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Background
Gustavo Grandal Montero (GGM):
Tell us a little about your backgrounds and particularly where your interest in book arts, artists' books and contemporary art comes from?
Simon Goode:
I suppose we have quite different backgrounds. The studio comes about from my experience in education at London College of Communication (LCC), which was in book arts: BA (Hons) Book Arts and Crafts, it was called at the time. I graduated in 2006. It was a course that had a bit of everything: book arts, typography, design, printmaking, craft and historical bookbinding, artists' books - that was where my interest started.
GGM:
Did you have any previous experience of bookmaking?
Simon Goode:
I'd done a lot of printmaking during my Foundation year. I had a couple of tutors who were very engaged and interested in small press publications.
Monica Sajeva (MS):
Where did you do your Foundation?
Simon Goode:
Walsall, in the West Midlands. They encouraged me to look at artists' books, people like Ian Hamilton Finlay, the type of publications that you get at the Small Publishers Fair, and they were making work that was a bit like that as well, that was what I was exposed to at 18-19. How about you?
Ira Yonemura:
How about me? I just kind of married into it really... I'm a visual artist, I have a fine arts background. I went to art school in Chicago where I studied painting and drawing and fell into a community of artists and musicians who were interested in publishing as an extension of their practices. That's where I began collaborating with friends and contributing work to friends' publishing projects.
GGM:
Chicago has got a very strong tradition in artists' books and book arts.
Ira Yonemura:
Yeah, I think the whole Chicago Imagists / Hairy Who tradition was very strong. Many of the original members of the group were still teaching at School of the Art Institute of Chicago at the time, and I think definitely left a mark on the way I think about art making and collaboration. I was also surrounded by a strong independent publishing and zine culture that existed parallel to the music scene and the queer community in Chicago. Some friends began No Coast in 2008, originally...