People into Place and Ideas through Materials into the Art of the Book
People into Place and Ideas through Materials into the Art of the Book
The Book of Queenstown is an artist’s book that evolved from a trilogy of art workshops held at PressWEST, Queenstown through the winter of 2025. The spirit of the workshops was to establish some essentially ‘bookish’ formats about Queenstown. Prototypes and experimental constructions and not immaculate bound volumes were the order of the day and the collaborative concertina Book of Q was a great outcome. Completed ‘books’ & associated artworks were shown at PressWEST during 2025 Unconformity Festival as part of the Art Trail.
A core group of artists attended a sequence of workshops:
1 – An introduction to Queenstown through drawing, painting and photography took place in middle June. The workshop heard from locals about their Queenstown experiences, visited the Galley Museum and responded to great talks from Leonie Oakes, Michael Schlitz and Rob Doherty. Participants researched and developed their ideas for ongoing development through drawings, photographs, paintings and writing.
2 – The second workshop in July had an emphasis on printing and developing sequences of imagery suitable for translating in the book form. Michael Schlitz and Damon Bird guided participants through various print techniques. 3 – Binding and aggregating printed, drawn material into book or sequential form with Leonie completed the trilogy in late August.
Frieda Beukenkamp, a Hobart printmaker, sent through a convenient U-Tube link – Elissa Watters on Albrecht Durer’s Saint John Devouring the Book. Find it and have a look if you can.
Take the Book and eat it up and it shall make thy belly bitter but thy mouth shall be as sweet as honey.
I copied the Durer St John image off the NGV’s website. It was particularly apt for the Book of Q workshops in that it came into the NGV Collection in 1923 through the Felton Bequest. This means that it was part of the Robert Carl Sticht collection and until his death, resided along with another forty nine Durer prints in Penghana, the large mansion on the hill in Queenstown. His collection of fine art, historical manuscripts and Oceanic material culture was the subject of research by Melbourne artist Ruth Johnstone for our LARQ Unconformity Project in 2012
Ruth Johnstone: The Unconformity 2012
