Lisa Thorpe

Turning the page or rather opening the accordion….

 

Early in June I wrote about my play date making a collage art book (June 4th post). Since then I’ve been thinking about the book as art form and a vehicle for expressing ideas and themes. I loved the traditionally bound interactive book I made with Diane but I wanted something that was both a book to flip through and something to open up to display. I landed on the accordion book form and decided on a broad theme of flowers and weeds. I used pages from flower books and old calendars, envelopes, saved stamps and cards, added some wildflower weeds that I had dried and laminated and an Issa haiku. Each panel/page is small just 4.5×7.5” and easy to stitch and manipulate under the sewing machine needle. After creating the eight panels I used hearty and flexible book tape to connect them then I stitched along the top and bottom for good measure. The covers are foam core covered with the index of a wild flower guidebook and the whole thing is tied up with a ribbon. I love how this came out and I think it would be a wonderful workshop to do. I’m looking forward to another chance to experiment with this form trying a different theme and seeing how the inspiration shapes the book form and how the book form shapes the inspiration. There is a quote attributed to Deepak Chopra that goes “Instead of thinking outside the box, just get rid of the box”. So maybe there is some box you can breakdown this week, think differently about something you’ve seen or done a million times even if it’s just walking the dog the other way around the block, give yourself a different angle maybe you’ll find something exciting!