Making a poster, or a pamphlet, or in the case of my graduating class exhibit at UofC, a deck of cards, have all been of particular interest to me. The first GameBoy game I made, the first iOS/Android games I've made all fueled a desire to produce objects that lived in the polished and manufactured world. It isn't an exclusive desire, but it feels like one that allows me to mark certain passage of work.
When I started painting the Arthur Child Cancer Centre, the only way to share the work with COVID was to make a presentation and do it on zoom. I gave this talk to the patient advocacy group, to the project leadership team, and to the PLC construction team. A combination of words and pictures, and I found myself enjoying more feedback and dialogue about artwork than any other exhibition. With an exhibition out of the question, I saw an opportunity to fulfill a lifelong goal: publish a book with an ISBN number (the very symbol of that polished and manufactured world). That book, with a tiny initial run of 12, ended up with a print run of over two hundred.
For the No Schedule Saturday book, I wanted to take the body of work I've created around the Calgary Parks, which pre dates and post dates the focus around the Hospital, and build a book around it. That book is over one hundred and sixty pages, with substantial writing. It is sequenced by the month of the scenes, and I am pleased the way the colours of the summer grow out of the spring and fade into the fall.
The landscape of local printing has changed in the meantime. For the ~100 page Cancer Centre book in 2022, it was less than $25 CAD per book. Sadly, in 2024, the printing cost is $49 CAD for the No Schedule Saturday book. It costs over $15 to ship, $2 to box. Without recuperating any cost for the time to handle printing/packing/shipping, I earn about $9. Printing locally is a source of pride, but in considering overseas printing, I'd have to print over 300 copies. With this reality around costs, I've also released a PDF version for $8.99.