Lockdown 2020: A Fable - new artist's book

Lockdown 2020: A Fable was created as a response to the unfolding Covid-19 pandemic and the lockdowns that millions of people around the world went through in the spring of 2020.

It depicts twelve pencilled illustrations of life in lockdown and twelve corresponding illustrations of a variety of animals in cages and crates.  The book is made up of multiple spines, which allows the pages to be flipped easily from hand to hand.

In the early days of the first lockdown, I did a little research into the likely origins of the coronavirus and found myself looking through articles and videos full of images of animals in wet markets. 

The thought crossed my mind that there was a kind of grim irony to this catastrophe: if it was true that this new virus had originated from an ill animal, confined in its small cage indefinitely with no freedom, then wasn't there a kind of poetic justice that we were now the species confined to our homes indefinitely, with no freedom and an uncertain fate?

The tables had turned, and our treatment and exploitation of nature and its wildlife had come back to harm us.

Two limited edition versions and one unlimited edition paperback booklet have been created, all of them featuring the same pencilled illustrations. 

 

Lockdown 2020: A Fable Original Size (left) and Miniature (right)

 

Lockdown 2020: A Fable - unlimited edition

For me this artwork will always be about the unprecedented events of Spring 2020 and how, to some extent, this disaster was quite possibly a product of our own making.  It’s my hope that people can view this artwork and take from it whatever message or meaning they choose.

Some may interpret the artwork as being an example of karma, or perhaps see the juxtaposition of scenes from lockdown and caged animals as a metaphor.

Others may see something entirely different. 

Writing this now in 2024, there is still no universal consensus as to where and how the virus originated. It’s possible we may never find out. But perhaps in time and with more evidence, we will know for definite what happened that caused this worldwide human disaster and will learn how best to avert another one. 

Copies of the books are available in my online shop at
https://joannarobsonillustration.bigcartel.com/

 

A long work in progress:

This book took quite a while to design and illustrate and was held up frequently by things along the way.  I'm pleased with the final look and feel of the book, even though it took over four years to finish!

Below are some milestones that it passed along the way as it neared completion. 

(More behind-the-scenes pictures and footage from this project are available at https://www.instagram.com/p/DDPMES3IWuP/)

 

New book art: work in progress

Sometimes new work can take a very long time and that's certainly been the case with this project... 

The first book in a new edition of artist's books has finally been put together. Each one will be made up of multiple pencil illustrations, including the prints you see here on my desk. This one has been a long time in the pipeline, but it's nearly there! 

As always, photos of the final artwork will be shared here when finished. 

If you wish to be among the first to see new work from me then you can subscribe to my mailing list.  I don't do mail-outs very often, but as a subscriber you will get to see finished work first and hear about any events or projects I'm involved in. 

To subscribe, visit
https://joannarobson.us17.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=e89fc5b3e135c7a4021010835&id=4b3010f94b

Tea Green Summer Market at the National Galleries Scotland

I'm pleased to share here that I've been selected to take part in Tea Green's Summer Market at the National Galleries of Scotland next month.  The market will run across three days and will be held at the National.

Dates: Friday 23rd to Sunday 25th August 2024
Times: 10am until 5pm
Location:  The National Galleries of Scotland: National 

I'll be taking part on just the Friday and Saturday, and the market will held in the downstairs area of the National that you enter through Princes Street Gardens on the Mound.

I'll be sharing a bit more about it nearer the time on Instagram - you can find me there at https://www.instagram.com/joannakrobson

See some of you there!

 

 

Summerhall Christmas Market: 2 - 3 December 2023

On Saturday 2nd December, I'll be one of the ninety independent makers taking part in this year's two day Christmas Market at Summerhall in Edinburgh. 

The following day on Sunday 3rd December there will be another set of ninety stallholders, making this year's Christmas market weekend at Summerhall the biggest one that they've done yet.

Doors open from 11am until 5pm on both days.

Entry is £3.00 and under 18s can attend for free.

You'll find me and my stall on Saturday 2nd December from 11-5pm in the Back Courtyard marquee (stall 15) - hope to see some of you there!

More information at https://www.summerhall.co.uk/sh-event/summerhall-christmas-market-2023/2023-12-02/

 

Cover illustration for Probability, Causation, and Inequality of Opportunity by Lennart Ackermans

 

Earlier this year I was asked to create an illustration for the cover of Lennart Ackermans' PhD thesis Probability, Causation, and Inequality of Opportunity. 

The illustration needed to depict a cityscape and include two or more streets, with one showing references to a life of opportunity and privilege, with another street featuring bars, casinos and other places that could foreshadow personal ruin. 

The image was to be similar in style to an illustration that I'd done a few years ago titled City and appeared in the fourth edition of Techne by Pittville Press:

City (2015)

A few ideas were tried out before we settled on a symmetrical composition that allowed the viewer to see down each of the two streets to the end. 

On the corner between both of the two streets stands an unassuming looking building: the Experimental Philosophy Lab.

At the end of each street (and where the two vanishing points land) there are two buildings: one has lights on in every window and smoke rising from the chimney: 

...while the other is in a state of dilapidation: the front door is boarded up with a warning notice on it, the roof is falling apart, and a bird has made a nest in the disused chimney:

This idea for including an end-point for the two streets as a metaphor for the two different trajectories in life came about as I worked on the pencil drawing.

This composition and the placement of the two different buildings just above the vanishing points felt like something out of a William Hogarth print to me, despite the lack of figures in the image.  (I've written in more detail about this at the end of the post, see below)  

I was sent a copy of the thesis in October and I have to say I'm really happy with how it looks in print! 

Lennart suggested removing a few of the tiles in the foreground of the illustration, which worked well on the printed page and helped to break up the the two areas nicely:

Probability, Causation, and Inequality of Opportunity by Lennart Ackermans can be accessed at the link below:

https://pure.eur.nl/en/publications/probability-causation-and-inequality-of-opportunity

A little more on William Hogarth....

Anyone who knew me from my time at University College Falmouth's MA in Authorial Illustration might remember how much I loved and admired William Hogarth's work.  There were so many things going on in his images: from the action of the main figures, to the background artwork on the walls in his interior scenes, to the narrative devices he used in the composition of an image itself. 

This admiration for his work took me into the study of pictorial composition and formed a large part of my MA at Falmouth.

Hogarth wrote in 'Analysis of Beauty' that the eye enjoys being taken on a ‘wanton kind of chace’, which comes with intricate forms in picture composition.  Two of the best examples of this are his prints Gin Lane and Beer Street, both of which were created as an attempt to educate people about the evils of gin next to the comparative wholesomeness of beer.  Both prints can be ‘read’ thanks to their careful composition, but perhaps more so with Gin Lane:

William Hogarth, Gin Lane (1750)

As the viewer looks at Gin Lane, attention is immediately focused on the dishevelled figure of a woman in the foreground, who appears too distracted to notice the child falling from her arms, while on the left of the picture is a thriving pawnbroker's business.  The lines of the building on the left all point towards the rioting crowd on the right, while the vanishing point for the crumbling buildings on the right lead the eye past a hanging coffin and to the ruined buildings in the far background.

Leonardo da Vinci once commented on how to use vanishing points to draw attention to something:

(The artist) should make his viewpoint as far beneath the thing that he is portraying as it will itself be above the eye of the spectator when executed.

 - Puttfarken, Thomas, Discovery of Pictorial Composition (Yale University Press, 2000), page 87.


This method could have been intentionally applied to Gin Lane.  The two vanishing points (illustrated below) are on the same horizontal line and if you take a ruler and match them both up and they would be at the same level: 

The two vanishing points in Gin Lane; one points to death, the other to a rioting mob  

This shows where the eye-level of the viewer is, as well as dividing the picture up between the foreground and background.  This could be a technique by Hogarth to make the coffin stand out to the viewer, as it sits just above the viewer's eye-level.  This motif of death is continued with the woman being put into a coffin and a child impaled on a spear, indicating the descent into barbarity.  I would argue that this is Hogarth’s way of including the passage of time within the composition. 

The fate of the woman in the foreground is indicated by the deceased woman in the far background and the whole composition can be seen as being a visual timeline.

I thought this would be a relevant footnote to share here, as there are some overlaps between some of the things I'd studied with pictorial composition at Falmouth and this cover illustration.  Perhaps it's not obvious to everyone looking at the finished cover illustration, but to me this reminded me so much of my studies of Hogarth.  I thought it'd be a good moment to re-visit and share the work of one of my favourite artists and my studies of his work.

Anyway I hope this has been interesting and thank you for reading!

New etching edition - Haven

 

 

 Haven is the first finished etching print from a series of images I worked on throughout the pandemic.  The image began as an illustration about social isolation, with the unlikely combination of peace, tranquility and listlessness against a continual backdrop of uncertainty and a sense of being adrift. 

There will be fifty copies in the edition and it will be a varied edition, which means that each printed image will identical, but the colours and tonality may vary slightly from print to print.

A framed copy will be included in this year’s Edinburgh Printmakers’ members show, which opens on Saturday 16th December 2023 and will run until Sunday 17th March 2024.

Copies of Haven are currently available to buy through my online shop now at https://joannarobsonillustration.bigcartel.com

 

 

For updates on new Haven prints being released for sale, please do check my Instagram account at https://www.instagram.com/joannakrobson/ 

Thanks for reading!

But Is It A Book? A recent exhibition at the University of Chicago

The University of Chicago hosted a fantastic looking exhibition earlier this year called 'But Is It A Book?' with a selection of examples of many types of book forms from their collection:

"If you think you know all the attributes that make a book a book, turn back to the gallery door and conclude your visit to this exhibition.

If you think there might be more to the seemingly familiar and ultimately knowable book—one of the most innovative and adaptable technologies for making and sharing meaning devised by humankind—then take a moment to browse and consider the many wonderful, sometimes contradictory, and occasionally confounding aspects of the book.

But Is It a Book? is a choosable-path exhibition that invites inquiry into the nature of material text, considering in turn the attributes that signal “bookness”—format, shape, binding, pages, and text. You will see examples covering the long arc of book history and book technology, from a clay tablet made in the 3rd century BCE to audio- and e-books manifesting themselves materially the instant you press “play.” But is a clay tablet or an e-book really a book?"

(from exhibition text at https://www.lib.uchicago.edu/collex/exhibits/but-is-it-a-book/)

Two pieces of my book art - Nylmah and Vasilisa and the Witch's Fire - were featured in the exhibition, curated by Elizabeth Frengel, the university's curator of rare books:

The exhibition was given coverage in both the University of Chicago news' website and in the Chicago Tribune -

https://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/ct-ent-university-of-chicago-is-it-a-book-exhibition-20230202-cnqnoivqczcvzmjhbzzg5e5vge-story.html

https://news.uchicago.edu/story/what-makes-book-book

All photos by The University of Chicago Library

 

I was delighted to have two of my artists books included within the exhibition, and especially Nylmah and Vasilisa. Like many of the books I make, they're both designed as concertina books, but each ones takes on a new form and structure when fully opened.

But is it a Book? ran from 3rd January until 28th April 2023 and was on display at the Hanna Holborn Gray Special Collections Research Center at the Regenstein Library at the University of Chicago.

Full information on the exhibition can be found at https://www.lib.uchicago.edu/collex/exhibits/but-is-it-a-book/