Artists Book - Eureka! moment

So I had been busy making my giant seeds and seed pods and the contents of my artists book without giving too much thought to the actual artists book itself. I had initially thought to have a central podium with an over-sized book on it, but didn't like the connotation that I was giving a lecture.  I then thought I would use an easel instead. 

When it came time to start actually making my over-sized book - I got as far as covering 2 sheets of A1 card and a spine with beige linen fabric and was arranging dried seed heads in a decorative manner on the front, but it just wasn't working.



I went home and had a think on it for an evening, when in the early hours I had a Eureka!  moment - the artist's book needed to be one of the seeds!!!

This brought about a whole new range of logistical puzzles to solve such as how to make an origami seed open like a book, how it would be displayed and how the viewer would open it - it couldn't be on a flat surface, how could I bind the spine, but that would all be worked out - I knew I had to change direction.

I glued each half of the seed to a thick piece of card, cut to shape. By scoring the card an inch or so in, along the line of the first fold and pinching the pieces together at the vertically central fold, I found that  it would open just like a book - I just need to bind it where I was pinching. In my first attempt I scored too deeply and it ripped - I tried patching with fabric and hot glue but it didn't work, so I tried again but only scoring very slightly! I realised I would also need a tie to keep it closed as well though. To be in-keeping with the organic feel and colour scheme, I decided to lace the spine with garden jute, while the front would be tied with a bow and an 'open me' tag attached.





I decided that if I were to go with the wire trajectory seed suspension method, then I could simply hang the book off a wire so that it appeared to have just ejected from the pod!

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