The Book of the Erinyes

Work on the letterpress side of the Book of the Erinyes is on temporary hiatus while I wait for the letterpress facilities of Brighton Independent Printmaking to re-open as Ink Spot Press in June. I’ve got 9 of the 13 chapters printed, so it shouldn’t take too long to finish them off when the facilities reopen.

In the meantime I’ve been planning out more lino prints (while simultaneously making some tentative moves to arrange the photoshoots with the two volunteers who are modelling for furies Alecto and Megaera).

This unavoidable period of inactivity has given me an opportunity to start thinking about what to do after the Book of the Erinyes is finished later this year. This Book has been a mammoth project that was conceived in 2007 and started in 2008. Three years later it’s still occupying all my creative time.

So I suspect my next few projects will be much smaller in scale — or at least achievable in a timescale measurable in weeks or months rather than years!

Just a quick announcement that I’ve replaced the “Artwork” page on this site with a great little gallery script called Plogger. I’ve uploaded all the artwork so far, and will keep adding to it over the coming weeks.

Anyway, check out the new artwork pages and see what you think.

A very quick post to say that you can follow the progress of this project (and of my other projects) by following me on Twitter.

Just go to twitter.com/lazcorp and click ‘follow’.

I’ve just dropped a message to Nina—who did some life modelling for me a year-or-so ago—to see if she’s available to model for the third of the Furies.  If so then I’ll have models for all three, and I’ll feel like this whole project is on safer ground!

Regardless of that, I’ve got this coming week planned out:

• Monday to Wednesday: finish writing text for the Book of the Erinyes
• Thursday (payday!): pay membership at Brighton Printmaking Centre and book use of the Letterpress machine
• Saturday: buy the first batch of art paper for the pages of the book
• The week after: start compositing the text at the Printmaking centre and start printing out the pages

If I can get all that done then I should have some results to post on this site very soon.

It’s looking like an increasingly busy few months ahead!  I knew this project would take some considerable time right back when I took my Letterpress printing course back in February-April.

I’ve got most of the text for the Book of the Erinyes written (you can view it here) and sometime over August/September I will be compositing the text in old lead moveable type, then printing it out.

With regards to the artwork, I’ve already done a test set of photographs with my artistic partner-in-crime Alice Kemp (who will be taking the role of Megeara) to explore the initial concepts.  Hopefully we’ll be arranging the photoshoot itself one weekend this month.

Next come the other two Furies.  Abbie has agreed to model for Tisiphone (hopefully sometime late September), but I’m still looking for a model for Alecto.  If you’re interested and you’re in the South-East of England then let me know!

The purpose of this blog is to document the progress of the Book of the Erinyes, a handbound limited edition artist’s book.

Fragments of text will provide a disjointed partial narrative to the artwork rather than being an illustrated story. The text, written in the style of a late 19^th century apocalyptic text transcribed by an opium addict, presents an incomplete narrative giving tantalising insights into the artwork.

The text will be composited and printed using old-style movable lead type on a Letterpress machine at the open access fine art print workshops run by Brighton Independent Printmakers, so it will have an unevenness that you don’t get with word-processed type, reminiscent of turn-of-the-century printing. Each page will be high quality thick artists’ paper, to give it a great tactile æsthetic.

The Book of the Erinyes draws influences from ancient myths, the growing tradition of artist’s books and altered books, graphic novels, the underground popularity of Letterpress printmaking, and authors such as Jorge Luis Borges and Gene Wolfe.