Making Validating

I think have documented some of the making of these books along the way, but they have finally come together.

It took me a while to work out how to make them books. The pages were beautiful - the soft vintage bandage, letraset, flighty to hold, ephemeral-feeling.  They felt inconsequential as if they could fly away somehow.

Question was how do I bind them? Do I bind them? Will I make perspex covers? That was my main game for ages working out a binding where they could be viewed from within these imagined Perspex covers.

And then I thought no, I want them to feel uncertain as you work through them; as you approach them you aren't quite sure what they are about, or how best to engage with them. So that meant good bye to Perspex covers.

I didn't have enough page-sized bandage left, and I struggled to work out what to do.

I did however, have many scraps, and a patching together idea began to form.

I pulled some threads from a scrap, and began to use those threads to sew pieces together to make covers.

Now the work was making sense to me. Now it had integrity.

So I made two front covers, and two back covers, one set for each book.

And once again using the pulled thread to stitch with, I bound the covers and pages together.

I love the moment of awkwardness as you attempt to lift the front cover, to allow you to turn the pages. You are all of the words within - hesitant, uncertain, tentative...

And yet you manage it, whilst feeling cautious as you do.

And of course, you find yourself within it...