The books meet and are beautiful

The days when Susan's and my collaborative books get together are always special. Today seemed particularly special as neither of us had seen or heard anything - not a hint or peek, nothing - since we first sat down together to see how we would work with our collection of prints back in November.

You may recall that Susan had boldly cut into the prints; whereas I was far more tentative.

I enjoyed that we both found our own way to have the prints work together, even tho they had never been intended by us as individuals let alone collectively, to be viewed together as a set or a series.

I paid my book scant attention whilst we were away, so had to really get my act together when we returned. Over the weekend I will show you the details of my book, but for today it's all about the books getting together…

I don't think Susan will mind me saying that we were both extraordinarily moved by seeing the two books together.  We hugged, and even shared the odd tear. The first time we've ever be so emotional in response to the getting together.

First of all, we just looked at the covers and could hardly believe our eyes - the similarities were so strong.

We went through each book separately and then turned the pages of them together, just to see how each story unfolded and held together, and how the two books complemented each other so well.  They were beautiful together. And equally beautiful as individuals.

My 'conversations' and Susan's 'daydreams' worked together so well; yet each told its own story uniquely and beautifully.

I don't think we've ever been so aware of our shared aesthetic as we were with these books. We talked a lot about our responses and how we were surprised, but not surprised when we saw each other's book; how we couldn't believe it, yet of course could believe it.

These books feel like companion pieces, or as we said a real pairing.

Of course we got a bit carried away with the lovely angle shots and shadows…

And despite me keeping the prints broadly intact (except for the cover) and Susan cutting them up into much smaller pieces; it was clear that they shared a heritage and had a common beginning.

We talked and talked about what had happened, and agreed that beginning with the same content and broadly agreeing to keep the size and shape pretty similar (Susan's is 22cm square and mine is 25cm square) both played big parts in the way the books looked and felt similar.  For the first time, our books felt biologically related, despite our obvious differences in mark-marking, writing, drawing and even embossing.

As ever, we learnt so much from the process, and we finished with very satisfied sighs.