After giving much thought to ‘Vulnerable to Alteration’ over the last few weeks, my mind wandered around those words to ‘Alter and Adapt’ or perhaps ‘Adapt and Alter’ – the latter seeming to be appropriate during these times.
I have over the years made my own clothes, from dresses to coats and suits. I remember Aran sweaters knitted for myself and my husband, which, when the sleeves wore out, I turned them into cushions, not quite altering or adapting, but yet making use for a different situation and place.
There are records of a lady at the English Court in the C18th who altered her Court dress eight times for different Seasons as it was just too expensive to buy new. This seemed to be a planned campaign on her behalf.
So many aspects to Adapting and Altering. I always save the linen fabric from clothes, as I love the texture, and now I make our face masks from them!
I’m sure that we can all come up with examples of alterations, which cover necessity and practical through to the creative and decorative.
So from these vague thoughts I looked again at my work over the last year. There were some printing plates which had had very few runs through the press, so I looked at them again, how could they be altered, and coupled with a different book format that I had devised whilst playing around with paper, I came up with a book.
It was a challenge as I had to print on both sides of the paper. I used Indian cotton rag paper which has lovely frilly edges and an indigo ink, so that the effect wasn’t too hard.
Here are the pages folded together, they have yet to be bound and covered, which I shall do when they are completely dry.
And my reading pile, not too many books, as the weather has been dry so offering many opportunities to dig and weed the garden.
Annwyn Dean 