Visual gallery
The smallest hint of our spring theme
Please note -
I am making this post available to all subscribers so that everyone can see the sorts of creative book art projects that feed our souls in our paid membership space. We do a book arts project per season and I thought it would be useful to share the spring project theme early. This is not a community. I already have a seasonal creativity community in my Patreon space. This is about us as individuals wandering through the seasons being creative. No comparisons, no chat, just us and our projects. Folk take away what suits them into their own creative practice.
This visual gallery has been a real joy to create. There are lots of references that mean a great deal to me. Memories held tight from moments long gone, but much loved. I thought I would share our spring theme a wee bit early to give folks time to gather their own visual gallery. The theme for spring is ‘to renew’. This is very different from ‘new’ as I would like to focus on renewal that is birthed from concepts such as reuse and recyle. There is more than enough ‘new’ in the world so let’s take some time to ‘renew’.
We will be meandering through one main seasonal renewal project supported by smaller creative exercises and, as always, you can pick which bits to take forward into your own practice.
For the main project you will need an old damage hardcover book. Charity stores are your best place to find one and if you ask they often have damaged books waiting to be recycled. You want one of those! Instead of them being recycled we are going to breathe new life into them by creating an ‘altered book.’ We will, essentially, be using the old book as our canvas and we shall see where that takes us. You will also need white gesso if you haven’t already got that and then we are good to go! We shall meander through the spring altering our book as we go. This is an example of a long term book arts project and you might want to make it seasonal and create some pages for each season? Or you might want to choose another theme? I am beginning a new altered book so that I am creating alongside you and mine will be seasonal so you should see it pop up in summer, autumn and winter too. However, its heart belongs in spring as I find a new place for it in the world.
The visual gallery that has provoked this project has an existing altered book open at its centre. Surrounding it are things that hold memories. These include the following -
a vintage postcard gifted to me by a dear friend
A dried tussie mussie I created entirely from my garden last autumn
A vintage print of Peter Rabbit, a childhood friend
The ‘new’ old damaged book ready to be ‘altered’
A cotton reel gifted to me by my late grandmother
A willow heart I created many moons ago when I ran a flower farm in Derbyshire
An archive book perfect for containing our smaller projects as the season unfolds
Pressed and dried leaves and flowers from my garden
A couple of kantha stitched pieces of fabric
Some pieces of much loved paper including some old music paper from my late grandfather
Some vintage buttons (of course!)
A shell gifted me by my son from a favourite trip that holds dear memories for him
Might you have a wee go at creating a vintage gallery of memories? I do this often in an attempt to hold onto and even renew the memories, possibly from fear of losing them……
Our galleries will tell own stories and even hold their own secrets, just as it should be.
I have one more winter small book to share with you before this season ends and spring begins so I will pop up with that in a wee catch up vlog soon.
Sending love to all,
Fiona xx
I introduced the book arts project in this post HERE.
Paid members have access to their own book arts page HERE available in the top menu of my site - Seasonal Creativity.