Sometimes I think I have a new form of ADD, maybe something I'll call Art Distraction Disorder. It's Sunday and my day is pretty open to me. The perfect opportunity to work on some boxes or a book I have in mind, yes? No. Instead there are a whole new slew of techniques and ideas I want to try.Embroidery has been on my mind a lot. I stumbled across this blog yesterday and it turned my interest up another notch. I went to my bookshelf and refound this incredible book: The Art of Embroidery by Francoise Tellier-Loumagne...over 300 pages of remarkable photos, ideas and techniques. It's published by Thames and Hudson, a company that publishes books that are just beautifully done...they are wonderful to hold in your hand.
But that's not all. My favorite way to organize papers to keep is by assembling a binder with sheet protectors inside that can hold my papers by topic. But I really hate the poly-vinyl binders that are ubiquitous and have been searching high and low for binders covered in cloth. In my online search I stumbled on instructions for purchasing a binder at a thrift store, cutting it apart and recovering it in material of your choice. So I have the 3 parts of a binder on my table waiting.....What else? I've been using a roll of Kozo paper for a number of different tasks lately. I bought it first with the idea of using it to back fabrics for bookcloth. Then I found it was a great paper to back the pieces of a box that are hidden. (This is a technical thing. When you glue one side of bookboard, it can warp from the moisture. Backing the other side with paper and glue reverses the warp and makes sure it won't warp again in high humidity. Since it's not seen you don't want to waste "good" paper; you also want to use something thin. I should also add that not everyone does this. But I've learned through enough, um, failures that I can't skip this step.) Finally when I wanted to include some text in my boxes I cut the Kozo into pieces small enough to go through my ink jet printer. The quality of the paper compliments the rest of the materials used and is cheap enough that I can experiment with it easily. It also glues beautifully. So that leads to other ideas: goccoing some original designs on the paper? can it hold stitches? And I stumbled across a very cool way to melt designs into this paper using encaustic wax. As I said, "Art Distraction Disorder." I just can't settle down and work in one area very long.
A recent box with a poem by Mary Oliver inside the lid.
