Last week, I was lucky enough to be a recipient of a beautiful hand-bound book by Kaija as part of the Paying It Forward exchange. I’ve been putting off blogging about it because a) I haven’t been able to get a decent photo of the book and b) I wasn’t sure if any of Kaija’s other recipient’s read my blog and I didn’t want to spoil anyone else’s surprise.

However, since Kaija has just blogged about it, I guess it’s OK to go public about it now.

My book was beautifully wrapped…

And unsurprisingly, there was much squealing when I undid the ribbon to discover this…

Kaija took much better pictures than me, you can see the stitching and the image properly on her photograph.

Handbound book by Kaija, photograph by Kaija

Isn’t that stunning! The book opens completely flat, which is very helpful in an art journal and I love the image of the bare tree and the way the stitching goes into the cover. What you can’t see in the photos is that the pages inside are also brown paper - Kaija somehow miraculously knew without being told that I adore notebooks with brown pages. I may be visiting Australia in the spring for my brother’s wedding, so I have decided to save this very special book to use as a travel diary.

I can’t even begin to describe how fantastically well-made this book is and how wonderful it feels and looks in real life. It’s way beyond my own very limited book-binding skills and I’m quite in awe of her talents. I can only suggest that you all head over to her Etsy shop and indulge in one of her very reasonably priced treasures.

Now I just need to get my own exchange items out to my three Paying It Forward recipients; Kim, Liz and Tina. I have started work on my items but it’ll probably be at least another couple of weeks before I get them in the post; I’m never quick about these sort of things.

Having seen the Paying It Forward idea on Artist, Emerging, I immediately wanted to join in, so I headed over to the people Deanna was making things for and was delighted to discover that Kaija from Paperiaarre still had one space. So I’m her third person and I consider myself very lucky because wow, just look at the gorgeous books she makes!

I’ve done a little bit of very simple book binding and it’s a lot of fun but I’ve certainly not made any as luscious as this. She also makes very beautiful handmade brooches.

Anyway, it’s now my turn to pass it on.

Pay It Forward (via Kaija, via Deanna, via Mrs Eliot and so on)*

Here are the rules:

I will send a handmade gift to the first 3 people who leave a comment on my blog requesting to join this PIF exchange. I don’t know what that gift will be yet and you may not receive it tomorrow or next week, but you will receive it within 365 days, that is my promise! The only thing you have to do in return is pay it forward by making the same promise on your blog.

Pretty straightforward huh, I agree to make and send something to the first three people to comment, who then make things for their first three commenters and so on. OK, have at it, people…

EDIT: Even though it looks like I’ve got three responders, one of them is my partner and he doesn’t actually want to take part - he was just responding to the question of who came up with the term ‘paying it forward’ - so, there’s still one spot available.

* I’ve tried to find out who originally started this idea but haven’t been able to follow the thread of connections back far enough. Does anyone know who should get the credit?

Joanne B Kaar is a Scottish artist who works with fibre and bookmaking. In 2006 she completed a three month residency in Durness in Sutherland, which she documented in a fascinating blog.

Joanne B Kaar - Sango Sands Seapapers

During the residency she made a series of books from handmade paper, often using local materials. Some of these books were subjected to pretty harsh treatment like being buried or thrown in the sea! It’s amazing that they’ve survived as well as they have - it’s easy to forget how robust paper can be as a medium.

Sutherland is a place that is very dear to my heart. Most of my childhood holidays were spent in Achnahaird in Ross and Cromarty and every holiday included a day trip to Lochinver in the neighbouring Sutherland. Although it was very close as the crow flies, it was an hour-long drive on a narrow, twisting and often terrifying road. I’ve just checked and according to the AA it’s 16 miles yet takes an hour and 8 minutes - that should give you an idea of just how bad the road is! It was worth it though - not least for the annual visit to Achins Bookshop in Inverkirkaig - apparently the most remote bookshop in the British Isles. I always saved most of my holiday money so that I could splurge on books and I still remember the feeling of deep contentment that walking out with a bag of carefully chosen books gave me. I also have fond memories of standing on the pier in Lochinver watching the fishing boats unloading and sitting on the seafront eating homemade pies from the incredibly good local bakery.

Durness is a lot further up the coast and not somewhere I’ve visited but Joanne’s photographs of the area, with all their Highland familiarity, certainly brought up plenty of nostalgia. I love living in Bristol and feel very at home here, but so many of my creative roots lie in those summer holidays in the Highlands - long days spent damming little streams with my brothers and cousins, building complex sand sculptures with my Dad, riding invisible horses, grinding down sandstone in an attempt to make pigment (I used to pretend I was a neolithic cave painter!), patiently drawing for hours in the caravan on rainy days and writing bad poetry once I was a teenager. For several years now I’ve been needing to reconnect with those roots and I know that I absolutely must make a trip to the Highlands soon because the feeling is getting quite desperate. While I don’t really subscribe to the idea of a ‘muse’, I have learnt over the years that it’s not a good idea to ignore particularly persistent creative cravings.

Where do your creative roots lie? Is it a place? A feeling? A particular smell? A certain kind of pencil or the feel of a fresh sketchbook?

I was delighted to discover the lovely Rag And Bone blog today. I’ve just spent several happy hours reading their entire archives. If you’re interested in paper as an art medium, journalling, book artists or bookbinding, then you definitely need to check them out.

They’re also a great example of a small craft business (they make delicious handmade journals and albums) using blogging to increase awareness of their business but without being constantly ‘in your face’ about it. Sure, they mention their own work now and again but mostly they link to other people and their passion and enthusiasm for paper and book arts really shines through in their generous and knowledgeable promotion of other artists in their field.

For some reason, I seem to be very attuned to art made from books this week. Cara Barer is a photographer who often works with old discarded books, which she soaks in water and shapes into new forms before photographing.

She says:

My photographs are primarily a documentation of a physical evolution. I have changed a common object into sculpture in a state of flux.

Cara Barer - Found Reference

This one really stood out for me, it reminded me strongly of a mushroom, so it was no surprise to find that she’d also taken pictures of fungi.

Cara Barer - Mushroom Dust

Link found on the Daily Poetics blog.

Brian Dettmer makes wonderfully intricate work using found books and maps, which he carves into to reveal the illustrations within.

Brian Dettmer - Untitled

Needless to say, I love the obsessive quality of this work but the results are stunning too - he’s clearly got a strong eye because the pieces also work well as collages. I particularly love his map pieces where he’s dissected maps leaving only the road systems, which he’s layered over each other to make works that seem far more related to anatomy books than cartography.

Brian Dettmer - Untitled

There’s an interesting little discussion of his work here, with comments ranging from ‘wow, that’s amazing’ to ‘it’s horrible because he’s destroying books’. What do you think? Is it a valid form of art if you destroy/seriously alter other creative works to make it? I think so but as a confirmed bookworm, I also understand the resistance to reusing books in this way.

Link found on Something To Say