Surf Book #3 (Get barrelled)

A month of opportunities. In July I took a class with Maureen Cummins, who was teaching at ArtSpace in Raleigh. And last week I was at California Rare Book School taking a course on artists' books with Johanna Drucker. Either opportunity would've been enough to provide material to chew on for a year at least--to have them back-to-back as they were was overwhelming in the best of possible ways.

Maureen's class met four times, each Tuesday evening of July. The idea was that each student would create a small edition of an artist's book from conception to finish over the course of the month. I decided to continue a series I started with last year's Surf book #1/#2. Instead of a one-of-a-kind book this time, I produced 20 copies of an 18-page visual poem made up of collaged photos from surf magazines. It's called, creatively enough, Surf book #3 (Get barrelled). No text--just images I created by tearing photos out of surf magazines using a piece of packing tape.

Once I'd created and scanned the collages, I had the pages printed from PDF at Kinko's on a color laser printer/copier. Here's what the original cover looked like:

A title strip copied from the internal collage, glued onto the cover paper provided in class. Compared to the cut-up collages inside the book, which sample from the best and worst of surfing's visual culture, it was staid and out of character.

So now all the copies have been disbound and I'm creating new covers for them--a unique cover for each copy of the book. Over the next couple of weeks I'll be showing you the new covers, which I'm creating by altering pages torn straight out of surf magazines. A little graffiti, a little palimpsest, a little found poetry. Let me know what you think.

Here's today's cover, which graces copy #8 of 20. Front cover: 

Back cover:

 

 

And seen as a spread:

 

And here's a bit of found poetry I dug out of the advertisement on the back cover:

What is the future

What is the future

? 

What is the future

?

we believe it is choice. The introduction of new 

shapes and tools means more choice

fish, 

pintail, swallowtail, 

sandwich, 

fiber, etc. All of these shapes, materials and technologies are relevant

Not all 

are created equal and neither are all

constantly testing

to give you the best

It is our job to not only supply our

products, but also

to make the right choice. Consumers deserve 

materials and

affect

we are making the commitment to

get

you.  As the customer, you deserve

This