with
the very best work you see at The London Artists Book Fair, but then
again I am really attracted to the graphic literature books that are
low cost editions. It sa different market that appeals to me very much.
They are two things that I really need to reconcile, but for now a small
edition feels right and ultimately when I produce a book that I think
has that strong narrative quality, I’ll certainly be showing that
work to publishers like FREMOK or Jonathan Cape.
T- Ok tell me more about this new book
M – What I have got with these littoral
pieces is that its in four sections and I’ve got this man and
this boy and then an underlying rhythm of the tidal place the tide coming
in and out, the sand coming and going and the seaweed.
T- We should talk a little about littoral spaces, because OK this is
your studio up here in the attic, but is your studio also the sea, the
shore-line near by where you gather material for drawings.
M – Well certainly the first book
(The Birds Dream) was about Castle Beach, the story of all my walks,
but after the MA I thought, OK I’ll work on something else and
began a childrens book about a girl and a hare and focused on that,
but then after a while I did feel this strong urge to revisit the first
book. To the extent that I’d say the books I am working on now
are a re-telling of the same story.
T – Cormack McCarthy does that really well the landscape is really important.
M – Oh God yes, it’s funny to have landscape returning again, after my degree at Falmouth I spent 6 years doing nothing else but that, drawing directly from the landscape.
T- Its exciting to think about the kind of impact that could have on your books, bringing that work back into the studio and working it into a narrative.
M – Well, yeah that’s the great thing with a book,you can intermingle elements more easily and make sense of things there.
I’ve realized that I am quite nervous about this, doing a more detailed narrative, there is a shift and perhaps a greater pressure. So I found what Dominique Goblet and also Graham Rawle said at this years forum about investment of time incredibly useful, this was during the q & a at the end , when someone an undergraduate I think, asked the classic question, you know, ‘how do I get as successful as you?’ and Dominique said, ‘If you want to do it,then you will do it!’ but then also
they were talking about how even with that drive,
it could still all be rubbish. You could spend five years on something
and it could just not work, it’s really scary isn’t it? But
then Graham was also saying that if you are doing what you want to do,
then it’s never time wasted.
T - Well no, i mean by the end of this one you'll know how to make polymer
plate etching ? Each book presents new challenges, for me its a bit like
travelling along a road.
M - Sure, certainly more so then when i was making individual images which
always felt quite contained and somehow a little less surprising.
Mat's studio is in the attic of his house in Falmouth, i met him their to find out how his latest book was coming on.
Tom
- Oh boy, I really like that, the boy with the mask, what inspired this
one?
Mat – That image there, well, in
a nutshell Cormack McCarthy that was what was going on there. (‘The
Road’ – By Cormack McCarthy has had a big impact on both
of us )
T – It feels more detailed somehow,
more specific a little tighter.
M – Yeah, I think this is part of
a move towards Graphic Literature, the father looks very much like a
kind of Ernest Shackleton, balaclava’d, mittened, and then this
little boy in a snorkel mask.
T- I imagine your thinking about quite a small edition ?
M – I think so, with polymer plate etching, you are really your talking about a hand-made book
drifting toward the £200 pound a copy end of the market. Maybe you do 20 copies in a year but the aesthetic qualities are really up there
