The Shape of Things I

 I mentioned this wee book recently and its role in my book exchange with Annwyn Dean (annwyndean.co.uk) and now it's time to tell its story here.

Because we had committed to sending our books to each other in the first week of January, I knew I would have to work on it in Scotland.

Supplies and other such things such as space are scarce in the cottage so I added the additional challenge of working with limited materials to my quest.

I had Annwyn's papers with me but I was terribly unsure of my direction. Until one of those awake in the  middle of the night realisations and I was fine to go, with a few steps forwards, back and sideways along the way.

I started pottering here. And by the time I left  had pretty much completed my pages.

Working with what paper I had on hand - an A4 pad of Fabriano Unica 250gsm - each A4 page was trimmed down to create 16 pages. Each page is pretty small in the end - 7.5cm (w) x 5.3cm (h)

I went with my weak inky water, brushed on and then daubed away with tissue in places.  I thought this created a misty, hazy feel in line with my own sense of fogginess and not being able to see the way forward; commit to the future or be confident about any commitments.

One of my thoughts was that the way markers had disappeared, so I introduced the embossing (very me) in the form of a fence line which we could see out of our back bedroom window at the cottage. They were there, but not straight, and rather meander-y, and you coudl kind of sort of see them in the right light.

I had taken Letraset with me as I thought it would be the simplest way of achieving lettering, it was light and did not take-up too much space in my bag. Also it wouldn't leak!

So I selected pages with similar way marker alignments, and started to do two of each phrase. One for me and one for Annwyn.

My work space, work in progress.

I began to add elements to the design - square and rectangular shapes cut out from some of Annwyn's beautiful papers.

And when I had completed the full set for one book, I began on the second.  I often consider my wall works and my book works siblings; and that is how I describe these books as well. The two books are not identical (no two people experience exactly the same thing) and yet they are inherently related.

So the positioning of the embossing and the lettering was similar on each page for the two books, and then I began to add the papers.

In the second book I worked off principle rather than replication - there was a long piece touching the bottom; the word firm was covered; a piece ran from the top edge to the bottom edge and so on.

This can be the title. Or the final word. The beginning of a line. Or the end of a line.

This most probably, is usually the end. The full stop.

And here is one iteration of the words, presented in the same manner for each book.

The pages tumble out of the linen pouch as if they were a puzzle to be solved. They don't initially look at all book-like. But there are words to play with. Thoughts to express, and stories to be told.

Here is how I described it in my accompanying note to Annwyn: