Where do you get your ideas?

One of the things students always ask is, “Where do you get your ideas for your books?” They also are often curious about which comes first: the idea for the structure or the idea for the text. In Kansas City, we saw an art installation by Nick Cave, displayed inside an abandoned church, which had us wondering the same thing. This multimedia installation is part of a Kansas City-wide art exhibit entitled, "Open Spaces."

We usually answer student’s questions with examples: in “Piute Creek” it was the structure. We wanted to make a larger scrolling book, and Gary Snyder’s association with Japan and Jack Kerouac made one of his poems a logical pairing.

Piute Creek

In the book made previous to Piute Creek, “Rock after Rock,” the paintings led the way, demanding a text to support them. In this case, Donna’s journal accounts juxtaposed with complementary writings gleaned from early Sierra Club Bulletins. The binding further developed the thematic treatment, with wood covers and a backpack as the slipcase.

Rock After Rock

Sometimes the text directs the binding structure and illustration. In the book, “Memento Mori,” the theme led to our choice of a long, narrow format as an allusion to a coffin or grave and also suggested the idea for pages that lifted up, as a body rising out of the ground, and both of these then offered constraints for typography and illustration.

Memento Mori

Other times the subject leads us to write our own text. Many of our books have been about hand papermaking, featuring texts we have written, for example, our 2016 book, “Tuckenhay Mill: People and Paper.”

Tuckenhay Mill: People and Paper

Currently I am considering how to make a book about the kazoo. I don’t imagine it will be like the series of books we made out of ukuleles back around 2000. Still, like the ukulele before the 2000s, the kazoo is not considered a musical instrument and is not even listed in most encyclopedias of musical instruments. But, as an integral part of Jug Band Music (which we are currently exploring musically), it has a place in the world of music. We are exploring ways we might feature it in an artist book…and as part of that exploration, last week we made a pilgrimage to Warrensburg, MO, to view one of the world’s largest collections of kazoos, "Knobtown Kazoos."

Knobtown Kazoos, photo by Chris Azevedo
 

We are not yet sure how the information we find will manifest as an artists’ book. Our next step will be to gather more written information and search sound archives around the country to see what has been recorded.

So where do we get our ideas? As many different ways as there are different ways. Some ideas come as a whole package, as they did with Memento Mori. Some develop step by step, as they did for Rock after Rock. And some ideas, though they seem promising, and we start to work on them, never go anywhere. We will see what happens with kazoos.

Autumn beauty in a Missouri campsite