I've always been passionate about books; love reading them, holding them, looking at them. Bookshops, libraries, second-hand bookshops, rows of old books in charity shops. Often used to feel guilty about "just sitting reading". Last year for Cert 3 Visual Arts (Textiles) I tentatively started exploring making books - both with textiles. This year for Cert 4, I have fully embraced Book Art, researching, learning new techniques, becoming confident about my own style and my own artwork. I have been using a lot of paper materials and techniques. I have been to the first of two workshops on hand-made books and here you see the Meditation Book I made. It is a concertina style with pamphlet inserts. The front cover shown is artboard, with my hand-dyed fabric glued on. The concertina is made from card covered with layers of my hand-dyed papers, with the addition of pastels used in areas. Pastels are new to me but they are like very soft crayons or coloured wax and give lovely depth of colour to any area. The papers that I dyed are white tissue paper (as in gift wrapping), greaseproof paper, and paper towels used as mop-up cloths in dyeing. The running stitch is naive-style to echo the random effect of the colours.
I have developed into this unexpected direction after studying at
Marden Senior College, with
Suzanne Gummow , Cathy Boniciolli and
Sarah Bell Smith in Visual Arts - I recommend them heartily for anyone wanting for expand their artistic horizons.
Next time I will tell you about the workshop.
