What is a Book?

Paula Steere.
http://www.paulabooks.co.uk/4436.html

I started to look for some artists who worked with books, handmade ones in particular, and came across this website. It appears her favourite thing to do is make tiny photo albums from scratch. Alomst like scrap booking, she appears to be using these books as a way of documenting her own experiences in life.

I love this kinda stuff anyway.

Oh, and she was part of an exhibition in Leeds last year... maybe she'll come back..

Typo-gateaux (erm, winner? oh yes.)

Haha.
This is going to be the smuggest entry yet so brace yourselves. Even after a whole day of hungover bookbinding, I still went home to slave away in the kitchen. Me, Will and Ollie decided to make a..wait for it..

a 'Mince Pi'

Not my idea I will admit, but I damn well pulled it off. Haha told you it was going to be smug.

Yes, if it wasn't for my glorious pastry making skills, I doubt we'd be the proud winners of a tin of alphabetty spaghetti. Anyway, we nearly died from exhaustion making this pie, I think it's only right you should all see what we went through... Yes, I admit, it was nearly a team effort. Hehe.

Cutting mat and scalpel for precision Pi cutting.

Will doin his bit... well done Will...

Nice clean hands there Ollie..

Ta daaa!
x

Book Binding Workshop. (Part of 'What is a book?')

What an experience. Despite a killer hangover (the horrible shaky kind) I still managed to produce something I was proud of! I've always had a big interest in book binding, and I've tried my hand at it a few times so I already knew the basics, but I've never made something so professional looking in my whole life.

Well I think you get the idea now, and even though everyone made a book just as well as I did, possibly even better, I'm still really proud of it. Easily the best thing I've learnt since I got here!

Ahem, Pictures!

Bit of fancy photography there, using my new found photography skills.
Magic glowy pages.. Oooo

shexy, yah?
And, it colour co-ordinates with my room. Thats proper design for ya.

Oh, and I think my first response to that question 'What is a book?' has to be...

'hand made'

Free Breakfast Friday

I'll start from the top shall I?

The photos your about to witness are the results of our latest brief, a research project for which we were split into groups. My group was made up of myself, Will, Kate Fenton and Dan (but he was ill for most of it!)

We finally decided our theme was to be based on 'lateness', or more specifically, why there's so much of it in our class. This theme stemmed from Will's previous research on maps, which lead to 'routes to college', which lead to 'why people can't make it in on time'.

Anyway, a mammoth research gathering session and a lot of surveys later, we found the best way to lure people into college earlier would be to put on a free breakfast - tea/coffee and toast being the cheapest option hehe.

So Friday morning came round, and I dragged myself into college before everyone else to set up, and of course, take photos of our work ("in the public domain" as the brief states).

And first through the door...

... well done David :)

What a winner..

Thumbs up for tea!

All in all, I thought it went well! worth getting up earlier anyway. However, there wasn't a register taken that day! So we were left guessing as to whether our free breakfast actually helped encourage some of the late comers to be a bit more punctual. But I'm guessing it didn't hah.

Though the free breakfast was the main event, the results of it left us with another question...

"Would you pay £1 a week a for a free breakfast everyday?"

It's funny how we never really reached the end of this research brief, each new inquiry brought with it new questions and directions. I think I'm finally beginning to learn how to use research in a way that will aid my work, instead of doing the work and then bullshitting the research to make myself look good haha.

Oh the good old A level days..

Yeah, I'm please with what we learnt and I can honestly say I had fun with this one.

An adventure in Manchester...

Well, not so much an adventure... more of a long, tiring day out. Well worth it though.
The exhibition featured work by the artist Emory Douglas, whos work reflects the hardships and achievements of the Black Panther Party. I was really ill on the day, so I probably didnt get as much from the trip as I would have liked but heres a selection of photos that are worth a look anyway!