Library Interventions

Reading an excerpt from a story that had shaped my idea of what an artist might be like

The more I write the more I think about the way writings have shaped my perceptions of the world. Over ten years ago I was involved in a 'Library Intervention' project, whereby I engaged with the library at what was still then Leeds College of Art. I had decided to explain how reading fiction had in many ways shaped my personal idea of what it was to be an artist; suggesting that I was in effect also a fictional character and that my own story was as much a fictional construction, as the stories I had read in the past that had in turn shaped my story. In order to do this I wrote 26 short stories, or to be more accurate, micro-fictions, each one fronting an alphabetically broken down list of fiction, whereby art or an artist had a significant role within the story. This became the artist’s book ‘Art and Fiction’ which included 1,000 short descriptions of novels in which art and/or artists are essential to the plot. I also bought as many second hand copies of these books as I could afford and filled a bookcase with an alphabetically organised collection of them; a bookcase that also had on its shelves copies of my artist's book, 'Art and Fiction'. 

Art and Fiction

I was amazed to find an image of the book still existing and I had forgotten the drawing I made of books with tongues for the cover. Looking back on the idea it feels as if I was giving too much honorific value to the idea of art, but it did feel as if it was an honest response to a long running relationship with fiction and story telling. Perhaps it was an idea born from a realisation that I had never really had an up front encounter with the harsh reality of the world and that my life had been shaped by fantasy more than reality. If anyone wanted to borrow the books, there was a specially created stamp with which to mark the date label.

Drawing for Bark-er rubber stamp

Slightly older and perhaps less of a dreamer, I returned to the theme of a library intervention in 2019. This time I was part of a group collaboration. This is how Nick Norton described the project within his own text written for the Soanyway magazine.

Library Interventions took place in October 2019 and was a project co-curated by Dee Heddon and Nick Norton for Leeds Arts University. The term “walk” was searched for in the library catalogue. Walk and variations thereof became a collection within the collection. A game began. The artists were invited to select a title. They then asked the librarian (myself) to select a sentence from the book in a pleasing subversion of the notion of librarian as gatekeeper passing out pre-approved texts. 

Nick then goes on to explain his own  journey: 

In what follows I try to explore not only the discovery of these sentences, how I got to them, but also how they got to me. That is; each sentence extends to become a discovery. The game then proceeded to another level: each sentence was returned to the artists: Dee Heddon, Angela Kennedy, Rosie O’Grady, and Garry Barker. Each walked with this sentence, in their own way, for up to a fortnight. What follows is not about their responses to this game, something of that was found in the gallery exhibition. Rather it is an exploration of how a game might be played; the aleatory dance of thought as it pushes toward creativity via research and the threaded connections of narrative.

Drawing made in the art college library

My own walk took me back into the library and I set up an easel and made drawings that explored how I saw. In particular I returned to a way of drawing I had used many years previously, one that relied on the recording of the search for the grid of looking, rather than a documentation of what was in front of me. These drawings became central to my own investigation of the library, one that hopefully prioritised looking over reading and that engendered a book selection system based on the measurement of visual perception, rather than a cataloging system. For instance I used the drawings made to discover books that lay directly on a path that followed my centre of vision. Therefore two books might become related simply because in my line of vision they sat one in front and one behind of an invisible line that passed through a particular bookshelf. It was as if I had fired an arrow through a bookshelf and I was looking for the books the arrow had speared. 

A digital print made from one of the drawings made in the library

In one case the arrow had on one side passed through books on fashion, in particular cowboy boots and on the other side of the shelf books on botany, in this instance exotic flowers. The process engendered various responses, some I made in ceramic and others I developed as prints. I felt that this form of working was very reminiscent of a situation whereby cosmic rays or x rays might penetrate solid objects in order to see what lies beneath. By inverting the tonality of drawings made on white paper, the images became 'cosmic' and they became the first responses that I thought were good enough to be exhibited. 

The initial drawings had been annotated with the names of texts found along the central axis of vision. As more drawings were made, 'speculative' encounters between book subjects were also imagined and a symbolic geometry of targeting was finally applied to clarify the sighting process.

Digital print: Thew sighting 2019

On the other hand I made drawings and ceramics in response to both the books selected by the drawing process and the ideas suggested by thinking about the physical nature of books as objects. I decided that if books had an anatomy the one organ that they ought to possess that would be the same as ourselves, as well as having a spine and a head, would be a tongue, an idea that had first of all raised its head when I was drawing images for the cover of 'Art and Fiction'.

Drawing made for Library Interventions

Ceramic object: A Book speaking with its own tongue

Some of the ceramic objects exhibited in Library Interventions 2019

I also began feeling that what I had done was awake some sort of library ghost and this had to be visualised too. 

Library ghost: Ceramic 2019

Sketchbook drawing of library ghost in the form of a bookend 

Digital print of library ghost

The library ghost image was developed as a digital print and that was included in the exhibition alongside other prints, various ceramic objects and an animation, all of which I either embedded into old repurposed metal library shelving units or had hung on the wall next to the shelving units.  What I was discovering was an ideal working methodology, the development of an installation, whereby chance and serendipity operated alongside logical narrative, connections being made that were not there previously, but which when found illuminated a situation from a new viewpoint.  

Work on display in the 2019 Library Interventions exhibition

The other artists involved, all of whom had spaces dedicated to their work were: Dee Heddon (curator), Angela Kennedy and Rosie O’Grady.

Reference:

Library Interventions: creative disruptions,a culture of curiosity

The anatomy of a book

Soanyway magazine issue 5 (Includes a review of the project)

See also:

The Myth of the artist

Reflections on the project Library Interventions

Soanyway magazine issue 5

Quantum Entanglement

Drawing and ceramics