Workshop endeavours....

 Well today's workshop has come and gone in a blur.... watching hands folding, creasing, glueing and assembling at the speed of light. A slight exaggeration maybe but today's group excelled themselves with the number of folded variation samples they made. I do tend to throw in the kitchen sink and expect them to take it all in and, as usual, they rose to the challenge. This time I also took some old books and rubber stamps to add a bit of collage and content into the mix. I love the way that a random mix of items can furnish someone with the means to make a book and I like seeing what elements appeal to different people. Some enjoyed the maps, others the old book pages and old magazines. The wallpaper samples are always a hit too so I must share what they have created. This is a fraction of their output but gives a flavour of the day, starting at the top with a selection of items by Halina.

 Maggie, working on a theme of black and white

 Margaret practicing lotus folds in all their shapes and sizes

 Anne exploring signature folds prior to maps folds

 Peter creating a lotus fold book using collage and stamp elements.....

 ... and being brave enough to join a room full of excitable women all engaged in creativity and chat!

 Eileen exploring shapes and materials

 Sheila - once a surface designer, always a surface designer- using stamps to create pages....

 ....lots more of her samples here too - she was unstoppable today!

... and finally, Maggie No3 who always tries out everything I ask of them.... and some!

Another great day in great company. Thanks everyone. Roll on two weeks time and long stitch bindings.

Cutting, folding,assembling,sticking........

 I feel like I've spent the last few months doing nothing but folding paper. Before Christmas I noticed a workshop advertised for making a Chinese Sewing Book but it was too far away to travel to. I really wanted to try making this type of book however and then I realised I possessed a book by book artist Cheryl Moote with the instructions in so, I set to, and have been trying out  half a dozen or so different box designs since then. They are time consuming things to make and I am still playing with the format of the whole book but whilst I was in paper creasing  mode I added a folding books session to my workshop schedule and it's coming up this  Friday. I've ditched plans to do blizzard books because I've realised just how many books can be made with the knowledge of a couple of simple folding techniques. We'll be concentrating on the diversity of lotus folds and map folds. I shall be keen to see what paper everyone brings along and what book ideas they have. To get some folding practice started I've been cutting squares of old books, atlases, wallpaper and wallpaper lining paper. This means they can get right into it and save precious time cutting their own papers later. I hope to get time to explore circular folded books too. When you start to look around there are lots of papers sold in circles such as cake liners, waxed jam pot discs, doilies and they come in all sorts of paper from thin tissue to glassine. One simple idea can be pushed in all directions and the different types of paper plus the scale of the book can produce some intriguing results. I keep thinking of more and more ideas for sample books so there's been plenty of cutting, folding and sticking around here.  I've found that I really enjoy making things as small as I can and really see potential in making them with the transparent papers.  I remember how inventive the group were when we did accordion folds so I'm looking forward to it. I shall share the results!

World Book Day at the Book Hive

 Where else would you go on World Book Day other than a library? I went to one which holds some lovely personal memories as well as being the site of a fantastic installation using the book as moving sculpture. We went home to Bristol for the day to visit family and to visit the Grade One listed Central Library, a place my husband worked in for seven years before we moved to Wales and the place I loved going to both as a teenager and adult. It was here I found the vinyl record library and week on week I borrowed the oddest records to the despair of my parents who had to listen to them too. I've spent many productive hours in the reference library bent over microfiche readers researching my family history back in the 1990's and listened to my husband's scary tales of goings on as he locked up the building late in the evening. Along with lots of mice there were other things lurking in those old rooms stacked to the roof with old books.... but I digress.... because it is those old books that are part of the Book Hive.

The Book Hive fills the foyer of the library and  is a sculpture which uses animatronic techniques to bring lots of old books to life. They've been donated by readers or obtained from those withdrawn from the library shelves and they have grown from 100 books at the start of the installation in December to the 400 or so I saw yesterday. The number commemorates Bristol's first public library started an amazing 400 years ago in 1613 when local merchant Robert Redwood gave his King Street Lodge to the city for this purpose. Each book is housed in a plywood honeycomb and they open and close as you move past them as the robotics sense the movement. I could not stop going backwards and forwards trying it out and I was delighted by the noise as all those books opened and closed at random.  I also spent just as long staring at the mechanism at the rear of the books watching the backwards and forward motion. It was a joy to see. I took a small video which has not worked too well so here's a link to the local news coverage. There's a great video here showing the hive in action.

Collecting my thoughts

 Last year I wrote about the new library in Birmingham and the Library of Lost Books project. Through the project's  latest blog post I found out about an exhibition right on my doorstep. Taking place on campus in Carmarthen, it finishes tomorrow so I realised I needed to get going or else I'd miss my chance. As it was, it is reading week so the campus was empty and I had the venue all to myself to take it all in. My photos show all the enamel pieces by the students but there were altered books, artists books, jewellery and sketchbooks to enjoy too. I loved the scale of the enamel tags suspended en masse. They made a great impact and it was fascinating to look at the imagery selected. I enjoyed the enamel books too, particularly the beautiful marks made in them. It all made me think about the enamel work of my friend Sue, using enamel in contemporary art pieces. Lots of food for thought about the theme of collecting and hoarding. Intriguing stuff.

Having a stab at something new

 I ran the first of a new series of four book making workshops yesterday. Each is a few weeks apart and will take us up to Easter when we'll take a break probably until the autumn term again. Following requests we spent the day on Japanese stab bindings working through both soft and hard cover hinged options. Although I'd prepared samples and notes for all four of the key Japanese bindings it was really important to fix the process of stitching the basic binding into our minds and explore the materials to use. Everybody stitched samples on card at the beginning to understand the rhythm of the thread and then they got stuck into measuring, cutting and making. The picture above is one of Eileen's books, made using her own monoprinted papers. I loved that black and yellow combination and she offered me the book to take home but as much as I wanted it, I just couldn't. It just didn't seem right especially as she is doing what I love the most, using her own materials and playing with design. Here is a selection of everyone's work with the exception of Anne , who left us early. Her husband  who is stationed abroad was coming home after a month or so away. Not surprisingly she left us with half an hour to go so that she could see him. It's great to know that romance is alive and well!

 Here's is Margaret's patriotic red and green book

 Halina

 Maggie

 Cynthia

 Lilian

 Peter

 Maggie

Sheila

Next up in three weeks time is folded books which will include lotus books and blizzard books followed by a foray into link stitch bindings and finishing in April with a session on tunnel books. That's the one I'm really looking forward to, taking books from 2D to 3D. It will be a challenge but everyone who comes to the sessions are really keen to learn and try things so I can't wait!

Felt like a break for a few days.....

 We've just spent a few days away in Gloucestershire and Somerset, catching up with family, seeing a few exhibitions and running a workshop. We managed to see the Second Impressions printmaking exhibition at New Brewery Arts in Cirencester and catch the tour of the Sketchbook competition from Rabley Drawing School at Black Swan Arts in Frome. Both offered a visual feast, the one showcasing the finished works of a talented group of printmakers using various mediums to make their mark and the other giving a privileged opportunity to handle the sketchbooks of artists and see how ideas progress. We finished yesterday with an afternoon of feltmaking!

Through a conversation with my cousin's wife Emma, I learned that their eldest, Sarah, is in a textiles club at school and was interested in making handmade felt. Well, one thing led to another as they do and Emma organised a workshop for Sarah and a few friends with me dragging out all of my old feltmaking equipment and revisiting something I've not done for quite a while. In fact, I'd passed most of it on to friends and had to 'borrow' it back to take to Somerset - and I needed it all because these girls were keen and really got into the process. It was fascinating watching children work after years of running workshops for adults. They were far more productive. Not for them, long periods of deciding what to put where. They had their ideas quick as a flash and got stuck into the work! Bolstered by copious amounts of sandwiches and chocolate cake thoughtfully provided by Emma and helped by another couple of Mums this is what they produced :

 Making prefelts first, Lily then laid out a large amount of fibre, placed her pre-felts on top, added some mohair threads and felted a large rectangle which she may cut later and sew into a bag. We all agreed that it made a fabulous scarf but I think she has a plan and she's going to follow it through!

 This is Sarah's abstract first piece and I really love the painterly way she has used the threads. She went on to make another 2 or 3 pieces. In fact, I couldn't keep up with her rate of production with the camera. Her friend Veronica, cunningly concealed behind her second piece of felt, opted to make large pieces which she will later turn into something else. She and I found common ground because she loves to make books! You can imagine how much I enjoyed hearing that.She also learned that when you trim the felt you can roll the trimmings and make braids and bracelets so she took a few bits of potential jewellery home with her too.

 Sophie laid out two large pieces of felt and my photo does not do justice to the beautiful colour blends that came through once this piece was dry. Sophie has already tried needlefelting so has the means at home to embellish her felt pieces with more details, something that her 9 year old sister Megan did from the outset. She had a clear idea her mind for this lovely flower piece and she diligently made every piece of pre-felt needed to make it happen. I love the design and sheer joyous colour of it all.

Finally, I couldn't leave out the piece made by Lucy, our youngest participant. I'm not sure if she's 6 or 7. All I know is that she too had very clear ideas about what she wanted to make and went at it with gusto. Her pink pig grazing in the green fields is a triumph and a beautiful fine - hole free- piece of handmade felt. She tried to make some beads later and I hope they all sustain the enthusiasm for creating and making that I saw yesterday afternoon. It was infectious and I remembered why I used to love feltmaking so much...... until this morning when my old bones creaked and my shoulders ached. A fantastic day though and one I'd love to do again....... when I've recovered!