|
Mad in Pursuit |
Cosmopolitan Productions |
Redesigning |
Stitching the World Together |
 A few weeks
ago, in one
of my purges to free up a few square inches of space around here, I
found a stack of old National Geographic maps. Hesitating about
pitching them in the trash, I got an idea: use them to practice the
book-making skills I started on last summer.
The paper was interesting but
not precious, so I could practice loosening up --
playing. I tore them into 11 x 14 folios, grouped them into about 10
neat signatures of 4 folios each, started to paste in some quotes I
liked, and stalled out. There they sat on my work table -- accusing me
-- another project unfinished.
Last weekend, determined to do something not connected with national tragedy and war, I worked for a while revising my fishing stories, then turned to my stack of map pages. Finish it! And so, I dug out my book on binding (keith smith) and found string and fat needles. The instructions for cool-looking coptic binding included stitching a cover on -- something I was trying to avoid -- but since I'd never done any binding at all I couldn't improvise on the instructions. So I found some cardboard, covered it with more map paper and -- wow! -- covers. What started out as an exercise -- play -- became strangely compelling. There I was stitching the torn-up, topsy-turvy world together. Here and there I pasted in a picture from my own travels or got out my colored pens to draw fanciful routes across the seas. The binding is a little crude but the pages open beautifully flat and the thing begs to be mused over. It is mesmerizing and unsettling. Like the world, I guess. 10.6.01 |
|
Mad in Pursuit |
Cosmopolitan Productions |
Redesigning |