It's concertina book time again!

On Tuesday I showed photos of a concertina book that I made for a solo exhibition, and I promised to come back and show the other, so here it is:  

You can find out more about the exhibition itself in this post so I won't go into detail here.....

except to say that I chose the concertina design as it could be shown with its pages open. Because how else can you show the pages inside a book when it is displayed on a high flat board? 

Once the exhibition is over the book will be added to my ever growing collection. I might have cracked how to display the book at the exhibition, I just need to work out how to display or store all my books at home! (Excuse the belly laughing).  But I won't dwell on that, because that's another post for another day. 

If you would like to see the other concertina book, here is the link. Thank you for visiting and I hope this might inspire you to do something creative with your own photos.  See you soon.....

How to exhibit a book on a display board

In my last post I shared how I had been invited to have a solo exhibition of my work at a college. It was a lovely opportunity and it also posed a challenge, because my passion is making handmade books. How do I display these on a flat upright board?!  

After giving it some thought I decided to take photos of some book pages, so that there were examples of the different construction and designs.  But I felt it was important to actually have my work on display so that visitors could see the layers and detail, so I decided to make 2 concertina books specially for the exhibition.  

I chose this construction because it is simple and quick to make. Time was a factor, but even more important, it could be open and attached across the board for easy viewing. I love taking photos and one of my favourite ways of sharing these is to put them into a book. So I chose two sets, and spent several days covered in paint and glue. I was really pleased with the result, as I could create a slight dimension with the folded pages when attaching them to the display board, rather than having the books flat.  

The other pieces of art that I displayed are pages from my art journal, and a collection of tree experiments, using tissue, ink and wax. The exhibition will show for the month of March and in a few weeks I will be meeting the students to tell them more about my art. I have offered to show them how to make a mini book so I'm looking forward to this, and now I have re-fired my love of the concertina book I can't wait to make some more. They may be simple and easy to make, but they are so versatile and fun to do.  Come back soon to see the second book that is on display.  And if you'd like to see the first one it can be seen here . 

I have just noticed the row of art journal pages are not placed very well. Trying to support the large board while stapling wasn't easy especially when you can't stand back to see what you are doing! It  didn't help that we were trying to put the exhibition up in between tutorials. Hopefully the students will know that I am practising imperfection!  

These two photos show how the concertina books could be displayed to show the open pages.

Thank you for visiting and I'll be back to show the second book on Sunday. 

5 in 5 - March 2019 - Concertina book saves the day!

Welcome to '5 in 5' where on the 5th of 

each month I post 5 photos that I have 
taken in 5 minutes.

I was invited to put on a solo exhibition of my art work at a college. This was a wonderful opportunity, but as most of my 'art' is hand made books how could I display these on a flat upright board?  It obviously needed a bit of thinking about, and I decided to print photos of some book pages just to show examples of  constructions and design.  But I also wanted examples of actual books there, so that viewers could appreciate the layers and detail. And so I set to making two concertina books for the occasion. This was no hardship because I don't need an excuse or reason to make a book, usually it's just the time lacking! But by choosing a simple construction it was manageable and after decorating the surface with layers of paint, papers, and detail, I added some favourite photos. Because as a lover of photography, my handmade books give me somewhere to share these and to recreate memories. For the purpose of 5in5 I will just show one of the books but I will come back very soon with photos of the second. You might also like to see photos of the exhibition, because my work is now proudly on display for this month and I am really pleased with the way it looks. Especially the concertina books. They have been opened across the display board and held in position with staples. The books are not precious, or fragile. They are made to look at and handle, and the layers of paper and paint strengthen the base card. And the holes won't notice afterwards, card and paper is very robust and if they do show they can be easily concealed. 

So, let's waste no more time. Here are 5 photos and I loved making these books so much that I can't wait to make some more. Often my book constructions are more complicated and time consuming to make, and it's easy to forget the simple concertina, even though they are really effective. They have won a place back in my heart!  

Thank you for visiting and I hope some of you will join me this month in the 5in5 challenge. Here's how it works: 

1.  Choose a location.

2.  Have your camera ready.

3.  Set a mobile timer for 5 minutes.

4.  Take as many photos you can until the time is up.

5.  Choose 5 photos to download and share by using the link tool 

   

You have until the 25th of the month to add your photos and if you want to know more about 5in5 there are details here.

And one more thing - when you use the link tool, please click on your post title.  This will show the web address. Please right click, copy and paste this as your link.  This will take readers directly to your '5 in 5' blog page and be easier for them to find.