So, I did a thing.
This is something I should have done a long time ago, back when digital online publishing became a thing, but I'd never forced myself to design it much less go through with the preparation of the files necessary to produce it. Another factor has been that I didn't care for Blurb's templates, and instead of figuring out a workaround at the time, I put it on the back burner. The back back burner!
As I was scanning old negatives last month, however, I came across the thirty-year-old negatives from this series of portraits, and went back to the scans I'd made of them probably three years ago, not long after having acquired a scanner that could handle medium format negatives. It was yet another of my false-starts to get this thing moving. This time, though, I'd made up my mind to bring this to completion, so I retouched all the images, which was a painstaking process in and of itself (see below), looked at Blurb's BookWright Online interface, and decided how I could avoid using the available templates.
Feeling a bit of a breeze at my back, and with a determination to finally get it done, I trusted somewhat in my ability to work around Blurb's template limitations. I stuck to working on it for a solid week. I dropped pretty much everything else I've been working on, primarily my research/writing projects, and concentrated on creating something I believe has a place in this world.
As I alluded to last month, I've done this primarily with one person in mind, Karen Stock. At the time my exhibition went up at the Lansing Art Gallery (which I only recently discovered no longer exists), I was totally out of my league. I didn't know the first thing about having a show of this nature, much less the duties that came with it, so this book is more than just a thank you to Karen, it's an apology for my inexperienced mindlessness at the time.
But now, it's done, and the book should be in Karen's hands by now. While she and I are connected on Facebook, we don't interact very much, but I've been hesitant to let on that I've been doing this other than with a close friend who also knows Karen. I've planned on and hoped for the book to be total surprise to her. I also had a copy printed for Bill Harrison, who so graciously allowed me to use his darkroom at Custom Photographic all those years ago so that I could get all the prints done in time for matting, framing, and mounting at the gallery. He should have his by now as well.
While I have zero expectations that anyone else would be interested in having a copy, especially since they're not exactly cheap, it's currently available both in hardcover and softcover at Blurb's base prices. It's also available as a PDF.
So, once I got that ball rolling, it turned out to not be very difficult to complete, and I'm quite pleased with the quality of the book. So, with that little bit of tailwind, I dove right into another book project, yet another one I've imagined for almost twenty years. In fact, I had actually gotten quite a ways into that project at one time, but I've since trashed that design for a new one, and have processed and re-processed gobs of photographs for it. Again, while it's not something I expect anyone to buy, I feel compelled to assemble the photographs in a non-online form as a kind of permanent record.
Side note: I selected the cover photograph—which is not amongst the photos that were included in the gallery show—because I felt that since hands were essential to all of the artists' work, I wanted something that highlighted that aspect.
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