Artist books

Sarah Grace Dye

Hexagon month

Sarah_Grace

This month’s ‘are you book enough’ challenge was Hexagon and it turns out that March is also Hexagon appreciation month! I have never really played with the shape before. To begin with I wasn’t sure what to do but after some research about hexagons in nature I was quite blown away by just how many things have a hexagon as a building block for their structure. I had thought I’d choose one thing to focus on but ended up thinking about nature in general picking the colours of the rainbow to represent everything. This piece is really playful thinking of hexagons as building blocks so I wanted the pieces to come out and become a number of structures. I kept the back of each piece white as white is the sum of all colours. The box it sits in shows all the workings out for the patterns, the basic structures within structures that a hexagon has. When the pieces are used to build you can create a flower and a tree which represent the life that is touched in some way by the hexagon.

My second book took a fraction of the time my other one did and I think I like it better. It’s again about the hexagon being an ancient building block for lots of life. The three sections are covered with images of ancient monuments and simple brown card for the rest. Each book has six pages each side. There are six covers all together. The books fold out into building blocks to play with and create lots of different shapes including a hexagon. In this film the end assemblage signifies life/nature with two hexagon trees and the earth. Called chapter one as it’s about the beginning of everything.

I think it is pretty obvious how much fun it has been playing with the hexagon. I am pretty sure it will be appearing again in a book somewhere very soon!

Sarah Grace Dye

Heal

Sarah_Grace

February’s ‘are you book enough’ challenge was Heal. For me making little books has been such a godsend in times when life happenings have been painful, stressful or a bit all consuming. I take myself away from it all and hide in the studio to play and let magical things happen, so in one sense any of my books could come under the category of ‘heal’.

This little book has been a particularly cathartic exercise. Made entirely from ephemera left by my parents. Letters they wrote to each other in the year before they were married, wedding photos and bank statements from the first year of their lives together. It was designed using a turkish map fold which I altered to fit the oval theme I wanted which echos a locket or keep sake. The structure and movement of the book reference a paper streamer used to decorate for a celebration and is a very playful thing which also picks up on the mood of the letters and the expectation of a new chapter in life. The leather case was not left by them but I wanted something to keep it safe and as much as I would love to have made a large silver locket, that is rather expensive and outside of my skill set, vintage leather seemed the right thing. This little book holds much that is precious to me and will be kept safe for a long time to come.

The second book for february was another teabag book (yes I am slightly obsessed by teabags!) This book is a little sense of place from a weekend spent with an old friend. We drank tea and shared our lives over a weekend during February. There was laughter, joy, tears, sadness and hope all in one weekend, everything you would expect from time with a friend. The book is made from the teabags we both used plus a map from around the area we were in and pages from a Thomas Hardy book of poetry, Thomas Hardy also being from around a similar area. The poem in the book was created by peicing together some of his words to echo my thoughts about that time.

 

Sarah Grace Dye

In Between

Sarah_Grace

The #areyoubookenough challenge for January was ‘in between’. I thought about many different concepts for this one but ended up pouring all my time into one book.

This little book is made up of three parts. It began as a vintage book sourced from a charity shop in Frankfurt. I took out the body of the book and cut the cover into three equal parts. Using a vintage english book, two maps and the rest of the german book I created a triptych book exploring my current life ‘in between’ two places. I live in Sheffield and my partner lives in Frankfurt.

One book is constructed of pages of english text and sections from a map of the area around Sheffield, one has german text and maps from around Frankfurt, and the final one is a mix of the two collaged together. I cut holes into the text pages so that maps would be visible through the text. The cut out circles were used as the collage pieces for the third book.

The central page of each book is the key place so Sheffield, Frankfurt and the mixed one is Manchester as that is the conduit that we both pass through to see each other. These central pages have been left solid as these are the streadfast places in my life, while everything around them is fluid. I am really pleased with the way the pages interact with each other making shadows and revealing places on the maps. The triptych format allows even more play with structure enabling them to be laid out simultaneously or left to form a dos-à-dos form. I used the spine from a third vintage book of poetry by Robert Browning and the title comes from a poem from that book called ‘By The fire Side’.

Sarah Grace Dye

Warmth

Sarah_Grace

Having enjoyed participating in the #areyoubookenough challenge for November so much I made a priority to find the time to concentrate on December’s word which was warmth. I had two very different ideas. One has a focus on memory and capturing a moment the other is a whimsical bit of fun.

This first book was made as a memory of a visit to a friend in Italy. I hadn’t seen her for over a year so it was lovely to catch up and share stories and laugh. All of this was a warm experience. Whilst there I collected all the tea bags we used and they became the signitures for the book. Tea bags need warmth to become that lovely rich colour when the tea infuses in the hot water so a second nod towards ‘warmth’. Finally where I stayed we are surrounded by olive trees 200 of which belong to my friend, they also require warmth to grow. I embroidered 100 little olive tree shapes throughout the book being aware they can be seen on both sides and each side is different so decided that would pass for 200! The rest of the paper and card used came from a book I picked up in a second hand shop whilst there. A lovely memory of an equally lovely visit.

The second book is a bit of frivolous pleasure. I thought it would be fun to make a cut out book of myself with each page being a layer of clothing until I am totally covered, warm and ready to head out into the cold. It was a little tricky lining everything up but I am happy with the results. I was particularly keen to make it as real as I could and also to draw the backs of the clothes as well as the fronts to keep the interest as the pages are turned. A very different project from usual but a lot of fun to do. I really enjoyed the challenge of learning the lotus stitch for the Japanese binding which I will be using again!

Looking forward to finding time for January’s ‘inbetween’ challenge watch this space…

Sarah Grace Dye

Are you book enough challenge

Sarah_Grace

This is a challenge I found on instaram run by Sarah Maker and have been following others who have participated for a long time and have longed to have time to take part. FINALLY this month I have and became some what enthralled by the title of ‘gather’. So much so that I have made three books inspired by the title.

All of the books are made from left over materials kept in my studio until I found a good use for them…apparently this was it!

Inktober 2019

Sarah_Grace

I started this a little late this year due to the Book Fair preparations but better late than never. It’s always a great opportunity to focus on drawing and this year I kind of ended up with the theme of ‘Tea Paraphernalia’ . In my little world tea is one of the most important things so seemed an appropriate focus of my drawing attention! I think there may be some kind of little book coming from these I’ll keep you posted. Here are some of my favourite drawings.

Artist’s Book Fair

Sarah_Grace

October 5th was the first Sheffield Artists book fair which saw 55 stalls representing about 90 artists! It was a day of fantastic inspiration and lovely new friends and connections. I’m sorry to not have posted sooner but as the main organiser and curator of the event my time was swallowed up a bit! Especially managing the Artist’s Book Centre website mine took a back seat. Anyway here are a few images mostly curtisy of Anya Uhren as I was too busy running around to take any! If you are interested to see more about the artists involved check out artistsbookcentre.org.uk if you’re local to sheffield there are a number of things going on you can get involved with.

Matchbook number twelve

Sarah_Grace

This book is a more general one. It’s not about one specific place as such but the whole of Kerala. It broadly covers a number of the places I visited in the area many of which were outside and related to nature. Kerala is a lush green and fertile land producing many fruits, vegetables and spices. Many of the spices from Kerala are world famous I realised when I got home that I have black peppercorns from Wyanad, Kerala amongst other things.

The materials for this book came from the packaging of some Ayurvedic toothpaste I bought to bring home, a masala tea box and some remnants of banana leaves picked up at a couple of different markets. The shiny lush packaging echoed my experience of Kerala. The banana leaves add something natural to the mix and I particularly love the two tones of the different leaves. The only matchbox that was suitable to house this theme was one with sunflowers on the front enhancing the rich natural aesthetic.

Matchbook number eleven

Sarah_Grace

I had been keeping this particular matchbox for this particular place as it is a little bigger than most of the others and is quite sturdy and well made. It really didn’t need much doing to it. I acquired it from a lovely evening dinner out in Mysore celebrating the birthday of one of my travel companions. My rubbish collecting apprentice (mentioned earlier on in these posts) saw the opportunity to get me the box and I think even from that point I knew it would have to be used for a book about Mysore Palace.

The outside cover of the book was created by using some more of the biryani lid collected on the train journey the day after I visited the palace. Its sleek silver surface echoed well the opulence oozed from the palace and somehow makes the whole little book feel extra special encased in silver. The gold is the inside of a cigarette box, not quite as salubrious but out of context I think it works. The inside is made from three layers of paper each serving a different purpose. The first two are cut-outs mimicking the shape of some of the arches inside the palace layered up to give some depth. The back layer is more of the silver foil backing from the biryani lid this time peeled away from its cardboard surface as it becomes opaque and lets the light shine through whilst retaining the shimmery opulent quality.

The paper used for the top layer of arches comes from an envelope given to me on the first day of this trip and the second layer is part of a register book I bought in a supermarket in Mysore I liked the colours and grid lines with bits of text and numbering. I also decided to make this one a self fastening book so the book itself creates a little box when closed. I’m really pleased with this one I think it has managed to capture a little of that special something I felt walking round such a beautiful and special place in a very simple way.

Matchbook number ten

Sarah_Grace

This little box of delights was a lot of fun to create. It came from quite a large selection of ephemera collected on an eight hour train journey from Mysore to Chennai. During the trip we were given various refreshments which came in interesting packages, so of course I saved it all. Each time something came I squirrelled the bits and pieces away into a bag by my side along with other peoples bits and pieces that got passed down the row! From this selection I created a box/draw for the matchbox cover and two books to fit inside.

The first book was simple and came from one of the tea bags I used on the journey. The cover of the book is made from the label of the Taj Mahal Tea. The inside is part of the teabag dried out and emptied after use and some of the paper cup I drank the tea from.

The second book began with a label from the delicious biryani we were served, I cut it out from the box lid and as a bonus the back of the lid is very shiny silver which adds a bit of sparkle and a different surface to the book. A nice touch is that the label has the date stamped on it which always makes me happy…simple things. The accordion fold bit of the book was made from the place mat we had on the tray of food (I saved mine before it got any spillages on it!) As an aside all the labels for each matchbook is typed on this paper. Then i used various other bits of packaging to create the other elements of the book everything from ice-cream lids to sugar bags. Finally I used the rest of the teabag as the books tie to hold it together.

As I said at the beginning I had much fun with this creation mixing, matching and folding packaging. I have plenty of bits and bobs left so I expect something else will happen to all of that one day and another creation will be born.