our next books .....

Fiona and I spent the day together yesterday working on our second collaborative books.  This time we each provided the other with materials to be used in a book and have made no decisions as to the structure or content of the book - hoping that the materials we provide would inspire and prompt wonderful ideas.

I have had a fairly awful month, culminating in the death of my father this week.  Naturally all my thoughts have been centred around him and his failing health, what he was like as a man and how awful it was to see this shadow of a person left.  I mention this because for the two weeks prior to yesterday, I was thinking that I would make this book about him.  I had found an aluminium book cover that I planned to use and thought I would introduce more aluminium in the way of book pages to represent this man who came across with this really stern, tough exterior.  The beautiful soft grey pages that Fiona gave me were going to be used to represent his inner self - that part you only got to know if you knew him well - that 'soft as butter' underbelly.

However, Fiona arrived with two more materials which she thought I may like to use in my book since I was introducing the metal book cover.  Aluminium shim (or scrim as I call it) and some mica which came off in flakes and shimmered on the page as you can see below.

I am going to make my book an upright standing one - four folios, representing our family of four.  Of late I have been entranced by various artist's use of thread in their work.  For many years I have wanted to use it in some way but it has not eventuated.  Recently I bought 'Snow Writing' from Jackie Bowcutt in the UK which has lovely loose threads hanging, and I also purchased a copy of Fiona's 'Subersive Stitch' book which is featured in my previous blog, once again with lovely loose hanging threads.  Drawing inspiration from both these works I have decided that my pages will be very loosely sewn together.  They will stand upright and seem unbound, yet there will be the threads of relationship connecting them. I have yet to work out just how that will work .......

Playing with the Mica has actually changed my concept for the book.  It is the most delicious material - very difficult to separate the thin flakes from each other for use.  I actually cut a square out of the piece Fiona gave me and with a stanley knife managed to separate some lovely squarish pieces - mostly fragments of squares which in fact suits me better.

Placing them on the pages I am preparing, thinking about how I could incorporate them into my book, made me realise that the mica has brought a lovely warmth to the work and so my thoughts have changed slightly - rather than being a book describing my fathers' personality, this will be a tender book about those special bonds that hold a family together.  I am excited about this concept as it makes relevant the sheet of paper Fiona prepared for me with all her beautiful calligraphic words - beautiful,  kindred spirits, dancing, sharing ........ special tender words that will add meaning to this book.

While Fiona stitched away and moved forward with the making of her book, my day was taken up with the delicious play of possibilities, working out how to work with the mica, testing it to see if it changed when stuck.  I played around with the aluminium shim - sanding it and playing with some marks, sticking it down on paper to see if that worked effectively as it is quite a flimsy weight and probably won't perform as I would wish it to without being strengthened.

I think photographing the process and looking at these photos now as I blog about our day together, helps me realise that these materials, mostly from Fiona but the metal book cover introduced by me, are going to work together very beautifully.  Who would have thought of mixing such softness with metals ..... it is a constant surprise this collaboration of ours.

As we sat down with our coffee to start the day and had a chat about what we were thinking of doing with our books, it seemed that we were both working along the lines of transitioning.  Fiona transitioning from darkness to light, and my book dealing with the transition from my father's harder exterior into that soft gentle place inside.  My concepts have changed as I said, but it made us both smile to think that unbeknown to each other, we had both resolved on concepts for our books that were in accord with each other.

These books are to be finished this month.  For me it has been a wonderful start - I can hardly wait to be back in the studio .............