saturday outing

Today I visited the Time and Space exhibition at the Bowery gallery in Headingley...

Comfy chairs ...

And book works relating to the idea of domesticity, nostalgia and memory...

I think the curator has done a great job of arranging all the books on vintage shelves, tables and dressers. Here's my tree book popping out of a drop leaf cabinet, and I think it fits here well. Kind of mirrors the trees folding out from the book, I like the idea of a forrest folded up in a cabinet, ready to burst out...

And I love the little alcove my other my other book has found its way into :)

Definitely worth a visit (and there's a cafe downstairs too, organic cake and cups of tea, how can you resist...) 

The exhibition is on until 1st August

book for beth

Rounded spine book with tracing paper dust cover and paper tree cut out...

It's the book from yesterday, with a little tree cut out to be used as a card and then stored away in the cover for safe keeping... and here are some gratuitous paper shots of the inside...

Tissue paper, tracing paper, watercolour paper, cartridge, newsprint, kraft paper, graph paper... (actually, I want to keep it)

I also tried a bit of an experiment with the covering of the book; I wanted a particular red colour and a softer texture which the buckram couldn't provide, so I used quilting cotton and ironed on some fusable interfacing to create a kind of book cloth... I've tried this before with bondaweb but it was a bit floppy so this time I bought the firmest interfacing I could find and it seems to have worked ok (apart from a few glue splodges, but we won't mention them). Its definitely something I think is worth having another go at :)

work in progress...

A book I've been working on, for a friend to give to her husband as an anniversary present. It's their first anniversary,  and it's traditional to give a gift made from paper... 

It's been a quiet week at work this week, all the students have finished for the summer and the task now is to clean the print room from top to toe. I've stopped working lates as the night classes are done, and I'm looking forward to evenings of sunshine in the garden, nice food and hopefully lots of bookbinding :)

things to do

If you're any where near Edinburgh before the 11th July and stuck for something to do...


Looks like a good one (and I'm not just saying that because I have a book or two in the exhibition...) More information on their website (and pictures on here if I make it up to Scotland before it closes, fingers crossed).

Also, if you're in or around Headingley, Leeds before August 1st The Bowery, a new visual arts center, has an exhibition of artists books relating to time, memory and domesticity, all available to handle in a comfy living room environment... (and definitely expect pictures, as I would have to pretty rubbish to miss this one!)

Happy Wednesday!

what they've been up to...

Some pictures of students work from the Foundation show a few weeks ago...

I helped all these students in one way or another (I hope!) teaching them structures, helping to solve problems, discussing ideas. Some needed step by step instruction, some just a gentle push in the right direction. (Not that there necessarily is a 'right' direction of course, but there are definitely different ways to think about things, to develop ideas, and sometimes its little things that can spark an imagination...) Whatever my contribution, it was so rewarding seeing the final pieces in the show, I'm so proud of what they've all achieved! 

(And on a totally unrelated note; imagine having a house like this!)