Openings

I have joined a fabulous new mail art collective, I'm so excited by this, I've always wanted to do this, ever since I discovered Fluxus when I was researching for my dissertation, so now I have until the 19th of February to make and send something. I already have something in mind. Something suprising and new and air mail friendly.

It's also been quite a topsy turvy week. Lots of disagreements, life changing decisions, broken picture frames and lots and lots of book folding, which in some way has been my therapy. I've left my job, to focus on my art, I never thought it would ever happen, it's so easy to get comfortable with a regular income but there are lots of opportunities open to me now, it's funny how one door closes, another one opens.

Here is a poem because It's also a time to remember I am a poet as well as an artist and I haven't written one in ages. This isn't new, I'm only posting it to remind me of myself and what I do, and also what I am not.

Openings

I open the bill
but don’t pay it
I never pay it
It is more than one pound
which is all the money
I have in the world till Friday
in silver coins
but not fifties
(I always feel slightly rich when I have fifties)

I open your front door
with the keys you had cut for me that
I never use
there are cats darting other ways
but I am drunk and
you prefer dogs which I don’t like
and I feel the bill is my compensation

I open my mouth
to taste the red liquor kissed
cigarette stained tongue
with a toothbrush that I didn’t buy
it is pink
(for a girl I suppose)
you open out the shower curtain and leave the
toilet seat up

Tomorrow it is Friday and
I think about all the fifties in the world

Be nice to the trees

I am so in love with this print. It's by another etsy seller. You know how I love etsy. This one is by Manymuses she is a superstar. Anyway, I have been completely obsessed with trees for years now, I went through a huge tree photographing phase one bitter winter when I discovered how amazing naked branches are, especially when there are lots of them layered on top of eachother. Maybe that's why I like repetition so much. There's some particularly eerie ones at the bottom of my street, they intertwine in a fluid, non stick like way, that make me think about the blair witch project and a german folktale I once read about two children who wound some string through a wood so that they wouldn't get lost but they did and were eaten by a witch with a wart and a really bad mood swing. There's a badly drawn boy song that I like to think is about that folk tale, but is probably about the adventures of a tea cosy or something.

Bunsen burners not included

This week has been the most eventful of this year so far. Without saying too much, things are gonna change a bit around here. There'll be an urgency to make more things, experiment more and start thinking about my business more, though not too much, a girls gotta degree to finish y'know. The book sculptures are becoming bigger, better and more experimental too, and I've fallen back in love with the visual aspects of the written word. Also after much patience I've finished making my two notebooks from my bookbinding class. Here they are, not bad for my first go.

Suezybees

Todays special find on etsy is this lovely embroidered purse by Suezybees. She has some really original designs and they are just a gorgeous to look at.

Folding pages

Coned book

Paper conch made out of a folded book

Altered books

I heart etsy

I've been spending waay too much time on Etsy.com lately, it's just so beautiful. I've set up my own shop but there won't be anything available for quite some time while I finish my degree, damn those priorities. I would however like to show the world how wonderful it is, and that supporting the artists and designers on there is really important, so I've made a note of buying handmade gifts for people this year instead of being a corporate whore and buying consumerist tat. One of a kind is where it's at. Anyway, I just had to share this lovely book which you can find here it's inspired me to return to bookmaking which I've been doing non stop last weekend. I've also returned to my book making course at my local library and will have something to show for it very very soon.

My final show is stressing me out a bit though, too much to do, too little time and missing tutors and mispaced pritt stick has got be all in a bother. So I decided to spend a fortune on Amazon instead so that I could buy some books on paper engineering and it's given me so much inspiration. I decided that what I really wanted to do was revisit an old project I did on lace making techniques and paper sculptures, it sounds very strange doesn't it? I tell you though, I'm having so much fun with it. The only thing I'm feeling rather guilty over is tearing, dismantling and generally destroying a couple of books I bought at the local charity shop. If anyone on my book course found out, I'm sure ther'd be a few gasps.