From Bed to Book

When we resumed our meetings after lock down one of the NWBA members suggested the theme for the next set of books should be our journey to get there. I admit I was sceptical about it at first.

But on the way home I realised that medieval strip maps gave the same view of the world as sat navs – you go in a straight line and everything else, rivers, junctions, etc, is an adjunct to that.

 I developed a diagrammatic record of the journey from my bed to the room in the library where we meet. 

 I had been intending to make a scroll but when experimenting with structures for a different project I realise that an accordion folded triangular book would take this straight journey and make it go round corners and up and down hills.

It is essentially a long acrylic monoprint and is a bit springy. So it needs keeping in a slip case. 

Triangles

I attended a zoom workshop this weekend with NWBA and MBAG . It was led by Anna Yevtukh-Squire. We made a triangular book structure with secret pockets.

When the list of materials came it included patterned paper and book cloth. I don’t tend to use pre printed papers so I decided to have a go at making paste paper. And having done that I also decided to make book cloth using a gelli plate to print onto thin cotton. And to dye the elastic and thread to match using inktense crayons.

It got a bit fraught. I was ironing the paper at midnight the night before the class. But in the end I was glad I’d bothered. It made a book made from someone else’s instructions feel more like mine.