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Tuesday, February 16, 2021

Pocket progress

 One of the feature of my work I have discovered when speaking about it, is this notion siblings.  I oftentimes will make wall works; which have accompanying books.  I may make a book and then create wall works that are related.  I think of them as siblings in the sense that they are related; yet not identical kind of thing.

And so to my pocket book.  Several years in the making (or not making really isn't it).  I thought the poster Pockets are Political deserved a book as well, and on and off have thought about what to do and how to do it.

It finally became the project I needed to make and I have set about writing words, setting them and printing them.

This bit of the progression story is about the covers - inside and out.

With a nod once more to the suffragette and feminist colours - the covers are a beautiful rich purple buckram, over Arches Velin 280gsm paper. I wanted the covers to be firm but flexible and I think this combination achieves that.



And then to the inside covers.  I worked out what weight paper would be good; and then wondered if I should embellish it at all; go for marbled paper, or stitch it maybe?

Stitching felt a little bit too distracting, and then I landed on the sewing machine without thread idea.

I retrieved the pattern I had used for machine sewing in green, the pockets at the bottom of the poster and worked it onto a page.



I did not think I had the care nor attention to trace and stitch it 15 times, so I experimented with layering the paper together and tracing onto only the top sheet.  


This worked for 5 or 6 sheets so I was set.


I traced and taped together a few bundles then sat down at the machine to stitch.


With very satisfying results!




I rubbed out the tracing lines on the top sheets, then glued them in position on the inside of the covers.
I love their subtlety and I love how the imagery reflects the exact same image on the poster, yet is different.  They are linked yet individual. Like siblings.


And to keep the sibling theme going, I printed the title in the same green that I stitched the pockets in on the poster! 

The books are still under weights and should be ready to be stitched this week.


4 comments:

  1. love seeing your work in process, the trace on the tracing paper has potential too!

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    1. Yes indeed it does Mo - it is nice to keep them and know they could bounce away somewhere else with another thought.

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  2. siblings ... what a great concept

    and I love the word play that is "pocket book"

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  3. Ahhh you got it! Its funny how the sibling concept came to me as I was talking to some folk who visited the studio. It describes them perfectly and I am happy to have discovered that about my own works - funny isn't it?

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I appreciate your thoughts and comments; thanks for taking the time.