Eerste recensie van het boek Roltrap......

......door Sir Paul Smith zelf.

Een middag in de Waterleidingduinen

Zuidelijk van Haarlem vindt je de Waterleidingduinen. Een gebied waar water gezuiverd wordt, door het door het duinzand te pompen. Omdat landbouw en andere activiteiten de kwaliteit van het water zouden kunnen bedreigen, is er een mooi en rustig natuurgebied ontstaan. Met veel vlinders ook! Dus ik kon, gewapend met mijn 100mm macrolens, lekker door het gras tijgeren. Een netto uurtje fotograferen leverde al heel wat op.

Zou dit de Heivlinder kunnen zijn?

Een Dikkopje

Een mij nog onbekend Beertje (ik moet nog een beter nachtvlinderboek hebben.......)

Het krioelde van de Zuringspanners

Één van mijn favorieten, de Kleine Vuurvlinder

Mannetje van de Zuringspanner, let op de antennes!

Love was in the air!

Koevinkje

Minder fortuinlijk Koevinkje, en een Wolfspin aan de lunch

Kleine Parelmoervlinder, helaas wel behoorlijk versleten

En nog een Dikkopje

Joco live on television!

Well, that was a new experience - live on TV. The local Amsterdam TV station AT5 found our cat-initiative 'Katten in Transvaal' interesting so they decided to give us a visit.



Some of the pictures I made so far are here.

It was a wind swept market......

......but with some sutble usage of duct tape, all prints survived the day!

Nice comments, lots of laughs, a day well spent.

ICE

I rarely get to photograph the ICE (Intercity Express). It passes at Amsterdam Amstel Station around 8:15, whilst I leave at 8:06 at the latest. But due to a problem at Bijlmer Station my train had a major delay. I am glad that happened.....

Btw, the picture is bigger on my website www.joco.me

Right on my doorstep......

Well, just outside the office where I work that is. Not the most inspiring place I can tell you. So I was surprised to see a number of small butterflies resting in the grass early one morning. So the next day I took my macro-lens (Pentax A-100mm f2.8 for the die hard) with me to work. Et voila.

Passers by (including colleagues) must have thought that I was a lunatic, lying down in the grass, but I had lots of fun! It just goes to show that beauty is everywhere, also in the most inconspicuous places.

Btw1: this is the 'Common Blue' or Icarusblauwtje (Polyommatus icarus).

Btw2, if anyone has tips on great places to 'shoot' more butterflies, please let me know.

Joco on Tour - June the 15th 2013

I am looking forward to the next market called 'Montmartre in Amsterdam' on June the 15th! In particular as I know some of the artists that will be there. For instance Hannah Oud-Biemold (www.vuurparier.nl), who makes amazing work using fabric and paper.

Joco on the road

I like having a stand on a market. Nice ambiance, meeting lots of people, enjoying the outdoors (unless it rains off course.....). So I am looking forward to two fair I will attend in the next couple of weeks. The first is on Sunday May 26th at the Pure Markt.

The Pure Markt (website) is always a great way to spend a sunday afternoon (unless it rains off course.....). There is a nice mix of food stands and creative stuff. The surrounding park has plenty of lawn for the children to play on and have a pick nick (unless it rains off course.....).

The location is Park Frankendael (website) in Amsterdam Oost. It would be great to see you there! (unless it rains off course.....)

Joco @ the Rijksmuseum

Well, close to it anyway :-)

Finally all museums on the Museumplein in Amsterdam (Rijksmuseum, Van Gogh, Stedelijk Museum) are open! And many visitors seize the opportunity to look at some incredible art. And to top this of, on Sunday the 12th of May a large design market was organized (check out the website for more dates). And I was lucky to get a stand there.

Despite the cold weather, it was a nice day. I met lots of people and talked about photography, trains and the rules and laws concerning photographing in the public space.

Next up - Pure Markt in Amsterdam Oost on the 26th of May. The details are here. It would be great to see you there!

First shipment abroad

Just shipped two books abroad, to the US. From Amsterdam to Nieuw Amsterdam (no idea why they later renamed the place to New York.......).

Hopefully many more books will follow!

For more info, please click here.

The second edition

It took much longer then I had anticipated, but here is the second edition! I am very pleased with them and I am looking forward to contacting the buyers that have waited for so long (sorry).

The fact of the matter is that book making is a craft and it takes a lot of practice. In particular positioning a sheet of glued paper exactly correct proved to be difficult, especially with the long book (Maandagmorgen). But now that I have done it a couple of time (and with the support of Brutus), I am pretty good at it. The next batch will be much much faster.

I will be have a stand on the Pure Markt in Frankendael on the last Sunday of May. Hopefully this edition will be sold out at the end of that day, at the latest. :-)

Meet Brutus!

For the first of the covers I made at home I used make-shift tools like a rolling pin and a bucket full of water. Although the results have been satisfactory, some covers have gotten a little blistery. So I decided I needed a bit more pressing force.

In comes Brutus! Brutus is all about force.

He was built in the twenties or so and designed for copying work. At some point he became obsolete (fortunately for Xerox) and was stored in a wet environment. Brutus wears the scars in the shapes of rust pits in his cast-iron body.

Later he was apparently considered 'decorative', a thick layer of black paint was used to cover up the rust and golden striping stickers were added for the rustic effect. Imagine the humiliation!

So a little TLC was needed. When I first tested the press it sounded like a group of pigs being driven into the slaughterhouse. So I opened up the moving parts, cleaned them from rust and dried out grease, and applied a generous amount of new grease.

And now Brutus can show off his strength yet again!

Cats in Transvaal

We started a little project in our neighborhood bringing people together through their love for cats. 'Katten in Transvaal' has a Facebook page to share stories and pictures and the idea is that I make pictures of cats and owners. Later we'll have an exhibition with prints of the photos.

It turn out to be a very nice experience. We meet all kinds of people and their cats and hear lots of interesting stories. Or the special tricks that the cats have up their sleeves. One cat frequently makes saltos. Or take this red hair named Roester - his owner regularly takes him outside for a walk. Even on a busy street, he follows, almost like a dog. Amazing.

Btw., we even made it in the local newspaper!



For more pictures of all those lovely cats, click on this link.

Woodwork

When you attempt to makes books yourself, it comes in handy if you have some basic tools and a bit of wood lying around.

Based on my experiences with the previous set of books, I decided to improve my rig. Firstly, I made the templates for the drilling out of MDF board again. Previously I used a piece of cardboard, but that's not really durable. It's too easy to drill a little bit next to the intended spot. Secondly, I used higher pieces of wood along the sides. In the attempt before I had a ridge of 1 cm with was barely enough to hold the paper in place. A constant struggle which I do not want to repeat.

I made the setup for the two books at once. To the left the arrow binding for 'Roltrap', to the right the larger holes for 'Maandagmorgen'.

Cutting corners

360 of them.....

Before you can glue onto- and fold the cover print around the cardboard the corners need to be cut. With 90 prints that makes 360 corners. But that was the least of my work this weekend. Most time I spent measuring and drawing the outlines of the cardboard pieces on the 90 prints.





Next time I'll be cutting corners there though. By simply making duplex prints and print the outlines on the flip side of the paper. Why didn't I came up with that before....... :-)

A touch of color in the morning

The graffiti boys and girls have been busy lately; two consecutive trains had sprayed carriages. A nice break from the regular silver and blue......

Humble beginnings.....

......of 22 new books. Half of which are already reserved, which is a great thing. It is a lot of fun (and some hard work) making these books. And then to see that it is appreciated is really rewarding.

Piet en Trudy

The below picture is one of 11 of the escalator series exhibited in the Outsider Art Gallery.....



....and that is where they saw themselves, in print, on the wall! How I would have loved to see their faces!

Trudy and Piet fortunately sent me an email and we decided to meet right next door to the Amsterdam Amstel Station. I gave them a print of the picture and in return they kindly posed for me. This time voluntarily......

Spring light

Finally - the days are getting longer. The sun just comes over the buildings at the moment when I am waiting for my train. It gives the nicest light.

Street art in the Platanenweg

These giant pieces of street art are tucked away in a back ally, the part of the Platanenweg facing the railway. I believe the buildings will be demolished in a few years, so admire these paintings while you still can!



Some more street art in Amsterdam is here: www.joco.me/straat-kunst

Exhibition opening

A quick snap from the opening of the exhibition. I had a great time and met a lot of interesting people. The work of the other photographers is also very nice and the gallery-boss was really happy.

The exhibition will open until the 4th of March. The entrance is free, opening hours are Monday-Saturday, 10-17.

Thanks to Eric Strijbos (website) for taking some pictures whilst I was talking.......

The books are finished!

Finally, the books are ready. It has been a really interesting - yet lengthy - process of designing, printing, cutting, binding etcetera. It makes me appreciate graphic arts projects even more then I used to. And at the end, holding real books, gives a big kick!

Here's what I made:

Book 1; 'Roltrap' 33cm x 21cm, appr. 45 pages, hard cover.

Detail of the binding, which is basically Japanese stab binding with a twist.

Book 2; 'Maandagmorgen', 40cm x 22cm, appr. 35 pages, hard cover.

Details of the binding with screws.

I made 5 of both as a first (signed and numbered) batch. I've kept one of both as a sample, the remaining 4 of 'Perron' were sold out at the exhibition. A 'Maandagmorgen' is still available for 35 euro excluding shipping. If you're interested, just visit my website www.joco.me and send me a mail.

I will be making a second batch of books soon. Again, drop me a note to secure yours.

25 holes - 3 meters of thread

I could finally start sowing the books. Occasionally frustrating, however very rewarding once a book is finished.

25 holes

Per book. I am glad my wife bought me a workmate.......

Final preparations

I submitted all my prints at the gallery today. Very exiting!

Familiar images - but huge! (150x60 cm)

Bert getting started with 13 prints, and an empty wall.

It looks like it is going to be a nice exhibition with interesting work.

I hope to see all of you next Saturday 2/2 at 2 o'clock.

22

22 bits of aluminium profile I glued on 11 prints last Sunday. A lot of work, but very satisfying.

Almost books

Cut and creased

Prints

The first prints are in! Fixed on very nice strong di-bond. Looks really nice!

Lamination

And the next step toward making a book - laminating the cover prints. Done!

Next up: cutting the paper to size.

Work in progress

I set myself the goal of finishing new books and have them ready for the exhibition on the 2nd of February. First step is complete, I picked up the prints today at Jubels (website). They really know how to print!

Up next: cutting, folding. laminating, glueing, drilling and stitching. Long way to go still.....

Looking forward to the results. Should be so much nicer then Blurb at about the same cost.