Books, books, books, books.

As planned, [I’d written it in my planner!] we went down to Walford Mill on Friday to visit their used book sale, look at the current exhibition, have a cup of tea and toasted teacake in the cafe, and collect our purchase from the last exhibition, by Pat Hodson.

As not planned, and definitely not in my planner, we arrived very late due to a broken down tanker on the A31. [Those who know the A31 will know exactly what that implies.] There was only time for the cup of tea [essential, after sitting in a traffic jam for an hour], a look at the books, and a very quick whizz round the exhibition. I wish we had had longer – the lively and exciting work was mainly by artists with learning difficulties, and made me realise what can be achieve if you forget your inhibitions ad go at things with enthusiasm!

I did pick up one or two books – well, at £1 a time, proceeds for a good cause, who could resist?

 

 

 

 

 

This was a little more than £1, but well worth it, especially given my research topic – and the next exhibition at Walford is of artists’ books. How serendipitous.

My planner also told me to work on the triptych and book of manipulated photos on Saturday afternoon. I disobeyed, and got ahead of the game, by managing to complete the triptych on Friday morning.

It is quite difficult to photograph, but here is an aerial view and the first panel, showing some of the more embarrassing photos.

 

 

After that promising start, things went pear-shaped on Saturday, as making the book took a lot longer than expected. Of course I’m used to making books where the pages are blank, or made from stuff I made earlier, so all I have to do is assemble them. For this book, although I'd printed off a lot of the images in advance, I had to glue them to the pages, and it all took a lot longer than I anticipated. It wasn't helped by the fact that I kept having ideas.

Ideas like pop-ups, and weavings, and paper dolls, and tearing pictures up, and cutting letters out of photos … And since I took these photos I’ve drawn on a lot of them too.

The binding is my speciality, wonky Coptic. I think it’s finished, apart from the colophon. [What a show off! I mean a note thanking my colleagues who took the photos and listing the programs I used to muck about with the images.]

According to my planner, today was going to be the day I started on the research project properly. Needless to say, I didn’t.

I did, however, make the RP book. A3, utilising the backs of two old sketchbooks and some hand made paper I bought years ago at Ally Pally, for some purpose long forgotten. Those clips were going to be temporary. to allow me to add more pages if needed, before stab binding it when I’d finished – but they are growing on me.

Now I've made the book I can really get started.