Category: General

I’ve been thinking much about alterations recently, it’s a theme that has often been considered during my years studying antique textiles. Today, much thought given today to up cycling textiles and clothing and the mending of clothing to prolong its life.

Being a post war baby these ideas have always been there for me, mending, reusing and restyling were a part of everyday life. Indeed the Brownies had a thrift badge and we were taught how to darn. I must have been less than ten. I then went on to make many of my clothes and soft furnishings and curtains. Many were altered over the years.

Many of my printing plates  have ‘life’ left in them as my editions of books are small and I have turned to the most recent of them to consider the theme of Alterations.

I have also been using a different paper to print on, Hosho, Japanese paper, 90gsm. Its been interesting using a different paper to my usual Somerset 250gsm, it’s softer, one side is slightly suede like and it takes a print beautifully.

Out of these thoughts came the book “Refashioning the Original”, it’s 13 x 6.5cm closed and I have used a printing plate designed from C18th heavily woven silk. The Hosho paper comes in a pad 38.5 x 28cm, which provides another challenge, to design a book different from my long concertina variations. It also has soft covers which is a departure for me.

I am often asked how I arrive at my different book structures, I play with paper, see my desk at the end of a session. The joy is being able to leave it all there until next time!

My work has always focussed on my collection of antique textile fragments, but sometimes an idea surfaces and when there are no deadlines to meet, it’s interesting to follow it.

Back in April I purchased some loom punched cards. Out of the research into these the Memory cards book was designed and made, see previous blog

Whilst I kew what they were and had been on the hunt for them for a while, what I was going to do with them was a mystery. I had seen them linked up to a wooden loom back in April 2019 in Lyon, France and it was an image that had remained with me. 

My loom cards are modern and are 66.6cm x 7.3cm, but historically they come in all sorts of sizes and first appeared in the first decade of the C19th.

I worked out two simple folded books, based on this size and designed a Baroque style collagraph printing plate 5.5cm high, the design evolving from damask silk, which the system of loom cards would have facilitated.

Before I printed the plate I used the punch card to emboss the system of holes into the paper. 

One pair of books has the embossing done from the front and the other pair from the reverse .

I then punched holes at both ends, these were the holes that originally had cords through them to link them all together as they rattled through the loom structure.

The completed folded books are 16.9 x 7.7cm. I decided not to back them or to produce covers for them. The reverse shows the imprint of the Collagraph print and the dimples from the embossing of the loom card and so add an interesting texture. I felt that there was a simplicity and quietness of these small folded books, but yet strong enough to tell their tale.

There are echoes of my Collaboration with Fiona Dempster see here, which we titled ‘The Shape of Things’. A shape is influencing the content and the final design.