UPDATE: Unfolding Projects: Afghan and Australian Artist's Books

A selection of the artist's books
(Photograph by Gali Weiss)

In late 2009 fourteen Australian women artists were invited to participate in a project initiated by Melbourne artist Gali Weiss, who was initially incited by the desperate situation of women in Afghanistan, many of whom are restricted or even forbidden to attend school. As a result, numerous women are illiterate. The project’s aim was establish a dialogue with some of these women via the imagery created by the Australian artists in a series of small concertina books. The Afghan women were invited to respond by writing their own stories in the language or characters of their choice. (See Blog Posts May 18, 2010 and December 2, 2010.) The books were sent to Afghanistan in April, 2010 and just over 6 months later the 36 of the original 53 books were returned to Australia, each with its own handwritten text.

Some of the Afghan writers (photograph by Latifa)

Recently we received some fantastic news. In September, 2010 Gali Weiss and Barbara Kameniar presented a joint paper, Unfolding Projects: Afghan and Australian artist’s books collaborations at Monash University’s IMPACT 7 Printmaking Conference. Subsequently they were approached by the Queensland State Library with an offer to buy the complete set of books for the library’s permanent collection. Once this has been finalized (in approximately April, 2012) the proceeds of the acquisition will go to the Women’s Vocational Centre in Afghanistan. A book documenting the project is also in the planning stages, and once published, this will provide further income for the Vocational Centre.

The 14 Australian artists were:

Rosalind Atkins, Tracey Avery, Marian Crawford, Ann Cunningham, Dianne Ellis, Susan Gordon-Brown, Jennifer Kamp, Deborah Klein, Anne Riggs, Annelise Scott, Krystal Seigerman, Tanya Ungeri, Gali Weiss and Christine Willcocks;

The Afghan writers were:

Sagia, Mansora, Shakila, Hamida, Fatima, Agila, Majabeen, Mahjan, Samira, Sara, Basira, Anita, Nafiza, Amina, Jamila, Mariam, Zoteh, Nadia, Zahida, Laila, Morsal, Nazia, Jamila, Anis Gul, Lida, Marwa, Habiba, Mah Gul, Taqui Jan. Two of the participants wished to withhold their names from the public.

Until 12 months before they received the books, many of the Afghan writers had been illiterate. To learn about other similarly courageous women, visit SAWA (Support Association for the Women of Afghanistan) HERE. 

(Pictured below: Women With Wings, 2010, photographed just prior to its departure for Afghanistan. Click on image to enlarge.)

A Memo from Sherlock Holmes and a Merry Christmas

The Moth Woman Vigilantes zines

When I visited London in October I took along some of my recent zines. The tongue-in-cheek texts of the Moth Woman Vigilantes zines put my old friend Sue in mind of a certain piece of prose written by Yours Truly in 1970s, which she duly fetched. I’d completely forgotten about it, but Sue had kept a copy all these years. Over time it had not only yellowed, but accumulated some appropriately picturesque stains, adding considerable weight to its ‘authenticity’.

In the 1970s I worked for a time in a small office in Soho. It was a branch of the British Library, but there were no books in sight, unfortunately. It was staffed by public servants, most of them delightful people. The lone exception was one Mr Stokes, who took himself - and everything else - way too seriously. My colleague Angela and I operated a two-position switchboard, rather like one of those old fashioned contraptions with cords and plugs that you sometimes see in old movies. We were notorious for bringing our coffees into the switchboard room, leaving the empty cups and saucers on top of the switchboard and when we ran out of space, strewing them all over the remaining furniture. I must admit we did accumulate rather a lot of them. It got to the stage that the staff cafeteria in the basement started to run out of crockery. The case against us was indisputable - our guilt was there for all to see by anyone passing our glass walled room, including Mr. Stokes. But instead of quite rightly telling us to return the lot without further delay, he posted a wordy, unbearably pompous office-wide menu concerning the disappearance of Civil Service crockery. I had just begun to fully appreciate the Sherlock Holmes stories around that time, having recently purchased The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes in an op shop in Balham (I still treasure it). In the guise of Mr. Conan Doyle’s immortal sleuth, we sent a memo in response. In the spirit of the Silly Season, the infamous document is reproduced below.

It reads as follows:

Baker Street 

16 July
The Year of Our Lord etc...


R Stokes Esq
British Library Crockery 
Custodian


Sir,
     We refer to your Urgent Epistle of the 13th instant regarding the Case of the Disappearing Teacups.
     You are certainly right to regard this Serious Matter with such Grave Concern. Confidentially, I suspect it to be the work of my arch-enemy Moriarty and his Vicious Band of Villainous Vandals.
     However, Sir, I can assure you that I shall not rest until the Root of the Matter has been Eradicated, and the Cold-Blooded Criminals, whoever they be, have been captured, put to the torture and duly executed.
     It's elementary, my dear Stokes. We have already found some clues. Two cups and a saucer bearing the Civil Service Coat of Arms were seen in a left luggage locker at Victoria Station and a Mysterious Parcel found on the corner of Fareham Street and Great Chapel Street, Soho, North Side, was found to contain a teapot, minus lid, 6 glasses and 2 slide-plates - brutally smashed to a thousand pieces!
     But never fear, dear Sir, This Tiresome Tinkering with the Teacups shall not be allowed to continue!


I remain, 
Yours faithfully
Sherlock Holmes
S Holmes Esq

AFTERWORD

Once the memo was placed on Mr. Stokes’s desk, we accurately timed almost to the second the time it would take him to come directly to us – less than a minute. However could he have suspected us? (Admittedly we did have a history of teasing him). We denied everything with admirably straight faces. He left in frustration, but we saw him hiding behind a partition waiting for Angela and I to crack up when we thought we were alone. Although he tried the same thing intermittently for days afterwards, we never did.

POSTSCRIPT AND SEASON’S GREETINGS

We assure our readers that we have matured considerably since the heady days described above and always wash up our empty coffee cups – or at the very least return them to the kitchen for our other half to wash.

Moth Woman Press wishes everyone a Merry Christmas and a New Year filled with wonderful books and zines.

The Chapman Brothers at Bethnal Green Museum of Childhood

Recently in London I paid my first (but most certainly not my last) visit to Bethnal Green Museum of Childhood. In the main hall at ground floor level was a temporary exhibition of etchings by Jake and Dinos Chapman, My Giant Colouring Book. Their blackly humourous images depicted childhood as a scary place way beyond our wildest nightmares, delving deeper than even the darkest of fairy tales. The Chapman brothers demonstrated (to paraphrase Bette Davis, whose original comment referred to aging) that childhood is definitely not for sissies.

To see a selection of works from the museum's extraordinary permanent collection, visit my Art Blog. 

The Wonderful Creative Things Fair Part 2

The Wonderful Creative Things Fair is over. There was a great turn-out and the day seemed to pass in a flash. I hope everyone else had as much fun as I did. The stall holders' wares were remarkably diverse, but uniformly stunning. Thanks to everyone involved, especially organizer Rona Green and the staff of St Heliers café (those coffees were wonderful and very welcome.)

It feels strange for the first time in several days not to be spending long hours making up extra copies of my zines. It’s satisfying to know that despite excellent sales on Sunday, I have a good stockpile of most of them and now feel free to get on with some new projects.

Pictured above: far left: Sally Darlinson, third from left

(standing) Megan Herring, far left: Rona Green 

Foreground: Moth Woman Press stall and (on right)

Paul Compton at his stall

The Wonderful Creative Things Fair

Moth Woman Press is delighted to be part of the second artists' fair at St. Heliers Street Store and Gallery. Previously called The Wonderful Printed Things Fair, organizer and exhibitor Rona Green has slightly modfied its original title in order to present a wider range of creative goodies, not all of which are necessarily print-based. MWP, however, will continue to focus on book-related art, including There was once... and an assortment of zines, among them our two most recent publications, Girls in High Places #1 and #2. 

The fair, a one day only event, will take place this coming Sunday, 27 November, between 11 am - 4pm. If you get a chance to come along, drop by and say hello. 

For full details of The Wonderful Creative Things Fair, click onto the poster above to enlarge.

In Suspense at Hand Held Gallery, Melbourne

I'm still in London, and will be in Berlin by November 3, so won't be able to attend the opening of this exhibition. But you can be certain I'll be there in spirit and will look forward to seeing the installation views on the Hand Held Gallery blog once the show is up and running. To see the two zines I made especially for In Suspense, scroll down to Girls in High Places, my September 29 Blog Post. Directly below are full details of the exhibition:

Camden Zinefest

An early highlight of my London trip was the Camden Zinefest. It was held on 8 October at the Pirate Castle, a local community hall a short bus ride away from where I'm staying. Although it wasn't a huge event in terms of the number of stall holders, the quality was uniformly high and I've acquired a number of fantastic zines for my growing collection. Barbara and Sue, my London hosts and dear friends, came along with me and hugely enjoyed their introduction to the world of zines. I've been trying to persuade Barbara, who is an artist with a gift for words as well as images, to make some zines of her own. Sue is also a talented wordsmith, and her pieces would also be well suited to a zine format.

The Pirate Castle 

  Camden Zinefest (8th and 9th from centre: Barbara Britton

and Sue Verney)

On left: Barbara Britton perusing zines

Girls in High Places

The zines pictured below (images 3 - 4) were made especially for the forthcoming group exhibition In Suspense at Hand Held Gallery. The exhibition will run from 3 - 30 November, but because I will be overseas at that time, I've had to complete the works well in advance. Also pictured are a couple of 'roughs' followed by the original artwork.

 Girls in High Places #1 and #2

developmental drawings, pencil,

each 42 x 10 cm

 Girls in High Places #1 and #2 (original

artwork) watercolour and gouache

42 x 10 cm (each image)

 Girls in High Places #1: Rope Trick, 2011, zine, laser printed,
concertina format with cardboard and embossing, 10.5 x 10.5 cm 
(closed); 42 x 10 cm (open) Edition: 80, signed and numbered

Girls in High Places #2: Flying High, 2011, zine, laser printed,
concertina format, with cardboard and embossing, 10.5 x 10.5 cm 
(closed); 42 x 10 cm (open) Edition: 80, signed and numbered

The brief given to invited artists by curator Megan Herring was to "submit small scale objects that are designed to be suspended and for which the act of suspension enhances or subverts their reading."

Although Girls in High Places #1: Rope Trick and Girls in High Places #2: Flying High can be read separately, the second zine can equally be read as a sequel to the first.

The Moth Woman Vigilantes

Written and illustrated by Deborah Klein. Laser printed, saddle stitched. Edition of 80, 21.5 x 15.5 cm; signed and numbered: $12.00

The Story of the Moth Masks was one of the first fairy tales I wrote. It morphed out of a series of small paintings and linocuts I was making at the time and was eventually incorporated into There was once… The collected fairy tales (2009). 

The Moth Woman Vigilantes are much more subversive: a group of anonymous women with apparent super powers who (for reasons that are at this point unclear) have decided to take the law into their own hands. Are they on the side of Good or Evil? This is entirely in the eyes of the beholder. They are distantly related to the characters in the fairy tale - in fact, their aliases (The Virgin Tiger, etc.) are based on the common names of moths. But the Vigilantes are also direct descendents of film noir femme fatales, comic book super heroes and super villains (not that I’ve ever been a huge comic book reader) and the old B-movies and serials I love so much, particularly the French silent film serial Fantomas (1913-14). (Incidentally, the anti-hero Fantomas was also admired by members of the Surrealist movement, including Rene Magritte.) There’s probably a little bit of Joss Whedon’s Buffy in them too, although the morally ambiguous Vigilantes appear to be more reminiscent of her nemesis Faith.

The Moth Woman Vigilantes zine has already spawned the mini-zine Moth Woman Vigilantes: a Menace to Society (see blog post directly below) so it’s fairly certain we haven’t seen the last of them.

Moth Woman Vigilantes: A Menace to Society (mini-zine)

Written and illustrated by Deborah Klein. Laser printed concertina zine unfolding into A4 sized Wanted Poster. 10.5 x 7.5 cm (closed), edition of 80 signed and numbered: $2.00.

The Little Black Hair Book

Newly completed, The Little Black Hair Book zine contains a selection of favourite black hair quotes, paired with some of my linocuts.

Laser printed, saddle stitched. Edition of 80, 21.5 x 15.5 cm; signed and numbered. $12.00.