books are what i most want to do right now, i think - the hands-on and making letters and making an experience – i want to just do that a lot… but the experiences i’ve made so far are – well – a record of the time i spent? i don’t know what they are from the outside ( of me ).
This not-knowing what *you* see is especially true of the newer, shorter, altered books, made from stripped second-hand children’s board books. I love what happens when i paste old brush-work done on translucent paper down, and i like designing a book around a relatively short text – something meant to share one idea…
A book is many things, and one of them is a frame – a structure that controls the experience and focuses the viewer in a certain way. Books – well, traditional ones – are intimate and physical – you hold the story in your hand. The board-book pieces are a chance to experiment with designing the reader’s experience of one brief text – slowing comprehension means more time is spent with the words. As with all my work, my hope is that the extra effort charges the connection between reader and text.
aargh – my hands have no words – they do the work at the pace that works, they decide where to push and when to pull – but when it’s time to type, words to describe what i dream of for the reader feel crowded & dull.
truth is my hands give me my dream of the text – the book is an offering from me to a text i care about, or that has taken care of me… and yes, somewhere in there – the ministry at the heart of what i do – is the fierce ambition of those words resonating for someone else like a discovered home.
and/but must figure out a great deal of non-book stuff first. so this is a post to dream on… someday – every page of each book. each page of every book? better images for sure, but these are to mark the place.
