Final Project

For our final project we had to rethink our definition of a 'book' and create a piece using the images and information we'd gathered during the week. Mine was mostly inspired by the trip to the Imperial War Museum (which I should add I'd never visited before, despite living in London my whole life, and which is an absolutely amazing place.) Rather than creating a bound book, which I felt was too restrictive, I wanted to make individual pieces and gather them together loosely in a box, like a collection of memories. In the museum there were lots of display cabinets were particular relics of people's lives were grouped together, and I wanted to recreate that feeling of seeing the remnants of someone's life before you in my piece.

I took the idea of a journey in two ways; both as a literal one, with the image of a plane, and also as a journey from childhood to adulthood, using the image of a young boy, and also using the white rabbit from Alice in Wonderland, a story of a literal journey but also a philosophical one. The colour palette and materials used were kept deliberately muted and limited to create and aged feel. I repeated not just images and words, but also materials, particularly masking tape, lined record card, brown paper and envelopes, and graph paper.

This beautiful tin was bought from a car boot sale, full of old buttons, for 20p.

Close up of the open box. The beige coloured tissue paper is actually a vintage sewing pattern (for a skirt in case you were wondering!) I lined the box with it, leaving the top long so you had to actually uncover the contents, sort of like opening a present.

Out of the box in a pile.

The objects part of my piece. Clockwise from the top they are; a vintage cotton spool with a length of paper wrapped round it with a quote from 'On the Road' on it. A vintage pocket watch case with an old black and white photo in it, tied to a tag made from music paper with the words 'I'm Late.' A glass slide frame with used stamps framed inside. An embroidery frame containing vellum paper and the words 'Change. Explore. Create.' in Letraset.

Experimenting with combining typography and buttons. Some embroidery on card. That recurring plane image.

Doilies, blue watercolour paint, and Regina Spektor lyrics.

Stamping, card frame mount, old road maps, vintage file dividers, and some very intricate typography.

Oil pastels on lined record card, brown kraft paper, stencilling, photo corners, black and white photos, and gold letraset transfers.

Vintage sewing paper, luggage tags, popper fastenings, vellum paper, white pen, photograph of a light switch, music paper, and some painting.

Masking tape, a cut out photograph, newspaper cuttings and typewriter font.

Pages from a children's book, a lot of patience, an old watch face, brown envelopes, and dymo labels.

Vintage negative, paper clips, squared paper, and painting on top of photos.

I hope you enjoyed looking at my work as much as I enjoyed creating it. Seriously, it was so much fun, and so inspiring. Do let me know what you think :) Oh, and pretty soon I will be posting my 100th blog post, and it's going to be pretty special, and will probably involve some sort of giveaway! xxx