making art in books you already own
oooo controversial
"Praying is another way of singing. You plant in the tree the soul of lemons. You plant in the gardens the spirit of roses.“ — Dannie Abse, Welsh poet and physician
Hello dear friends,
Happy 2nd last week of the longest damn month of the year.
I’m working on an illustrated handbook for guerilla gardening, so watch this space, earthlings. If I put all the things I know in one place, I can bring it along with me on my crusade, right? Right.
In the meantime, still following the Urban Rewilding: Restore Your Local Ecosystem course, and making an art journal out of a book I already own:
Altering books you already have to make art in
Wowwww wow wow. Really glad that that I decided to make an altered book for this season of Get Messy! It’s still in progress, lots of pages to fill and spaces to dream in.
Top tips I learned from this:
Prep the book. You can tear out pages or even sections of a book to make it slimmer and therefore less intimidating (fewer pages to fill with art!). Also a good idea if you’re working bulkier with lots of layers.
Prep the pages. Clear gesso or white gesso are both good options - just spread a thin layer on a page to prep it for paint and anything else that might come.
Check how dried out your paper is first - I didn’t do this, and I wish I had. As a result, the book I’m working in is actually kind of fragile, so I’m working both in it but also on separate pages that I can stick in it.
“I am an artist. Gardening is my graffiti. A graffiti artist beautifies walls; I beautify parkways and yards. I treat the garden as a piece of cloth and the plants and the trees are the embellishment of that cloth. You’d be surprised what soil can do if you let it be your canvas.“ — Ron Finley American fashion designer and urban gardener
Eat your heart out Roald Dahl
The writing shed that I have barely used for months is enjoying a new lease of life now that there’s wifi in it. How nice is this! I figured now that I have people actually for real paying me to read my fiction for the first time in a while, I better be a Real Writer with a Real Shed.
Finally, some recommended reading:
Everything alive has the potential for inosculation in one form or another. That, perhaps, is what the great naturalist John Muir meant when he observed that when we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe.” To be proper citizens of that universe is to recognize ourselves as particles of it, indelibly linked to every other particle — particles each minuscule but majestic with possibility; it is to recognize that, as Dr. King observed, “we are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality.” - How to Be with Each Other’s Suffering: Elie Wiesel on the Antidote to Our Paralysis in the Face of World-Overwhelm
Mermaids: Myth, Kith and Kin: “Though the Andersen tale may be the most common association with mermaids, the fact is mermaids have been a fixture of different cultures and regions throughout history, representing, among other things, queer identity.”
“Kenya’s Miti Alliance is growing a living seed bank to help counteract deforestation, preserve indigenous tree species and boost knowledge of local ecosystems.” This tree museum looks to the future, not the past
Thank you for reading!
ádh agus grá, & tot de volgende,
Jessica
Bee-Witched, is Jessica Maybury’s artshare of poetry and visual art in uncertain times. I also write about mental health and art-making & share simple art projects to help us stay grounded in reality.
Feel free to share parts of this letter wherever and with whomever you’d like. If you want to support my work, subscribe to this publication and/or visit my zine shop.
Oh believe me, I was brought up with a deep reverence for books too! And when I first heard of people doing things like this I was a bit flabbergasted to be honest. I didn’t start doing it myself until much later, after I’d started binding books myself. I don’t know why/if that made me more comfortable with making art in books I already had, but.... I’m glad I’m doing this now. It feels like love and freedom all at once, somehow.
My goodness. I am quite capable of donating books, gifting books, even recycling (to another reader) books. But no power on earth could convince me that making art in a real, written book isn't vandalism. I'm just too well trained by my upbringing.