Hi everyone, I don't know about you, but I've been flat out in this coronavirus isolation period, teaching my various university classes, and transitioning them to onlinity has been sooooo time-consuming, especially the visual artist class. At the moment I'm teaching Book as Art for ANU School of Art & Design, and also teaching at the University of Canberra in Typography and Layout for the Design stream, and tutoring in Word and Image for the Creative Writing stream.
With my Book Art students, I'm giving them weekly challenges. Last week was to make an Edible Book while it was still April, and this week they have to make a digital book to practice building narratives. For those that don't have Adobe software, they're using Canva and Powerpoint, anything that can output as a PDF. I'm really interested to see what they come up with.
I've also been making them videos that showcase examples from my own personal archive of artist books, which of course includes all the BAO swaps that I've been involved with. They are learning to make books that can be made on the kitchen table, because the whole art school is locked down and there's no access to special equipment. It's actually great training for the post-art school, pre-studio situation that many graduates find themselves in.
I have no special video equipment, just my iPhone and iPad, and really dodgy editing skills, let along on-screen presence, but I like the opportunity to showcase old work. So I've decided to make one of my videos public -- and it's my own work from Edition 3, Quagmire: IT and Lies. It felt the most apt for these times.
Watch with kindness, and I hope you enjoy it. I might share others if I get brave enough and my skills improve!
I hope you're all coping in this difficult era. I'm looking forward to seeing these times recorded through art and writing.
Stay well,
Caren