New notebooks - pouch binding - Part 1

As soon as I received a bag of my Mum's old handbags, I had the idea that I would convert them into notebooks or sketchbooks. The handles on the bags are an interesting, decorative detail but I haven't decided yet whether they will be used in the final books.

 Earlier this year I took a free MOOC course offered by Keio University in Japan, through Future Learn. The course was called Japanese Culture Through Rare Books, and one of the styles of book-binding discussed was "pouch binding", which made great use of paper (rare in ancient Japan) that was already used on one side. Having a great supply of paper to recycle I decided that I would try pouch binding for my handbag books. On a historical note, pouch bound books give historians great insights into a period when a book is un-bound for conservation purposes: the original information on the paper is intact!

To reiterate: the used paper should be completely blank on one side. This is what will be visible in the final books.

 After cutting the A4 pages in half my trusty bone folder was used to fold the now A5 pages in half, the used side in, such that blank pages are what is visible.

I stacked my folios in piles of 10 for ease of keeping track of the count. In pouch binding it is the folded part of the book that is the turning part of the page, while the "open" long side of the pouch page is bound as the book spine.

Before continuing with the binding of pages, I had to cut up the bags. I want these to be hard cover books so I also cut some corrugated cardboard to a size slightly larger than the folios.

Day-planner sketches

For most of January and February, I have been back to work on the studio attic, trying to sort and purge things to make space (and sense!) so that I can get back to painting. Perhaps I have not been brutal enough, as I am still hanging on to quite a lot of "stuff", but I have been doing a fair amount of shredding (about 6 bags full so far) and recycling. One thing I have finally realised -- this is like a revelation to me -- day-planners are not the same as diary-journals! With this knowledge, all I had to do was rip out the personal details to shred and recycle the very useful, but no longer necessary, items. Good thing I do check them before discarding, as this sketch of my daughter (I remember her being asleep in the car) was in the 2005 book.

I do use sketchbooks most of the time, but if my purse is too small a sketchbook doesn't fit in it. So if needs be, pages in the ever-present day-planner get used, and I always carry a pen with me. I was living in rural Kerry in 1995 and I must have done these cow legs while walking past fields.

Again from the 1995 day-planner, I was taking a close look at cow parts -- here are two views of a snout (along with a bit of budgeting info!). Because of the date, I am presuming these cow sketches were research for my cow curtains, exhibited for the first time in November 1996 as part of "Pastures Green and Dreaming for Dad" at The Basement Gallery, Dundalk.

This sketch of my husband (before he was my husband) is from my 1993 day planner. I had to do a bit of research on this one to find out that "Last Temptation" was a tiny club in Toronto's Kensington Market. We were out providing support to a friend who was playing a gig there. It was February in Toronto, still cold -- my husband still has his scarf and coat on even though we would have been indoors. As I type this, it is February in Ireland and, though grey, outside my window I see lots of pink blossoms in bloom.