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Book As Art Object: An Interview with John Bohl

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John Bohl is a Baltimore-based artist with a BFA in Painting from the Maryland Institute College of Art. Although Bohl creates paintings, drawings, and prints, he often creates limited edition artists books as collaborations with other artists. His newest book project,”Test,” is a collaboration with Jordan Bernier, a friend and artist-colleague from Baltimore.

After I ordered one of the books, I was curious to know more so I asked John about the process of creating a book and collaborating to do so. The following interview is the result.

Book1

Cara Ober: As a visual artist – painter, printmaker, installation maker – how did you come to create books? Do you consider your book projects more in the art category (as in hand made book as art object) or more in the book category – a way to showcase and curate artwork? 

John Bohl: I started making books partially as an outlet for images / patterns / designs that for one reason or another never made the cut for final projects. Once I started compiling all these leftovers, they seemed to take well to the book format.

As for what category I put books into, I would definitely say the “book as art object.” I think of them more as tiny sculptures.

CO: How does making a book allow for different types of thinking? What kinds of skills and thought process is necessary or different than other types of visual work? I guess what I am asking also is – Why do you enjoy making them?

JB: A big part of why i enjoy making books so much is because I think there is an inherent casualness to them. By that I mean, I don’t approach a book with as much baggage as I would while viewing a painting. I take painting way too seriously!!!  I think books have been a way of using many of the ideas

I would approach in painting, but doing so in a more relaxed atmosphere. A lot of the time I end up surprising myself and coming to conclusions that I never thought I would come to if I was taking as seriously as i would with approaching a painting.

CO: What is the process you used to create the new book? From what I can tell each page is an original screen print that is later bound. Can you talk about the way you plan and then execute a project like this? Also, what mistakes have you made in past book projects?

JB: For the new book, I worked collaboratively with Jordan Bernier to create different scans, patterns, and photoshop manipulations that we would continually email back and forth to each other. The result ended up being a black and white printed book with a screen printed exterior.

I have worked a lot with Jordan on book projects and each one kind of ends up being a little different. We try to plan things as much as possible, but so much ends up being improvised and patched together along the way. Generally though, we try to do as much as we can by ourselves; binding, printing… just to keep it on the cheaper side. Also we always try to have screen printed elements, because we really love screen printing.

As for past mistakes.. there are so many : ) For this last project, each book comes in a burlap bag, and originally we really wanted to try to dye all the bags which we hadn’t really done before. Well, we ended up accidentally shrinking all the bags so much that they didn’t fit the book anymore!!!! So we ended up getting new bags and screen printing them instead. Total headache!

book4

CO: Tell me more about this latest book. What is the title and theme? How many pages is it? What is the edition size? What are the materials involved? How is it different than other collaborative books you have created in the past?

JB: The new book is called “Test” and its about 30 or so pages with an edition size of 100.  The exterior of the book is screen printed on a thicker rag paper and then bound with book posts.

This book is mostly different than books we have done in the past just because in the past collaborative book projects have involved curating large groups of other artists and their images for the content of the book. With “Test,” Jordan and I were working exclusively with our own own material.

CO: I am curious about the advantages and disadvantages of creating books as art. For example, is it a challenge to exhibit it in ways that visual art is not? Are costs expected to be more affordable? Or are there more opportunities to share them, but in different ways?? How do you go about selling them?

JB: One of the big advantages I think would be how much more accessible books are as opposed to visual art. It seems like there are always new places to share / sell books. Book fairs are such a great way to do this and that community is amazingly enthusiastic, and seemingly growing all the time. I think people kind of look at books as tiny pieces of affordable, portable art, which is super exciting. So maybe in a more small scale community like Baltimore, where collecting visual art may not always be economically feasible, books kinda seem the way to go.

Mostly I go about selling the books online, through bookstores, book fairs, and book openings. Book openings can be a great way to get the word out about your book.

book2

CO: How and why did you decide on an edition size of 100? Have you run other edition sizes in the past? How does edition size affect the materials you use and the process? How does it affect the cost of the book in the end?

JB: We usually shoot for a hundred. It always kinda seems like a good number. Ideally I would want to have more, but usually it just ends up being easier with time and money constraints to keep the edition number lower. Also, to look on the bright side, if you do smaller runs, those can ideally become a rare/limited edition of sorts and it also gives you more time to work on your next project. I don’t think the edition size really affects the materials we use in the process. The ultimate goal is to just make a quality end product.

CO: How much did it cost to produce this particular book series? What tools or materials did you use? If you used tools or equipment that wasn’t your own, where and how did you access it? 

JB: I’m not really sure of the exact cost was, but most of the money was in the zeroxing and the binding, everything else was pretty inexpensive. The binding ended up being a little more expensive than we anticipated because we used book posts to bind, which probably veers towards the more expensive end of things in terms of different ways of binding. Most of the tools we used were usually things that one of us had in the studio, i.e. screen printing equipment / inks, mat cutter, and guillotine, for trimming the sides of the book.

CO: In working with another artist – Jordan Bernier – and sending images back and forth via email, how did you decide on the flow and chronology of the book? Is there an underlying narrative that you infer to it, or is it a purely visual and tactile experience? 

JB: I don’t think we ever thought about curating a specific narrative. We mainly wanted the book to have a more casual / anything goes type feel and were definitely more interested in the book being more of a visual experience, each page/layout being a work unto itself.

CO: When working with a partner, do you delineate ‘yours’ and ‘mine’ as you go -or- is there a more fluid approach to ownership and collaboration? What are the advantages and disadvantages to making a book with a partner?

With this project I don’t think we got too possessive of specific images. We just let the work organically evolve without really thinking about whose image was whose. As for his advantages and disadvantages, theres definitely a lot of compromise as you would expect, but looking back, 99% of the time, I’m glad the compromise happened. It sometimes slows things down, but bouncing ideas of someone else and talking stuff out almost always ends up resulting in a better end product. Also, I think sometimes it’s just great working with another person and not having to do projects alone! With my regular studio practice it can get pretty tough working by myself all the time, so it’s really nice to have the chance to have someone else to work with. Oh yeah, and when you work with another person, its only half the work!!

To find out more or to purchase the book, contact the artist through his website at http://www.john-bohl.com. Books are a steal at $15, with an edition of size of 100.

* Author Cara Ober is the Editor of Bmoreart and she is quite happy with her new book.

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