The Melisanda Factor

Trust the process

In recent months I've been suffering a serious case of artist's block. My mind's been buzzing with ideas, but as soon as I try to translate them into a piece of work I sit in indecision and frustration, surrounded by masses of materials and tools. My mind has been filled with negative thoughts: "What do I want to say?" "Who cares what I have to say anyway?" "Why would anyone want to buy the stuff I make? It's nice enough, but hardly of the 'must have' variety." And so on.

In the hopes of putting an end to this nonsense I enrolled in an online course called Creative Voice (http://www.centeredpath.com/CP/index.html)

Just to ensure that I remain time-challenged, I also enrolled in Barb Kobe's Medicine Dolls course (http://www.barbkobe.com/index.html). Both courses run for 3 months. I told myself they would work well together, and I'm probably right ... provided I apply myself and do all the exercises.

And now ... the Artist ebook

Curses! I thought I'd coined a term. Artist ebook, meaning an ebook that is a work of art. A Google search on 'artist ebooks' returned 6,790,000 entries, but visits to those on the first page revealed that most (if not all) were ebooks about art or artists. I rarely come across an ebook that is even well-designed, let alone a work of art in itself.

So perhaps, after all, I'm starting a new genre.

If you come across any ebooks you believe to be works of art, please let me know. I'd like to network with others.

It's pertinent to draw attention here to a quite extraordinary CD Rom, which includes beautiful ebooks and much much more. http://rivertext.com/monks.html Not exactly artist ebooks, but closely allied.

You can download, at no charge, a couple of my special ebooks at http://www.dream.net.au/melisanda/

About artist books

Although 'artist books' have been around for a long time, they have only recently become a 'movement'. A Google search on 'artist books' produces 157,000,000 entries. Not all will be relevant, but still, that's pretty impressive. Wikipedia states "An artist's book is an art object in the form of a book." Elsewhere you might find the definition, "a book made by an artist". I don't like that literal definition. So when I use the term, I mean that the book itself is the art form. A visual artist in other media might make a book, but it won't necessarily be a work of art.

Do I think my books are works of art? Some are, I suppose, but some are just nice enough handmade books. Special. Individual maybe. Occasionally unique. But I'm a little embarrassed even to call myself an artist, so I'd rather let others decide whether my books are works of art.

Be that as it may, you'll find some examples of my work in the album labelled Artist Books in the sidebar.

Art of the familiar

The best subjects to inspire creativity are often close to home