Selly Oak, May 29th
Today I bought a nice spiral-bound book of black paper and one of those spray-mount cans and set about putting together a work-in-progress album of my prints. Which was hard as I’m at the stage where all my photos over a week old, let along those from the winter, are shit. Clichéd, novelty bollocks. Clever-clever entertaining wank. Ooh look, there’s an amusing composition, see how I juxtapose this and that. Fuck off, it’s worthless.
This, of course, is a good thing, but still rather frustrating when I also want to present my work and record my progress in some physical archival form. But I managed to find 20 or so from the 300-odd and they do look nice all mounted up on black. I’ll keep adding to it as the prints come in and then, when I eventually reach a point where I’m mildly happy with what I’m doing, I’ll have a good record of how I got there.
A word to the wise though. Spray-mount gets everywhere, even when done facing the window with a fan behind you. Good job I’m an experienced cleaner…
In other news, Zoop and I went skip-diving this evening. You might have seen us outside the UCE campus in Bournville trying to drag interesting pieces of wood out from beneath an inconsiderately placed filing cabinet. I got a wonderful piece of chip-board painted bright red. Not sure what I’ll be using it for but it sure is red!
One for you, Pete?
Spraymount tips: get hold of a broadsheet newspaper (might mean buying the Financial Times nowadays I suppose!); lay it opened out flat on table; put item to be sprayed in middle of first pages; spray as per instructions; remove object and stick down; turn page to fresh pages; repeat. Open window also a good idea. Spraymount smells nice but is not good for lungs.
A boring but hopefully useful comment?
Mardou – cheers for that. I’d seen a review of that to buy and it did seem perfectly DIYable. Not sure a bottle will support my camera though. Maybe a big 2 litre bottle!
Karen – that’s where I went wrong – I was propping the photos up and spraying vertically towards the window and I guess it was all blowing back into the room. Serves me right but lesson learned. Next time I’ll do it in the garden. ;)
Okay, here’s the question I asked last time the subject of spray-mount came up: where can one purchase actual, bona fide, Rubber Cement? I am not convinced that Copydex is a suitable alternative. After all, Spray-Mount is just rubber cement in an aerosol can. Same solvents, only more of them and less of the good stuff! PLus, you can make golf balls with it!
Rubber cement – no real idea but you could try a hardware store?