Following my last blog entry all about my love of notebooks, I decided to take part in the 2012 Art House Co-op Sketchbook Project.
(For those of you who haven't heard of it, you'll find a link to it at the bottom of the page.) Oh, I'm under no illusion that my sketchbook will be seen by thousands of people, I just like the project's inclusivity, I love the notion of all those thousands of pages, lovingly made, unique and tactile, lining the shelves of one exhibition and I adore the idea of hundreds of people clutching library cards and actively engaging with the surprises each sketchbook might contain. Being a part of it will bring me joy even in the anonymity of joining the thousands of other creative souls submitting their offerings alongside my own. But I'm still a bit stuck on exactly what to do with mine so I've been looking for inspiration.
I love books: I love finding them, giving them, having them, keeping them, reading them, but my husband has recently bought himself an e-reader and I have to say that it is hard to see why you would choose to read a conventional novel any other way these days. There'll always be the traditionalists who insist that there is nothing quite like the feel of the pages between your fingers and the smell of the print but, if I'm honest, I can't think of a more convenient and efficient way of owning and reading a vast library than to store them and read them electronically...which makes me wonder about the future of the book...and get really excited.
Now that the e-readers are arguably beginning to take the place of the traditional book perhaps it will free the medium to explore what it has to offer that modern technology has not. Oh I love a fabulously woven tale full of mystery and adventure but I am in no way attached to paper on which it is written. The books I covet and treasure are far more than a place for the printed word; they are the beautiful ones, illustrated objects of beauty and imagination and there are artists out there doing wonderfully imaginative things between the pages of some beautifully crafted books.
So, with this in mind and inspired by the books I've been looking at recently, I'm going to try to do something tactile & textural. Something which is not confined solely to a flat sheet of paper. Something which is only possible in a sketchbook of this nature and which celebrates what makes a book a truly unique medium. I'm not sure how it will turn out but here I go. I'll post images of the finished sketchbook on here but with a bit of luck, you won't get the whole picture unless you see it with your own eyes and feel it with your own hands when the exhibition arrives in Britain later next year.
If you would like more information about the Sketchbook Project 2012 or you would like to take part, please follow this link: Sketchbook Project 2012
Following my last blog entry all about my love of notebooks, I decided to take part in the 2012 Art House Co-op Sketchbook Project. (For those of you who haven't heard of it, you'll find a link to it at the bottom of the page.) Oh, I'm under no illusion that my sketchbook will be seen by thousands of people, I just like the project's inclusivity, I love the notion of all those thousands of pages, lovingly made, unique and tactile, lining the shelves of one exhibition and I adore the idea of hundreds of people clutching library cards and actively engaging with the surprises each sketchbook might contain. Being a part of it will bring me joy even in the anonymity of joining the thousands of other creative souls submitting their offerings alongside my own. But I'm still a bit stuck on exactly what to do with mine so I've been looking for inspiration.
