Last night I thought that it is now time to put together a book of the paintings and poems for the Neorenaissance exhibition. One inspiration for this was the artistic potential of adding some new art perhaps, trying to create something with a new unity and beauty.
I initially thought of using the same format, 5x8 inches, as The Burning Circus, but I've slightly increased this to 5.5 by 8.5, then started the document and copied over the poems, including some which were/are not included in the exhibition for various reasons; sometimes more than one poem was written for a painting. Helen Kay also wrote a poem for the Cromwell portrait, which will be in the Chester Museum for a few months, so that will be in the book too.
Of course, the participation of the poets is needed for this so I drew up an agreement and I've started the process of contacting each one, then started work on the cover, which will be a modification of the poster image, and resizing and formatting the paintings. I expect that this will be a colour book. This will double the printing price but for an art book the images really need colour, so I may add more colour here and there, if this is free. I remember with the Blurb book, 365 Universes, all pages of a colour book were priced as colour, even if actually black and white - most printers only charge for colour prices for pages which had colour images. This made colour the same price as black and white, so I added colour to every page.
This will be a lot of work, but hopefully a good artwork in itself. I will offer copies at cost to Nantwich Museum, effectively making the book a donation to them which seems the fairest way when distributing the work by the volunteer poets, and I plan to set a launch date of 28th January, little time for completing and proofing it all, but I'll work on it totally until it is complete; perhaps a first draft will be ready by this time next week. I may also add more text; a story? more poems? new images? It must be a good artwork in itself, not a mere catalogue.
