I have decided to work with one of the collectable books; I thought it would be a good idea to take another visit to the woodwork studio and to see what I could do there. I thought it would be a different way to work with the pages of the books rather than just folding them. This process is a lot faster, showing the little patience that I have with books and treating them as harshly as I feel that I have been treated, because of there ever persistent presence. After looking at the tools in the woodwork room, I decided to work with the sander as I thought this would smooth the pages down and I would be able to make a new shape out of the book; obliterating its archetypal form and giving it a new identity.
I decided to round off the corner to the top of the book and the reason I did this, was because I felt that this would mean I was still able to open the book while I was going along. I thought the ink would be smeared across the pages and overall, come out as a black blob because of the heat of the sander, but I was wrong and this was the result.
I think that the curve of the book is interesting and makes for an unusual site, one that I feel came out very well despite how I thought it would end up. I think that the lines in the book show an interesting story on there own and I like the way it is showing the story of the book in like a morse code form; this is how it usually looks to me when I am trying to decipher words.
We have all heard the saying putting what you want on a pedestal. It is human nature to want to pause and admire things, it give us a sense of having something to look up to. We as a race love to make people and objects more desirable, we have been doing this for as far back as we have recorded in history and I have got to admit it really does work.
So when making this book I wanted to display it differently, I did not want to lock it away in the cabinet behind a sheet of glass, and I did not want to place it on a shelf. I wanted it to stand out; to have its own place and to say more than I am just another folded book. I wanted to see if people chose the book on the pedestal, or if they noticed it when I asked them what their favourite one was. I wanted to see if the book was picked due to where and how it was placed. Is a book worth something based on its contents alone, or is it worth more depending on where it has been positioned in society?
As you can see from the image, it is a simple folded book; I would not say it was the most complicated fold that I have done, but it was definitely one of the hardest to balance. I think that the way the table is placed in the corner works very well. I am not sure if I got the idea from walking around the charity or antique shops and finding little jewels like this in the corners of the rooms, or the love of corners that has been such a big part of my practise.
But either way I think that it works really well because I like the way the cabinet hides the corner, so when you walk into the studio, it is not the first thing you see. It is like its an afterthought, so you kind of see it last, making it one of the things that you look at more.
I feel that the colour of the wood makes this particular book stand out because it complements; it reminds you of an era, that they just go hand in hand.
In my last post I was talking about how I had a connection with that book and how that book itself was a copy and there is loads of them out there. This got me thinking, about how the books that I am (I quote a person who has seen my work) “destroying books, and that is not ok.” These are books from charity shops that probably lots of people have read over time, which means they have probably touched the hearts and minds of many individuals. These people would of had connections with the characters and everyone envisions these characters differently.
I was walking around a book shop in town when I came across a section called collectable books this got me thinking. These books probably haven’t been read by many people compared to some of the best sellers. Yet these books themselves are sort after. I started looking at the prices of some of these book and some of them were very expensive in my opinion, considering the condition that they were in.
I then remembered a workshop that was put on by the uni. It was a bookbinding course where we had two book binders come in and talk about their job and what it entailed. They spoke about the value of these book that they were asked to repair. They also told us stories about the most common damages there was and the way the books had been treated such as water damage.
This got me thinking about the way people would react to seeing an old book damaged and if it would even matter to them if they didn’t know the story, or if the book itself just wasn’t that interesting to them. I then started to think how precious the information in these books must be to people if they are willing to preserve them and how would people be affected, not having that information any more.
This then posed an interesting question to me one that I am still pondering to this day; the value of work. Am I adding value to my work because I am using materials that cost more, therefore the end result is worth more because what I have used had value in the 1st place or is it worth less, because of the actions that I will take become irreversible. The way I see it at this moment in time, is a book is only as valuable as you see it, in your eyes. So the price that you are willing to pay for it is the same as any other.
But after the feedback I have got from people, I think that other people may beg to differ.
If you look closely in the last post of me sanding down the cabinet you can see a book on the top shelf. This post is going to explain the meaning behind why I reshaped the book, the way I did. The book itself is representing the idea of my heart bleeding from having to read books when I was younger. I would try to read a bit in my spare time, mainly because I wanted to understand the fascination that people around me had with reading. I never really got it because I found myself struggling with the books too much and I would normally get frustrated with it all. I would get depressed with the idea that I was only few pages in and other people had finished the book and would be talking about it in class. Inevitably I would hear a spoiler and it ruined the whole book for me.
When I was collecting this book I found that I had a stronger connection to this particular one, more than the others. The reason for this is because it looked like one of the books that I would have liked to have the patience to read when I was younger. It was a thick book with a red cover concealed in a dust jacket with an interesting image on it. I must say when I saw this book on the shelf there was just something about it that I felt myself being pulled towards it. It was calling out to me like a forbidden fruit; books like this always have.
When I was younger I remember going shopping with my parents before we went on holiday, this was somewhat of a tradition as they are keen readers. They would always get a book or three for the holiday, they would drag me around Waterstones or WHSmiths, looking for a few books for the trip. They would always encourage me to get one. I would slope around the shop looking at comics and the funny birthday cards more than the books. With the constant call every so often from one of them asking me if I had found a book yet. I would always find a comic with a few brain teasers. But they would soon drag me back down the shop to the books and encourage me to get one of these. I found myself wanting the big heavy hard back as I had an active imagination and I liked the front cover. I knew in my heart that I’d never read it, so did my parents who also knew they would be the ones lugging it about. They soon put that back and picked up a small book with like a 100 pages and tell me that would do.
So when I found this book and there was no one there to tell me to put it back. I knew I had to have it. It was perfect. I Knew what I had to do with it the moment I saw it, after all the memories came flooding back it made me want it even more.
When I went into the studio, I took the book straight down to the woodwork room (well right after my morning coffee) and started work drilling out the center of the book with a large circle hole cutter and after putting pressure on it for a moment or so it cut through the book, after 30 or so pages I would swap the hole cutter for the next size smaller. I carried on with this process until I was down to the last hole size and as you can see, from the photo my result worked very well. It looks like the inside of the book had exploded.
This is to represent the feeling of how big the books were to me and the feeling of impossibility; to even think that I would be able to work my way through the book. In my mind I saw the book as a page after page of words that was never going to end. I could see the saying of “blood sweat and tears” being a very real possibility when it came to reading a book. This is what gave me the idea of adding ink to represent my blood. I toyed around with the idea of using black ink to represent the idea of the ink being the blood of the book, but I felt that it was the book damaging me, more than me damaging the book. I felt this way because there is 100s if not 1000s of copies of that book, yet there is only one copy of me.
It was this thought that made me go ahead and use red ink to represent me. I feel that this works and shows more of an emotional connection that I have with the work.
Even with my new shelves I still had books left over. I had cleaned up my studio space a lot but I still needed more storage space. I was discussing my problem with the tutors on the course and they told me I could have an old cabinet down stairs. I decided to clean it up by sanding it down and I was then thinking of painting it white, to fit in with the rest of my studio space. I thought that would draw more attention to the books in and around the cabinet.
