Opps, I ordered too much of the Awagami Murakumo Kozo Select paper for my print overlay that I recently discussed. I had not realized that paper was sized for A4, thus I ordered two packs to ensure that I had enough Kozo, plus a little extra. Knowing me, I make mistakes, thus a little extra is prudent. Nevertheless, I only needed one pack of the Kozo to cut and add my chop to finish this part of the Artist Book Edition. So now what to do with the remainder of the Kozo? Save it for a rainy day? OR make some book-marks as another little extra for those who purchased the Artist Special Edition??
By this point for those who have followed along, it’s obvious that I do have one carved ink chop for the project; Liu Guan Lue Yin, which is at the top of the sample (test proof) that I made on a sheet of Kozo, above. This could also be a cool opportunity to incorporate a couple of other chops that I had a Chinese artist carve for me while in Shanghai; Douglas (the middle chop mark) and Stockdale (the bottom chop mark). Maybe also sign this bookmark in graphite (pencil) as well to provide a little more aesthetics.
As to these two extra carved chops, the one for ‘Douglas’ was relatively easy for them to make since who had not heard of Kirk Douglas? So the Chinese had pretty much figured out what this might look like. Regretfully not very many Stockdale’s are known in China; thus the chop for my last name was problematic. Very problematic. And I had talked to a lot of folks in China getting a ton of different opinions on what this might look like for this name. Sort of became a bit of an ice-breaker game to engage in a discussion to help with getting to know folks better, going from formal discussions to more casual conversations. Nice.
Regretfully, there is no really good translation for ‘Stockdale’, even when trying to break this into individual parts; Stock (place for animals) and Dale (what every that is in Chinese). Which inevitably lead to me talking about how this name might have originated in England (Dale being a valley). So while looking at all of the alternatives that we created, this one for Stockdale looked the coolest as the graphic shapes, pronunciation and what it might mean.
So I guess as a result, I have established what the chop mark for ‘Stockdale’ is. Regretfully I lost the name of the original characters, but guessing someone writing Mandarin would easily figure it out.
Now to make the final decision if I am going to make a small series of book-marks tomorrow to include one with the shipment of each Artist Special Edition. One of the fun aspects of making these artist books when at the last moment, I figure something else to include. fun, fun, fun.
Cheers & make every day an Earth Day
Doug
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The Flow of Light Brushes the Shadow, an artist book from Singular Images Press, Fall 2022 release, $60.00 (CA sales tax for those residing in the USA) plus shipping expenses. Message me douglas.stockdale.artist@gmail.com or singularimagespress@gmail for shipping details and PayPal invoice.
Note: The Artist Special Edition (book + extra print) is Sold Out.
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Book workshop:
Southeast Center for Photography (SEC4P): Creative PhotoBook workshop (Sold Out), a virtual event on Zoom; November 5 & 6 and 12 & 13, 2022, 10am – 1pm, EST (3 hour session each day, with a week between the weekend sessions to work your book-dummy). Wait list available for sign-up.
Singular Images 
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