delight of a book and captures so many things so beautifully and so well. We all get a feel for the Creek from this - thanks for sharing, and creating!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. 'masterpiece' gawhhhhh --- 'minorpiece' yes - 'mypiece' absolutely.... tarrr fiona for your continued loveliness x

      Delete
  9. It is an exquisite book ronnie, and as you show, everything important always comes back to nature and simple things. Black and white are my favourite colours too!

    ReplyDelete
  10. i just managed my way over here, ronnie, and am stunned. a grand piece...i too covet.

    ReplyDelete

thanks for all your lovely comments - your words are greatly appreciated xx