Thursday, 15 January 2015

A response

I don’t often make work that responds to current events so this is an unusual piece for me.
At the end of last week I was playing with recycling shopping bags. I had some vague plan of monoprinting leaves and also trying to reflect the mathematical sequences that occur in nature using it to make a fishbone/leaf fold book

 Ironing out the creases on the bags seemed to have left the paper brittle and the structure started to split on some of the score lines, like broken leaves. Somehow this fragility seemed to resonate with the events unfolding in France. 

The way that more and more people (of all faiths and countries) responded to this outrage seemed to reflect the increasing number sequences I had been playing with.

So my leaves have been replaced by words and my numbers with pencils. For once it seems that a book is the right place to make a response.

 

7 comments:

  1. A structure that's new to me - and an interesting response to a knotty situation.

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    1. I read about the fold at Making Handmade Books and at Green Chair Press if you want to follow it up

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  2. I've been fiddling around with these fishbone folds too and wondering whether they actually work as a book structure or are just interesting sculpturally, but you've managed to make the form marry with the message Jac. These are eloquent and beautifully realised.

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    1. Glad you like them. Once I realised that I could stick the bottom of the 'main stem' together then pull the end to open up theoffshoots into boxes I found it a lot easier to use as a book

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  3. A perfect fit Jac. Simply elegant for such an important statement. I too, have never come across this interesting fold, thanks for putting it out there!

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    1. Thanks Jack. And thanks for the Christmas card.

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  4. Love this book Jac, especially for the subject matter and its fit with the structure. I too have been outraged by the events in France and the threat to freedom of speech. We are living in an increasing fragile world.

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