Trails + Tales, Imprint, Bishopbriggs
Materials: Bronze
Created: 2018
Client: East Dunbartonshire Leisure and Culture Trust
H: 14cm W: 26cm D: 0.8cm
Categories: Commissions, Works in Progress, Workshops
View at: Bishopbriggs Library
In 2017 I approached The Glasgow School of Art Library about researching the Talwin Morris Collection, towards making artworks for Bishopbriggs and Cadder. I was exploring the creative legacy of the Villafield Press, a printing house which was part of the publishing firm Blackie and Son. The GSA Library holds a large collection of works by this press in their Talwin Morris Collection, named for the press’ influential Art Director. I used a number of books in this collection for research, looking not only at Morris’s characteristic Glasgow Style but also the production techniques behind the books themselves. This resulted in two pieces, which draw on Morris’s distinctive style applied to different mediums. The first, Imprint, is a relief work in bronze, (a small wall mounted plaque) which is sited at the entrance to Bishopbriggs Library. Designed after Morris’s cover for Blackie’s Infant Reader, the different levels and patinated surface on the finished work are designed to relate to the process which would imprint Morris’s designs on book cloth.
The client kindly allowed me to edition this work, you may have noticed it also features in my portfolio.
In relation to the commission I ran workshops on blind embossing at Bishopbriggs Library, this was a family focused activity where parents or guardians participated with their child, both producing a piece of artwork.
