Seascapes and my ghost of time

while my own blog blogged for two weeks on autopilot, I've been eagerly waiting on the proofs for my first print-on-demand (pod) publication to arrive.

My ghost of time is a bit of poetry with some of my seascapes - the deliberate ones, often done en plein air, as well as the accidental ones - where abstract pieces took a turn to the water.
 

So, last Monday the book arrived, I made some more changes and put it on the public bookstore at Blurb.

I know others have published with them before and in terms of quality and price they seemed pretty competitive.

I tried to find some info on quality control of their publications. I came across this flickr discussion group and became a bit worried as to the lack of quality control and indeed the huge variation from print to print. The attractiveness with pod is that it doesn't require money provided up front, it's an easy and convenient ordering process regardless to where you are. But, if each copy turns out different and of variable quality, this can be a problem.

So, while Blurb does seem to have problems with quality control (colour variations, notably a magenta cast; and problems with binding seem far too common), their customer service seems very good and helpful. - Which means, if there is a problem with the copy, they are helpful in providing a new one.

Now, My ghost of time is not going to be the next bestseller neither do I intend to use it as marketing/portfolio material. It's a project that's been simmering for a while and was important to see to fruition. I ordered one hardback and one paperback. The paperback came out very nicely, the hardback has some issues with the binding.

But: the layout and the quality of images turned out very well. I chose their standard landscape format (25x20cm) which actually provides fairly sizeable images.

• Have you published your artwork? As print-on-demand? Conventionally?
• What are your experiences? With quality? As marketing material?
  
• Do you have plans on publishing some of your artwork?

• Blurb offers a full preview of My ghost of time here
• Here are the posts from my own blog about the project
  

The pond and the sea

The pond and the sea. As concepts, metaphors and symbols, they are really miles apart, aren't they? Take these two poems by Rainer Maria Rilke: Firstly, the pond in Fortschritt/Progress:

wieder rauscht mein tiefes Leben lauter, als ob es jetzt in breitern Ufern ginge. Immer verwandter werden mir die Dinge und alle Bilder immer angeschauter. Dem Namenlosen fühl ich mich vertrauter: Mit meinen Sinnen, wie mit Vögeln, reiche ich in die windigen Himmel aus der Eiche, und in den abgebrochnen Tag der Teiche sinkt, wie auf Fischen stehend, mein Gefühl.

And an English version is here:

The deep parts of my life pour onward, as if the river shores were opening out. I seems that things are more like me now, that I can see farther into paintings. I feel closer to what language can't reach. With my senses, as with birds, I climb into the windy heaven, out of the oak,and in the ponds broken off from the sky my feeling sinks, as if standing on fishes. (translation by Robert Bly)

 

Where the wild things live, detail Soft pastel on Arches, 58x39cm

Secondly, Der Einsame/ The lonely one

DER EINSAME Wie einer, der auf fremden Meeren fuhr, so bin ich bei den ewig Einheimischen; die vollen Tage stehn auf ihren Tischen, mir aber ist die Fremde voll Figur. In mein Gesicht reicht eine Welt herein, die vielleicht unbewohnt ist wie ein Mond, sie aber lassen kein Gefühl allein, und alle ihre Worte sind bewohnt. Die Dinge, die ich weither mit mir nahm, sehn selten aus, gehalten an das Ihre - : in ihrer großen Heimat sind sie Tiere, hier halten sie den Atem an vor Scham.

I found a translation by Phillip Kellmeyer (with a few alterations)

The lonely one Like someone who sailed distant seas, I am with the ever natives; full days are standing on their tables, yet for me distance is full of promise. In my face a world reaches in, perhaps deserted like a moon, they leave no feeling alone, and all their words are inhabited. The things which I took with me look rare, compared to theirs -: in their great home they are animals, here they hold their breath in shame.

The one, the former, uses the pond as a metaphor for introspection: for digging deeper, further and further down to reveal, unearth one’s authentic self. ‘My sunken treasure’ by Duke Spirit captures that, don't you think so?  The other, the sea, is full of expectation, anticipation. The gaze turned to the horizon, the distance, the afar, expectant of what may come. Hm... while I've been doing some thinking around this when, before and after painting and printing, I think I may continue that - I find it helpful in trying to let some of the more abstract aspects of the scenes I'm working on develop. What made me think of this? Distance did, and how it's connected so closely to the sea for me. It is becoming a bit clearer since I've continued to work on the ponds - in drawing as the detail above shows, but even more so in printing, but that's for another post.

Water so dark so still

Water so dark so still
Linocut on blotting paper
20x15cm

Colours intersected by water
a surface so still that
it seems to reveal all there is

Look, can you not see?
All that there is
to marvel at

Clear lines long lines
unbroken
until
a breeze lifts
barely to hear
it lets the lake move
it breaks the lines
hides the trees

And nothing remains.

Check my blog for more info on the printmaking project here