Category: Book Making

Book Making, Exhibitions, General, Printing

Practicalities – 27th February 2020

annwyndean1

Now that the euphoria of being selected for Printfest and Turn the Page has slightly ebbed there are practical things to be dealt with and the last couple of weeks has seen me concentrate upon books that are to be placed into frames to be hung on the wall and my stationary and packaging.

I have completed four books for frames. Deadlines do concentrate ones mind and I know that I am well head of forthcoming dates but problems do arise like the box frames that I ordered for the books came back the wrong size and will have to be remade, but thankfully I’m still OK.

Also made paper bags and business cards

An idea that has been roaming around my mind for several months now is that of ‘The Collection’ and what that means. I have made a couple of books on that theme and I have started measuring out another couple with tiny blind prints to see how the proportions work – always good to have work in progress and to be problem solving.

We have had terrible weather lately, and watching water levels, hail and snow can be distracting as  can also be this pheasant who struts up and down the garden, puffing himself up, showing off his feathers and squawking looking for a lady pheasant. I do hope that he finds one soon !

Book Making, Embroidery, Exhibitions, Printing, Uncategorized

Interesting Times – 10th February 2020

annwyndean1

I am still pursuing ideas around frayed edges and unpicked seams and I hope extending my printing practice. Above the curved edge of the print, which is 30cm long I have embossed three lines of thread, not sure as I’m typing this whether they will show up. When it’s dry I will stitch a blank line of holes along the top. It will be a few weeks before I will be able to fold and complete the books, an edition of 4.

I have also folded and stitched together three books, they are double concertinas, front

and back. 

They come under a generic title of “In all Colours”. This is a quote from the middle of the C17th in a letter from London to the East India Company wanting chintzes with lots of colour. This was a time in England when printed colours were not colourfast and so washing made them faint or the colour ran, not so printing from India. This was magical and a status symbol if you had Indian Chintz.

I have had brilliant news in that I have been selected for Printfest in Ulveston in May and also for ‘Turn the Page’ Artists’ Book Fair in Norwich also in May. I have the ideas to complete a body of work for both events just need the time, I’m sure that i will find it.

My husband has been digitising old photographs and this one popped up of me in 1975

Book Making, Embroidery, General, Uncategorized

The Past is always Present – 23rd January 2020

annwyndean1

Over the last couple of months I have been exploring, along with ‘Unpicked Seams’  the theme of ‘The Past is always Present’ and I have now completed two editions of 2 and 3 books.

I began with a piece of Indian embroidered silk which had been imported into England in about the year 1620, this is one of my earliest textiles, and I then developed ideas concerning its design, which evolved into chintz, something which we all know today. see here

However, during an email conversation with a fellow artist in Australia, thank you Fiona, a new twist emerged. A few weeks before Christmas I dug up in my garden a stone canon ball dating from the English Civil War 1642 – 7. It will sit in my palm and has a polished bottom to stop it from rolling about. There had been a skirmish in the village and I have several lead musket shot from those days. I should say that my house, although old, hadn’t been built then.

So it just shows that the past is present!!

Here they are.