I’ve recently come across a large group of incredibly talented artists and designer makers. Of course, they’ve been there for many years, but I never really paid much attention to Etsy before because it hasn’t felt the right venue for my commission-led bookbinding work. Now that I’ve been inspired to explore other ways of creative expression other than books, I’m giving Etsy a go. In the past month or so, I’ve been stunned by the visual feast on offer there from so many wonderfully skilled artists.

One particularly delightful discovery for me on Etsy has been the “Treasuries”. They’re collections of 16 images on any theme one decides to curate on, pulling together various makers on Etsy to present a coherent, inspiring visual mood board. It’s an interesting exercise to curate such collections. Whether they are colour-coordinated shopping guides or something else… Myself, I’m particularly fascinated by expressing a thematic tale with a collection of images. Each artist’s work contributes to the whole and layers of meaning can be read from the combination of selected imagery. There’s something very similar in that process as in creating an artist book… The beauty of course being that you’re also connecting with and promoting some top notch creative makers in the process. I can see this type of curating exercise would be excellent for art students too – as compiling an image collection like this brings together many different skills in visual literacy.

There is a long list of continuously changing treasuries you can browse on Etsy. Some of them appeal to my personal visual sensibilities more than others, and some curators seem to consistently find magical content for their treasuries which have kept me in awe and inspired for days!

To share my recent discoveries of what Etsy has on offer, I’ll show you here some of the Treasuries I’ve curated so far. I recommend you click through to the site and explore all these artists’ creations more closely.

I’ve also opened an Etsy shop for the talismanic crystal jewellery that I make nowadays, so feel free to have a peek of this link too:
http://www.etsy.com/shop/SpiritCarrier

I have been enjoying a sweet flow of creative inspiration in the recent weeks. In fact a more mellow, consistent level of pure bliss from the contact with materials and processes than I’ve experienced in all my years of artistic endeavour. This period has also carried on gently and steadily for a lot longer, without the usual highs and lows of a creative process, than I’ve been used to so far. Maybe it has to do with the fact that I now have more studio time and less tug-of-war with “must create, need to create, but when!” amidst all the other life commitments. Whatever it is, I ride this beautiful wave until it’s time for the next stage in the process again.

I have shed many “shoulds” and “should nots” from my making, which is incredibly liberating. In many ways I have also returned to the beginning, to re-discover  why I used to like making books in the first place. Yet it’s an ongoing spiral upwards, now combined with some purposeful research and development. I’m currently playing with macrame bindings, where the knotting is integral to the book’s structure, as well as carrying on with more jewellery work. I’m fascinated by this direction. I sense this time is full of transitions and new beginnings, and I’m quite excited to see where it all ends up.

One of my artist’s books titled “How Stories Are Born” is included in this juried book art show that will open on September the 23rd in 23 Sandy Gallery. If you’re near Portland, Oregon, it will be worth a visit – there are many, many amazing artists included, with some breathtakingly beautiful work. You can see them all in a full online catalogue too, which is great for those of us who cannot travel to see the work “live”. The exhibition runs until the 29th October 2011.

Sometimes the most hastily snapped blurred image can become the initial spark for a full creative project.

An angel came into this world
Trying for a while to hang onto his wings
But eventually having to let them go
So he could settle more fully into this world

It feels like I gave them a few sticks and stones… and they created artistic masterpieces! The four participants on my 1-day intensive Artist Book course completely blew me away yesterday. I got to witness creative inventiveness at its best, individuals tapping into their imagination and creating thoroughly considered work. I’m impressed. And humbled. Grateful to have seen their process evolve and their work take shape.

Once again I was also reminded how certain limitations in materials and techniques open up new unexplored creative doorways which, if you agree to proceed through, will reward you with surprising discoveries. And these four certainly did, creating with focus and a sense of purpose, in my opinion, gallery ready work.

Imagination and creative vision certainly are wonderful tools, but what elevated yesterday’s results to another level, had to do with execution. Meticulous concentration and following through with in inner sense of integrity about the quality of one’s work. This group paid attention to the minutest detail of what they were making and carefully balanced those details in relation to the whole. And when I see that combination in someone’s work, especially in a workshop I’m facilitating, it makes me very excited indeed, to the same extent that shoddy workmanship annoys me.

I had compiled yesterday’s workshop as an experimental and experiential book art course, something that would deal with the whole process of creating an artist book. It wasn’t just about the materials and how to put them together, but rather a journey that started with various exercises in guided doodling and creative visualisation, initiating a connection to one’s inner resources. Even the results of the very first exercise amazed me. The group instilled their work with deep personal symbolism and turned a bare-bone exercise into a fully fledged artistic project.

I am utterly grateful for having had the chance to work with these people for a day, hoping to see what creative directions they will explore next. What a successful, memorable day!

Artist book scrolls in progress by Anne, David, Catherine and Diana:

Today I looked at the stack of folded papers on my work desk, sections ready for marking and sewing. I looked at the leather that was due to be the cover. I stood there surrounded by all the tools and materials… And it felt like I had never ever bound a book before in my entire life.

Maybe I’ve completed too many intensive projects lately. The natural rhythm of creating, with its ebb and flow, has become rushed and forced. I know, I’ve been there before too. Right now, I should take a few hours, maybe even days, to just BE with the tools and materials – without a defined target. That would melt the block. But I know how this goes. I try to press on for productivity’s sake.

Yet today – sooner than usual, I find myself drawn to various bits and pieces around the studio, off-cuts, remnants, forgotten beginnings. Random ideas appear in my mind, I go off on a tangent, testing, researching, developing – someone certainly could call it procrastinating. But my right brain knows what my work needs while my left brain is stuck on a time-table of shoulds and musts. A glimmer of excitement returns…

And whilst I momentarily gasp at the enormity of the next task, the reassuring thing about experience is the fact that I know every step of the journey by now. I know the pattern. And that means: this is yet another beginning.

In the midst of beginning and completing many commissions in the past few months, I have also been contemplating my process of making and what it is that keeps me making books. It is an eternal theme that I need to clarify to myself every once in a while. Then, somewhere between a bonefolder and a steel rule, in the vicinity of a scalpel and a roll of leather, I distilled it all into one sentence – for me, art is alchemy of emotion.

I explore, define, interpret, make sense of the world around me with my tools and materials. They take me further than thinking, they release me from linear, logically binding stream of reasoning, and in the process I discover deeper, vaster truths than my logical brain would be capable of.

Art as ‘alchemy of emotion’ is completely different from art as ‘therapy’. The former is concerned with product, the latter is concerned with process. I am concerned with the product, the end result, what is born out of the process. For me, if the process is successful, the end result – the product – shows it.

The process itself is in fact most often far from therapeutic for me. Very often it is the exact opposite, which sometimes makes me wonder why I put myself through such agonising process. But I’ve began and completed the alchemical journey of creating a piece so many times by now that I know the exact landscape I need to traverse.

There always comes a point in the journey, where it would be safest to stop, announce that particular point as the destination and pretend there is no unknown, nothing beyond the horizon to explore, no need to push myself further. And that is the crucial point, the reason why I embark on this process time and again: making a leap into the unknown means entering into a dynamic dialogue with the work at hand, questioning, balancing, being willing to try out directions that the work itself suggests to me.

The treasures beyond that horizon, the unknown that even my imagination doesn’t reach by itself is where the excitement is for me, because I have learned to trust that the work eventually comes together if I just listen to it and follow. I get to discover creative solutions with my tools and materials that are beyond my own imagination. For me, that’s magical.

Sometimes I’d like to document the whole process of making a fine binding by a sequential series of snaps, hoping there would be a way of conveying all of what goes into it before arriving to the final, completed book. Having taken a few process snaps here and there, it’s become clear it’s not going to happen. I cannot be immersed in the process and stop every few minutes to document what I’m doing. I’ve tried and grown increasingly frustrated – between one snap and the next, to tell the process truthfully, I’d need to have included a few more snaps. And mostly, I’d need more than two hands. Or an assistant. Instead, at best of times, any process imagery I manage to get together, is disconnected from the main flow. Single frozen moments in time, possibly interesting to fleetingly glance, but not what I’d ultimately want to use them for.

Why then, would there be a need to show everything that goes on before the book is finally complete, the stages of making, handling the materials, making the templates, all structural aspects… If nothing else, it could help in understanding how long time it takes to make a bespoke book, which might be a revelation to some who are not involved in making bespoke books. Yet it’s clear to me how far removed single process snaps are from the final book they’re leading to. The measuring, cutting, gluing, measuring again… Someone said that “writing a novel is just re-arranging the words of a dictionary”. Similarly,  simply put, bookbinding is just cutting and gluing materials in various ways… But the thought process behind it all, or rather, the process of “feeling” my way through to a completed book, I haven’t found a way to take snaps of that. For any artist, that’s the invisible tool that in the end brings all the general measuring and cutting to life. I guess the ultimate process snap for me would be of that particular “process of feeling”. And that tool is as of yet, invisible.

If I saved every off-cut that I’d like to save from the various work stages of a book, I wouldn’t fit into my studio any more. Yet it seems there could be a myriad of creative possibilities using all the discarded bits from the bookbinding process. And if I had time, I would make use of those elements that need to be cut and trimmed away to give shape to the work at hand. But when one book is complete, it’s on to the next one, and the discarded trims full of creative possibilities still remain just hopeful off-cuts.

A very talented friend of mine, fine art photographer Ian Talbot had a brainwave that resulted in Artless. It is a collaborative visual online project between participating artists, described thus:

Contributing artists post work that may or may not be connected with what has preceded it. Threads of meaning, style, associations etc. are thus suggested, grow, interweave, fade and die… only to be revived possibly later. Unintended connections and associations may also be suggested as the collective piece develops. It is up to the viewer to decide what and where such threads may reside within the resulting “matrix”. This could be termed “the beholder’s share”.

I have been part of Artless for a while now, and find it one of the most inspiring ways to quickly inject some creativity into each day. It keeps my artist brain ticking, and it’s fascinating to follow the visual “conversations” that form between images. Each image belongs to a thread on Artless, so here my images are out of the context in which they appear there – but I thought to include some of them and invite you over to see the whole project.

Intricate details that transform something ordinary into something just that little bit different always delight me. And in that vein, I have always enjoyed walking on this particular stretch of pavement in Cambridge. It is decorated with sunken bronze roses. There, underneath the busy feet rushing past back and forth, lay these small treasures, whether you notice them or not.  Adding a thoughtful, uplifting detail that elevates the plain standard into something noticeable may seem unnecessary to some. Public art may seem like waste of money to many. But adding beauty into the world, a little detail at the time, is unbelievably important, especially when large built environments distance people from nature and the energising beauty of natural surroundings. Some may not notice the effect of beautiful details around them but for those who do… they are a lifeline in the worldly chaos. It is possible to breathe beauty, let it in to vitalise one’s whole being, and it says there’s still hope for this world at this time.

“For last year’s words belong to last year’s language
And next year’s words await another voice.
And to make an end is to make a beginning.”
- T.S. Eliot, ‘Little Gidding’

Echoing the words above, I feel now more than maybe any previous year, that my visual language will undergo some changes in the coming year. Not a harsh parting but a natural evolution of inner images that seek to be made manifest. I recently read about someone promising “not to change this coming year”. For me this would be the worst outcome of the new year. I see change as positive. I long to change from year to year, if I didn’t, I feel I would have failed to grasp all the opportunities life lays in front of me, to grow as a person. So my promise is to allow change to enter, let the flow of life transform me, to change me by granting me more understanding of life and its intricacies, and to let my work evolve into more and more honed direction, so that each passing year it shows more clearly that which I have envisioned.

Having neglected this section of my blog for quite some months, I haven’t been neglecting my own personal creative explorations, even amidst work and other daily pressures on my time. Here and there one always finds a moment to grab and explore, but what fills those moments needs to be carefully selected. As the year approaches its end, I notice the developments that have been brewing behind the scenes all year are slowly coming to a culmination. Through some amazing synchronicities, wonderful people and following that which has heart and meaning for me, I have delved deeper into the world of stones and crystals. Eventually some of my Tibetan-style malas will be available online, but that will be a new story for the new year.

I thought to illustrate here the battle with time I often have. It is about needing to get some own work done amidst all the family and other work commitments that compete for my time. Being an artist with children at 5 and 1 years of age is not always easy. Luckily my bookbinding studio adjoins our home. It is the only way I can hope to get any creative work done. If I waited for long stretches of undisturbed personal time to spend in the studio, I’d never get any own work done – because I’d never make it into the studio in the first place. I currently need to be content with snatching ten minutes here, a half an hour there, and only occasionally getting a luxurious few hours at a time. But the need to create is so deeply engrained, growing so fervent at times that a few minutes here and there is better than none at all. I always thought I wouldn’t be able to concentrate on anything in such broken bits. It’s amazing what necessity facilitates. I have learned to switch in a fraction of a second into deep concentration that seamlessly carries on from the last such moment. And the miracle of it is… several ten minute moments do eventually build up, and a little by little a personal project completes, ends up a finished piece. Which wouldn’t exist if I waited for those several undisturbed studio hours at a time.

This is the first and only time I have ever recorded to the very minute a project takes. Writing down all the start and end times, this is how one of my recent projects got completed in just over 40 hours:

Day 1
9.30-10.05 | 10.35-11.50 | 15.30-17.40 | 23.15-00.15

Day 2
8.55-9.10 | 10.00-11.00 | 11.15-12.30 | 13.00-16.20 | 17.05-18.00

Day 3
11.55-12.40

Day 4
13.35-14.00 | 18.35-19.15 | 19.45-20.00

Day 5
11.20-12.20 | 20.40-20.50

Day 6
18.30-18.50

Day 7
8.40-12.00 | 13.30-14.45 | 15.10-18.00 | 20.55-23.15

Day 8
9.00-10.00 | 10.50-12.30 | 16.00-17.00 | 17.50-18.50

Day 9
8.20-9.45 | 10.10-12.50 | 13.30-17.20 | 18.30-19.40 | 22.00-23.45

Day 10
21.40-21.55

~
Artist book: a scroll triptych
‘Mother, Daughter and the Holy Spirit’
acrylic & ink on stitched canvas, 2010

Making books got more difficult when we moved here. I cannot just walk into a store to replenish my stock of millboard, archival PVA or other specialist materials I used to have easy access to. It is costly and a headache, especially in case of liquids, to organise delivery from Europe when needed. And this year I ran out of some essentials a few weeks before holidaying in the vicinity of bookbinding supply stores again. I’ve always liked the idea of using what’s readily available in any local environment so I have been fervently thinking how I might possibly start to use more of what I can easily get my hands on here.  Although I haven’t (yet) been inspired to make anything out of sand, seashells and stacks of colourful fabrics. However, being currently more obsessed about stones than I am about books, I have found the perfect summer break from the bookbinding studio in learning more about semi-precious stones. Making many fascinating discoveries on this different creative path, some of which may indeed end up taking a book form eventually but a lot of them won’t. And I’m quite happy about that.

After posting this blog entry, I had a Twitter conversation with architect and author Anthony Lawlor, whose wonderful comment I want to quote here:

“Stones are books. So much can be read in the shape, color, texture and sound of stones.”

Before we moved to Dubai, I had never been here. The first thing that struck me at the airport where we landed, was the amount of golden shiny details everywhere. Historically, gold-tooling has been a large part of traditional bookbinding, in the skills of which I’ve had my due initiation as well. However I have always had some sort of aversion to using gold in my work, whether tooling or otherwise. It has felt a bit over the top, certainly not quite “me”. But as usual, I like to give myself the challenge to see how I might make peace with anything gold…
As there’s something golden everywhere I turn here, I have become practically desensitised to it now. In my visual thinking, gold has taken on the role of just another colour. I see details in all the colours of the wheel, just combined and mixed with gold here and there. As I have come to see it, where I live, gold is the fouth primary colour. Mixing it with different colours produces shine and shimmer of all possible tones. There’s red gold, green gold, yellow gold, purple gold, blue shimmer, orange shimmer, brassy shimmer, sparkly light tones and darker glows. Thinking of gold as one colour among the others, makes it more palatable for me, an additional tool to my palette which I’m just getting to grips with. Another artistic journey.

I rarely work on more than one book at a time. This is because each is unique and requires my full focus and concentration. Not as much from technical perspective, but from the creative viewpoint, the thematic and symbological. I tend to hold a dialogue with the book in the making, and like with people, I’d have difficulty concentrating on two intense conversations simultaneously without one or the other suffering. While making a book, several stages require waiting. It would be sensible to use the time well and be working on another book while one is in the press, drying. So I’m entertaining myself by making something entirely different in the meanwhile. Like… I might relax and enjoy myself by making a set of runes or a Tibetan style mala. These are also much more instant gratification than my books that take hours and hours to complete.  Works well, keeping the creative stream flowing.

How would it affect your viewing of this image, if this was called “Untitled”?

Or would you view it differently, if it was called “Lady and Feather”?

And would you see this image below differently if it was titled “Untitled” or if it was called “Soldier”?

When I was studying art, I kept noticing in exhibitions how many artworks were given the title “Untitled”. There were so many around it felt to me almost like it was in fashion. Or that if you called your artwork “Untitled” it meant you were a really cool and serious artist. The notion seemed to be that an artist should give space for the viewer’s imagination and not restrict the viewer’s associations about the artwork in any way. Of course, there’s nothing wrong if someone wants to release their artwork into the freely associating mind of the viewer, maybe it is very generous, maybe it has become expected. But why?

Giving any kind of descriptive title to a work no doubt affects the way the viewer looks at it – and it leads them to see the way the artist did while making the work. Why would it be a good thing to discourage that? If I want a free reign for my imagination to create meanings out of unintention, I can look at clouds or anything else in my environment, I don’t need to see an art exhibition for that. In artworks, I look for intention. So all this untitledness always bothered me in some indescribable way. Having seen countless of “Untitled” artworks, I can remember about three which really, truly carried off that title – works that actually could not have and should not have been titled anything else.

Very often, of course, viewers see the work without even knowing what the title might be. In fact, I have recently posted some of my latest artist books on my Facebook page purposefully without any titles. In that context they are momentarily “untitled” as I do also believe that an artwork needs to stand on its own visual merits without a need to be explained in words, titles or otherwise. However, having mulled over photographer Ian Talbot’s writings about the ownership of artwork and intention, I have come to realise what my untitled unease was about all those years ago. It is easy to call the work “Untitled”. When it comes to titling artwork, it is easy to give up, offer the ownership to the viewer. To me the title is one detail of the artwork just like any other element. I own it, I consider it, and just like I wouldn’t let my child into the world without a name and let everyone call her what they please, it is natural for me to want to title my works as appropriately as I have intended the artwork itself. The title points the viewer to the direction of my intention, gives a clue as to why I made the work in the first place. It is about my intention and communicating that intention to those who might be interested in it.

Here’s a series of images. I believe my intention could make them art, should I choose that act of intention. And I believe they are not art, unless I intend them to be. Giving these images a title would constitute intention (even if the title was “Untitled”.) If I intended these to be art, I might call them “Departures I, II & III”.

But I didn’t set out to make these images, and I didn’t make exactly them. I merely discovered them, even though it is ink from my brush. Of course, one aspect of art is discovering. Seeing something differently. I was dyeing paper for an artist book when I started to look closer. And like one sees shapes in clouds, I started to see meaning in these random blotches of ink. These images were an off-piste trail for me, a sudden tangent, after which I returned to the artist book I intended to make. The 36 long pieces of paper I dyed (of which four are photographed below) are material to me, not art. Framing and naming parts of them was entertaining, yet not quite art for me, as I’m still not intending them to be so. But the resulting book I intended, I indeed mean to call art.

When I studied art and bookbinding, I got very interested in the philosophy of craft. I liked to analyse the process of making, to write about it, and to ponder it. I also wrote my degree dissertation about the learning process in craft. Then there came a point when the pondering and writing started to feel very far removed from the actual making. What I experienced while in the state of creating didn’t match any combination of words I could think of. Words have served an important purpose for me while learning the specifics of my craft, and clarified many issues in my mind that indeed have affected the way I approach actual studio work.
The fact that I again agree to think with the means of words and sentences in addition to the interplay of materials, colours and textures, has been inspired by the incredible group of artists of all disciplines discussing their process on Twitter, and particularly by reading the Objectively Speaking :: Blog of fine art photographer Ian Talbot. His in-depth, straight-talking analysis of his own works have been real revelations to me. They have also spurred me to raise many questions about my own work, and to realise I might need to dig out some answers.

As I’m not a writer or a poet, there will always be an unbridgable gap between words and my visual work. I also feel that whatever I might hope to transmit to the viewer deals with the end product, not the process – that is, I don’t aim to communicate anything about my process to the viewer, the only thing that matters in the end is what the final book in its final form might be saying, if anything. And I shall ponder that somewhat more from now on…

I keep seeing things, fleeting visual snapshots in non-moments along the process of making. I have always thought that abstract artists are very brave. And if I was as brave, I would make abstract artworks. Now I make covertly abstract works, hidden within the understandable shape of a book. For no particular reason other than simple visual delight, I enjoy the play and combination of elements, lines, shapes, textures and colours arranged into representing nothing. There may be a book in the making, but in another dimension, the elements are living independently, offering themselves as individual absract works complete in themselves. A kaleidoscope of images that cease to exist as soon as the making process takes another step toward the recognisable form of a book.

Sometimes it’s good to take one step away from books and look at the familiar materials arefresh. The kind of books I make always take a long time. In fact, even if I decided to quickly make one for checking out some thoughts and ideas, I still end up taking the book more seriously than a test piece and devoting more energy to it than I originally intended. A book for me is always a full process – I cannot seem to let one leave my hands as a test piece. So I feel much more free when working out some ideas away from books. At the moment also too many ideas and inspirations are fighting for attention in my mind and for my time in the studio. Not all ideas are worth spending time on and not all books fully formed as thoughts are worth bringing into physical form. While I’m working out idea priorities, I’m relaxing by stringing some materials together – into necklaces instead of books. And enjoying myself immensely!

After finishing a bookbinding, it’s the final tidy up time. There are always bits and pieces left and it feels almost difficult to throw them away as they have been an important part of the process I’ve delved in for weeks. For a while now, I’ve been saving a few offcuts of materials from each book I’ve made – they are a great physical record of the creative work gone into each. And the only thing left for me once the book has been sent to its owner. A somewhat backwards way of keeping a sketchbook, but it also serves a function – it ensures I don’t need to throw out test pieces and templates that might come in handy as memory aids in future projects. These are from a very special recent commission I completed, which is now shown in the gallery section together with a full case study – see the engagement book.

Beginning a new project yet again, I put words to what I have been pondering recently.  I thought there would be some sort of change in the visual language of my art after living a while in Dubai. I tend to welcome the influence and inspiration of my surroundings, wherever I am. But what I now see is that my work is becoming just more of what it already was going to be.  My works of today may be interpreted as having acquired some Middle Eastern tones, yet when I compare them to some of my works from 15 years ago, the roots are already there. I’m quite surprised. Maybe that’s why I feel such an affinity with the visuality of this place. It resonates with something I have already been exploring for quite a while… And I will carry on. What an adventure.

This is a reminder image, a note to self. Ideally to keep my eyes open in the first place, but failing that, to at least look again in search to see. If I was a photographer, I may have taken this image on purpose, who knows. However, being an accidental snapper -most often in a hurry- I only spotted this blue window afterwards. Because of this realisation and the myriad of metaphysical storylines my mind embarked on as a result, this image is one of the most meaningful seeds of inspiration in my digital sketchbook.

The third version of my website is now live. In 2004 the first version was launched on white background. In 2008, we thought it might be great to see the work on dark background instead. And now it’s back to white… May eventually decide! Content is still the same, with some reorganising so information is easier to find and read. The biggest change being the now completely visual navigation in the gallery section.  Some new images are added for those bindings that I was able to get access to. Unfortunately many bindings in the archive are long gone and I have no further imagery, nor high-resolution files, to show. The blog section now allows comments. Some may find interesting the new addition of links in the awards section: you’re able to see which book won which award – again of those works that I have photographs for.

I am of course, as ever, indebted to the master web designer behind all three versions of my site. His vision and skill have always spearheaded the way my work is represented online. And I am indeed very lucky and grateful to have such a creative pioneer for a husband.

For all my adult life, the time around year change has been the most meaningful for me of all annual celebrations. I can feel the different energy and I use it as a fuel to propel me towards a year of brand new possibilities. I reflect and I project. I create visions in my mind, weigh them, infuse them with intention, plant them, care for them and return to see at the end of the year what grew of them. I do this in writing, in a special annual journal in which I only write at this time of year, and have done for the past 19 years. Unless one has a clearly defined goal, it is impossible to aim accurately. I’m so excited about the year ahead because I feel I’ve managed to focus my direction in a very purposeful way which creates a lot of enthusiasm to get started. Creative times ahead!

I enjoyed photographing these fireworks on the first minutes of 2010. The abstract compositions of colour and light sparked my mind off on new paths of creative projects and endeavours. They will also remind me of the beauty of staying focused on my path, to enjoy the journey and to always marvel at the details. For the wondrous whole is all about the perfect balance and interplay of the minutest details. Each detail contributes to the big creation, each tiny step takes me closer to my goal. (Jan10)

Bits and pieces, boxfulls of materials, some – if briefly opened and glanced at in the three years since our move – still more or less in oblivion. I have been discovering in the studio lately, not just ideas but various treasures I had forgotten I had. Last week I thought of something I’d really need for the next project, but didn’t even think to hunt around in the studio. Yet a few days later happened to open a random box just to find exactly what I wanted. Perhaps it is so in life as well – maybe we have just forgotten and all we need to do is remember. All we need really is there already, to be found just around the corner. (Nov09)

The further I get with a binding, the messier my studio gets. The messier the studio gets, the messier my thinking gets. Tidying up in the middle of a work flow clears my thinking and steadies the hand that holds the tools. But when it gets too late and I get too tired, there’s nothing to be done but give up and sleep, otherwise the whole next day will be wasted correcting mistakes made when too tired. Over the years I’ve learned the point in which to give up, but I occasionally still test it… and re-learn. It’s so much easier and time-efficient to do things right in the first place. (Oct09)

Today I started to paint some parchment in preparation for book covers for my current binding. The two main colours of my design are red and black. I’ve always liked the way ink settles on parchment and this time the black sumi-e ink reacted rather nicely with the red calligraphic ink. So much so that I started to look closer and examine the lines and shapes. Then it occurred to me – it looked exactly like hot molten lava exploding from a volcano. Was this a coincidence… my current obsession with rocks and stones brought a piece of lava stone to me just last weekend. I love the way subconscious works. (Oct09)

A display of the various aspects of traditional Islamic bookbinding is on show at the moment at the Cultural Foundation in Abu Dhabi. An article in the National gives an overview of what to expect. The Art and Craft of Islamic Bookbinding is part of “Islam Faith & Worship” exhibition and will be on until 6th October 2009 from 9.30am to 12.30pm and from 4.30 to 8.30pm daily. The Turkish experts are also giving demonstrations.