Stefan Szczelkun

03/0

The life of a serial artist bookmaker Whilst having my year out from my architecture course in 1969 I came across **The Scratch Orchestra** and although not a musician I joined with glee and experienced the power of collective improvisation. This did result in a publication, but much later. By 1971 I was back at college in Portsmouth attempting to finish my course whilst living the high life of a provincial hippy. Architecture did not seem to be located in human needs… So I decided to take John Cages’ advice and ‘start from scratch’. Before architecture came shelter so I started collecting stuff on basic forms of shelter making. That turned into collecting scrapbooks of material on our basic life supports - shelter, food and energy. It was a revelation to me because I felt that I was reclaiming knowledge from its European Humanist edifice. I had the good luck to take my collection into **Unicorn Bookshop** in Brighton at an opportune time. The poet proprietor of Unicorn, Bill Butler, could see the potential for a British version of The Whole Earth Catalogue. The first completely hand-drawn **‘Survival Scrapbook 1 Shelter’** came out early in 1972. **‘Survival Scrapbook 2 Food’** came out later that year and **‘Energy’** in 1974. They sold well and the rights were sold to Schocken in NY. I was sent on a 37 radio and TV talk show tour of America and they sold thousands of them. The next thing I got into was a concept of ’Total Ability’ where the idea of ‘going back to first pri

12 books in the database