Ethan was first to ask me for assistance with how to print his photo polymer relief plate on blue book cloth for the cover of his beach book. He has used sandpaper for his pages and back cover so that you ‘feel’ the beach. He has inserted scans of the beach and found objects from Crosby beach. Its turning out to be a beautiful sensory document of the seaside environment.
I caught up with Maggie. She has been trying out screenprinting for the first time and has already got the hang of how to place the printed image on the page. She has made a french fold page system and is planning to bind them with a decorative stab stitch which incorporates chemistry symbols in a blue stained thread.
Heather has focused on the British obsession with tea drinking and has devised a book which will contain pages soaked in tea for progressively longer and longer periods of time. The photograph shows a scale of colour, a bit like an aquatint test strip. She is planning to use a coptic binding so that the graduated colour of the stack is fully visible.
Steve has already finished his book about capital punishment in the state of Utah. He has researched the use of execution as punishment and has listed each case over the last thirty years. His documentation is purely text and lists the prisoner, the manner of death, the victims of the crime and the date of the execution.
Rachel has been feeling the pressure of the project so I spent some time with her to settle her nerves. We discussed her plans and sorted through her linocut prints. She has been looking at the imagery in her local playground and is trying to create a sense of childhood invoked by this place and the graphics on the slides, swings and roundabouts.
Marlena from BYU
This Saturday the idea for my book really came together when I had the opportunity to go to the Slavery Museum. It is interesting how Great Britain and the US are linked through the slave trade.
Listening to the many stories in the museum moved me to tears.To be able to hear someone else’s story that was so much like my own, even though we are from different parts of the world, was very moving. So I have decided to base my book on this subject and the connections I have made between here and the States.
