Had I But Known . . .

I’m simmering about something I’ve never done before – a one-off. Not a one-off binding, I do them all the time, but a unique work – one copy only. I got one of those notions that come just before you drop off to sleep. The phrase “had I but known” flitted through my head, and the next day I googled it. I got a lot of information on the history of detective stories in general and Mary Roberts Reinhardt in particular, and I remembered Ogden Nash’s poem about the subject:

“Sometimes it is the Had I But Known what grim secret lurked behind that smiling exterior I would never have set foot within the door,

Sometimes the Had I But Known then what I know now I could have saved at least three lives by revealing to the Inspector the conversation I heard through that fortuitous hole in the floor.”

I thought a collection of actual occurrences of HIBK might be fun. And then I got ambitious. I started thinking of ways to present the quotations in a way that would illustrate them, and I think I may be on the verge of my first attempt at an artist’s book. I won’t be surprised, though, if it turns out to be just the next book. But you never know. . .

 

Lost and Found – The Ends of the Earth

Back in 2010 I published a miniature book called The Ends of the Earth. It was a map portfolio about the 19th century polar explorers Scott, Mawson, Shackleton, Amunsen, and others. I bound and sold maybe three copies before I had a computer crash and lost it.

The Ends of the Earth

The Ends of the Earth

Interior

Interior

Map Folders

Map Folders

Back of Folders

Back of Folders

Lining

Lining

Fold-Out Maps

Fold-Out Maps

But three years later, I found it, hiding under another name, in a totally unrelated folder! I still have the pictures I took for the website, and I think I may still have the patterns., but I haven’t seen any of those papers in a while. So I’m binding some more copies, with different papers, and I’ll put it back on the website as soon as I do.

Nil desperandum!

Miniature Mondays!

Colleen at the University of Iowa Special Collections has a wonderful blog: http://uispeccoll.tumblr.com/ and is featuring my little book The Dragon Gallery as a gif. (a dragon with smoke emerging from its snout.) Super cute, and the whole blog is fascinating, and her blog roll is bottomless. She features miniature books every Monday – go see!

Something Fancy

I’m making things to take to the MBS Concalve. Here’s yesterday’s:

Red Double-Door Box

Red Double-Door Box

Red Double-Door Box

Red Double-Door Box

Red Double-Door Box

Red Double-Door Box

I was going to put tiny books inside, but why not just leave it to the new owner to decide what to store there? I love the red leather. It’s from an old pair of my own gloves. Never say that I don’t sacrifice for my Art!

The Witch’s Ballad Is Here!

I’ve finished going back and forth about the binding, and The Witch’s Ballad is up on the website:

The Witch's Ballad

The Witch's Ballad

The Witch's Ballad, with postcard

The Witch's Ballad, with postcard

The Back, with chain closure

The Back, with chain closure

A Sample Page

A Sample Page

. . . and here’s the official description:

2 1/2″ x 1 3/4″
76 pages, 24 illustrations, 7 pressed flowers, and one enclosure
Limited to 25 copies

O, I hae come from far away,
From a warm land far away,
A southern land across the sea,
With sailor-lads about the mast,
Merry and canny, and kind to me.

Four witches come to a market town to sell enchanted poultry and look for husbands. Scott was a Victorian poet and painter close to the Pre Raphaelites, and The Witch’s Ballad might be an evocation of a painting in that style. I decided to combine the pre-Raphaelite love of the medieval with the poem’s sightly Elizabethan tone and the Jacobean interest in witches and Holbein’s Dance of Death Alphabet to come up with this: a pastiche of an antique book.

The design of the title page comes from a book by Albrecht Durer. Each verse is illustrated with a letter from Holbein’s alphabet, and the versos show the bleed-through from the preceding page on antiqued paper. The brown  leather binding had raised bands and a chain-and-clasp closure, all in the ‘antique’ style.

The text of the poem and its binding tell the witch’s story. I wanted the book itself to tell another story, that of its readers. Whose book was this? I imagined finding the book in a used bookstore with all the former owner’s marks on it. Her picture came clearly into my mind: she’d used the book as a flower-press since she was reading it outdoors, Elphine-like, and was using as a bookmark a postcard she’d bought at a museum – Alice Boyd’s The Witches Going To Market. which was based on the poem

There’s A Story Goes With It

OK, so I’m working on this William Bell Scott poem, The Witch’s Ballad. As I was thinking about style I decided to combine the pre-Raphaelite love of the medieval with the poem’s sightly Elizabethan tone and the Jacobean interest in witches and Holbein’s Dance of Death Alphabet to come up with this:

Bleed-through

Bleed-through

I was so clever: I left the versos blank except for the bleed-through from the preceding page, for authenticity. Since the book itself was so olde-tymey, I decided to bind the book in a 16th century limp binding, but after seven hours of study and experimentation, I realized that I was in way over my head, and used a simple case binding using a art nouveau paper and a brown leather spine:

Binding

Binding

A great paper, but I only had half a sheet of it, so I went searching for more, only to find that it wasn’t available from any of my usual sources.  If I can’t find a nice William Morris paper, I’ll just use the brown leather, of which I have lots.

Here’s the fun part: the poem tells its story. I wanted the book to tell its own story. Whose book was this? I imagined finding the book in a used bookstore with all the former owner’s marks on it. Her picture came clearly into my mind: she’d used the book as a flower-press since she was reading it outdoors, Elphine-like, and was using as a bookmark a postcard she’d bought at a museum – Alice Boyd’s The Witches Going To Market. which was based on the poem.

Title Page with postcard

Title Page with postcard

Postcard

Postcard

The title page is a pastiche of a page from a book by Albrecht Durer.

So there’s a lot going on here so far, and who knows what else might end up in the book? Agnes Nitt’s name written in the flyleaf?

The Witch’s Ballad

This might be the next book:

The Witch’s Ballad   William Bell Scott (1811 – 1890)

O, I hae come from far away,
From a warm land far away,
A southern land across the sea,
With sailor-lads about the mast,
Merry and canny, and kind to me.

And I hae been to yon town
To try my luck in yon town;
Nort, and Mysie, Elspie too.
Right braw we were to pass the gate,
Wi’ gowden clasps on girdles blue.

Mysie smiled wi’ miminy mouth,
Innocent mouth, miminy mouth;
Elspie wore a scarlet gown,
Nort’s grey eyes were unco’ gleg.
My Castile comb was like a crown.

You can read the rest here. Scott was a Victorian poet and painter close to the Pre Raphaelites, and this poem might be an evocation of a painting in that style. But Scott was from Scotland, and I think the poem could support a harder, wilder edge without losing any of its Victorian tinsel and velvet. And it’s really more of dance than a ballad. Maybe push it back to Jacobean?  I’m looking at woodcuts from around then:

A Witch

A Witch

More Witches

More Witches

More Witches

More Witches

The Lancashire Witches

The Lancashire Witches

I apologize for my shoddy scholarship, not having attributions for all this. So far I’m just collecting images to see what feels like a match. Go read the rest of the poem and tell me what you think.

Idle Hands Are The Devil’s Plaground

Not mine, though! I’ve been keeping out of trouble:

Classics of Alchemy in a slightly weathered painted bookcase with a lectern.

Classics of Alchemy

Classics of Alchemy

Classics of Alchemy

Classics of Alchemy

Classics of Alchemy

Classics of Alchemy

 

Classics of Travel and Exploration in a book-shaped bookcase:

Travel and Exploration

Travel and Exploration

Travel and Exploration

Travel and Exploration

Travel and Exploration

Travel and Exploration

Community Service

Jim Brogan (of Microbibliophile fame) wants me to go in with him on producing a keepsake for the upcoming Miniature Book Society Conclave. Even though this means I’m committing myself to making 80 or so copies of something when I should be ramping up production of my own stuff for the show, I’m still excited. So far all I know is that it has something to do with Vancouver postage stamps.

Speaking of the Microbibliophile, Jim now has a real website for it! Go to the link above and say hello.

Later That Same Night . . .

I just couldn’t leave it alone:

Oiled Up

Oiled Up

The Finished Trunk

The Finished Trunk

This is my favorite, and coincidentally easiest, finish: Old English Lemon Oil. It’s impossible to screw up, and it stains underneath glue! And smells great. It brought the grain of this cherry wood out beautifully.

It still looks kind of like a children’s toy to me. I still don’t have a very good eye for proportion at this scale; the big difference in size between the large pieces and the small ones. I might try this again tomorrow, maybe in walnut. And look closer!