Rosina Kamphuis

Tribute, A Process

Writing an article about Tribute, my artist’s book presented within an installation in April and in August, is comparable to creating a work of art. The initial inward, thoughtful and reflective dialogue of the artist stages issues to be met such as, what is it that I want to express and in what tangible format? Once the idea is conceived, how will I organize its process toward an outcome that communicates the project’s journey and invites the reader to a third dimension? In the case of this article, what is my point of writing after Tribute’s exhibitions?

Perhaps my point of writing after Tribute’s exhibitions is to assess the value of a process of work that continues into and beyond the Opening Night performance of my Graduating Exhibition at the Whitecliffe Gallery in Auckland on the 13th of April 2003. Which of the integrating elements of process and outcome that merited my complete dedication during a journey of two and a half years, prove to be most valuable? Tribute’s ultimate physical and spiritual outcome and the response received after two exhibitions, helps me to clarify whether I still uphold my initial idea of Tribute’s process as being of more significance to me than its ultimate physical presentation. Or are the two inseparable?

Tribute is a book experience that involves the collaborative interplay of its four characters and the artist – retired dancer and choreographer Harold Robinson, the inspiration to whom the book and its process is dedicated – Monique Feron, Egyptian belly dancer and Director of the Abbraccia School of Dance – Elizabeth Serjeant, printmaker, book-artist and teacher of book structures and papermaking – and Donald Trott, singer of Opera and a Director of NBR. Tribute’s journey is a process of communication and reflection through the thematic dialogues I presented to my characters, on Memory, Identity, Friendship and Immortality, recorded at four ritual meals in the home of my friend Harold Robinson. Given my characters’ participation in the theme of each meal, the dialogues became an act within a performance and the book the theatre derived out of this physical and spiritual process.

Not only is Tribute a dialogue between its characters and the artist, its reader and the artist’s intention and expression of an idea. It is also a dialogue between the artist and her materials in Tribute’s creation.

The book is contained on polymer plates that are a celebration of life in integrated drawings, paintings, photography, collage and computer generated texts. The texts are taken directly from the dialogues or they are the artist’s response to these. As I worked in the privacy of my studio I was acutely aware of the elements of risk I had incurred not only in creating, facilitating and directing a collaborative interplay between four characters who had never previously met in a context like this, but also in engaging with an etching technique I had only briefly encountered before, but which allows me to combine all of the above means of expression. The experimentation with and the exploration of polymer plate, and the fact that I must also master the elements of book design during the same project, added to the weight of my responsibilities as a Master of Fine Arts student at Whitecliffe College of Arts and Design, and my responsibilities towards my characters. At every new meeting of my Studio Research Supervisors and myself, and between The Group, my characters and I, it became evident how all of these elements formed an increasingly meaningful bond of communication. Through its process the book became a tribute not only to Harold, but to all of those involved.

Throughout this intense period of living my art and working so closely with my characters whom I confronted with the possibility of giving of themselves an intimacy not often asked, I became aware of wading into depths I had hoped for on this holistic journey, individually, as a group and within myself. Those involved with me in both my studio research and its theoretical component were an inseparable part of this process.

How can it be otherwise than that the artist who begins to complete personal and collaborative journeys consciously evoked by the creation and expression of a work of art, becomes in turn occupied and formed by it? Is the process of art, sometimes shared by those invited in, not of most value to those who seek communication and meaning?

It would seem that I continue to find process the most significant in that it is a journey undertaken to give and take meaning. The outcome is its celebration, a new beginning, and a part of an integral whole. Tribute and the space it occupies offer artist and reader a new physical and spiritual communication in which some of its process may be read. The book becomes a space where reality and imagination meet to create new readings, a third dimension that I call imaginary space, conceived by the artist’s intention and expression of an idea and the reader’s translation of it. Within this dimension the artist’s book becomes more than the sum of its parts and transcends its material format to become “a container of consciousness” (Gass, cited in Hamady, 1990, p.54).

Tribute is the artist’s expression of a collective consciousness. It is not only all that the artist has put into it. It is also the product of all that has been put into it by each of its contributors. Through its process Tribute cannot be, or belong to, one person only. As a book, it begins a life of its own.

Seeing Tribute installed on its press bed within an open space of four cotton-organdie floor to ceiling drops each signifying one of its characters, I reflect on the process of this artist’s book as I re-read the celebration of its pages:

We are a company of spirits
on life’s splendid stage
and the theatre is filled
with music.

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Tribute, A Process
Article written by Rosina Kamphuis for artists alliance October November 2003 edition.

Reference:
Hamady, Walter.  (1996, April, May). Wisconsin Book Artists: Reading the Fine Print. American Craft.  Vol. 56/no.2.

Tribute: An Installation by Rosina Kamphuis

The creation and reading of an artist’s book can be compared to Peter Rojcewicz’ description of the aesthetic experience. It is a “dynamic transaction…an energy reaction that generates energy by celebrating it… instilled with imaginal consciousness of its creator and perceiver… it is consciousness instilling, affecting those who enter into its dynamic field” (Rojcewicz, 2000, p.14). Tribute’s inspiration, process and outcome as an artist’s book presented within an installation, signifies this concept.

Tribute is the synthesis of my theoretical research of contemporary artists’ books and their antecedents, and my studio practice and research that involves a process of communication and reflection between its four characters – all artists – and me. Our journey through the thematic dialogues on Memory, Identity, Friendship and Immortality was initiated, facilitated and recorded by the artist in sound and image during four ritual meals at the home of my friend Harold Robinson, the inspiration to whom the book and its process is dedicated.

Tribute mirrors life as a theatrical performance. Given the nature of the performers – Harold Robinson – Monique Feron – Elizabeth Serjeant – Donald Trott – and their participation in the theme of each meal, the dialogues became an act within a performance and the book the theatre derived out of its physical and spiritual process.

Tribute becomes a playground where reality and imagination meet to create new readings. A third dimension, conceived by the artist’s intention and expression of an idea and the reader’s translation of it, that I call imaginary space. This space “allows [the reader] to know the world as fact and dream, matter and spirit and psyche” (ibid, p.16). At this point the artist’s book becomes at once object and instrument for collaborative play. Moments out of life become auratic translations of actual time and space, of emotions and sensibilities, myths and metaphors. The reader becomes actor and re-enacts the play as the book embarks on yet another journey as an intimate entity of artistic communication, where ”the dimensions of an image are limited only by the senses of a man or a woman” (Price, cited in Rojcewicz, 2000, p.12). The book becomes “a container of consciousness” (Gass, cited in Hamady, 1990, p.54), that is transformed and extended by its every new reading.

Rosina Kamphuis
April 2003

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Reference List:

Rojcewicz, Peter. Imagination and Poetic Knowing in Higher Education. Rattappallax Press eBooks. Available: http:/www.rattapallax.com?boos/rojcewiczebook.pdf

Hamady, Walter. (1996, April-May). Wisconsin Book Artists: Reading The Fine Print. American Craft. Vol.56/no.2.