On Artist Books
I'm over here kindly encouraging you to publish your work.
It’s been a while since I started my Substack. I haven’t had any time to write. Which is ironic, because this post is about the importance of publishing your work as it relates to the creative process. Anyway, diving in…
FOR THE LOVE OF BOOKS
I love all kinds of books, but art and photography books especially. Artist monographs, exhibition catalogs, zines, etc. all light me up. I grew up surrounded by my parents’ fairly extensive library focused on the art world.
BOOKS AS PUNCTUATION IN THE CREATIVE PROCESS
My dad (an artist -blacksmith, photographer, painter, etc.) always makes a book when he reaches a point with a complete picture in whatever he is working on. Sometimes it’s something like a Blurb book. Sometimes it’s images slipped into a print file binder. Sometimes it’s a handmade folio style compendium. All sorts of diverse formats. And so for me, that is the natural way of things: Do the thing. Edit and sequence the story. Make a book of it.
LEARN THE BASICS
When I was a kid, my elementary school had a “publishing house” (read: PTA volunteers) that produced books from stories written by every single kid in the school from 1st through 3rd grades in the spring of each year. My mom was one of the volunteers who typed up the stories, formatted the pages, printed, stitched, glued, and bound the books, complete with each individual title and author on its respective cover. My mom taught me how to do this in my 1st grade year and I’ve been making my own books since I was in 2nd grade, because once I saw it done and held it in my hands, it wasn’t enough for me to only have a single book published per year. I didn’t always have the fancy binding tape or thick cardstock. Sometimes it was just construction paper glued to a cardboard spine and a few pages stitched in. Those things didn’t really matter too much to me when I was 8, I was just excited to make it.
GROW YOUR CRAFT
This fascination with publishing never left me. I worked on the school newspaper, I made a mock-up of a fashion and culture magazine for my junior year independent study including the design, photography, articles, ads, and so on. This was (around 2000) when Quark was the standard for layouts. (I think InDesign was just coming up roses when I started at SVA, I know it’s what used when I was at JMU shortly thereafter.) My process at the time probably seems archaic now, but that theme of publishing your work -even if it’s just one copy for your own reference and further understanding of yourself- is still one of my strongest values.
DONE IS BETTER THAN PERFECT
This is certainly not to shame anyone for not making their own compilations, but to encourage you to do more of it. I am the first to admit that at some point along the line (for me that point was a baby) life starts to move at an astonishing pace. It’s easy to fly on to the next thing faster than you can “command+P.” My own work has struggled to make full circles, and even more so to make it to the stage of book production, since my son was born. All of this, as much as sharing my thoughts on the punctuational aspect of making a book in a project’s timeline, is to reiterate the significance of that process to myself.
As with this journal, I need to get over the idea of not doing something because it’s not perfect yet. It’s all part of a process. The individual book of the project is not the end. It’s just one chapter. Or even just one sentence.
5 BOOKS ON MAKING ART & PHOTOGRAPHY BOOKS
So, I rounded up a few of my favorite guides on making your own creative volumes to inform and inspire a brilliant assemblage of work. There is no one right way to go about it obviously, but knowing a thing or two about books and related design makes your end product that much more polished and/or vivid in its effect.
Indie Publishing: How to Design and Produce Your Own Book by Ellen Lupton
Art Direction + Editorial Design by Yolanda Zappaterra
Grid Systems by Kimberly Elam
Self Publish, Be Happy by Bruno Ceschel
Publish Your Photography Book by Darius D. Himes & Mary Virginia Swanson
These are all listed in the Range Creative bookshop; I think one or two look different because they have updated editions.
THAT’S ALL FOR NOW
I hope this post leads you to find some new and useful information and/or ideas to prioritize and refine your story.
Thanks so much for reading! I appreciate you.
See you next week!
-Megan
P.S. I’m thinking it would be super fun to have a discussion question each week or month. What do you think? Right now I’m wondering how/if books factor into your creative process.