Bookends with Bookends

Bookends made by Florence Wild
Bookends made by Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel

some things I have been occupied with recently, bookends sourced from library rejects. To sit on various shelves I have designed but not yet made.

The wood grain to the trees in Skogskyrkogården

The wood grain to the trees in Skogskyrkogården

they probably don't look like that on the inside. from a distance and in extreme close up. just trying to capture the feeling of looking through a crowded scene - a strong feeling to draw apart the series of trunks like a set of curtains.

printed wood grain curtains

Paper grain

Hand drawn woodgrain paper created to wrap christmas presents last year. I envisage them framed and hung, a little torn, creased, with traces of sellotape still attached. The traces of the objects they enclosed, personalised by the recipient, showing their efforts to preserve/destroy the paper.

Village

Wandering around the Helgummanen fishing village on Fårö. Small wooden cabins filled with wooden bunks and wool blankets, miscellaneous tin objects, small rocks and pieces of glass, sea shells. I liked the use of driftwood as makeshift wall brackets, and the stones weighing down the lids on the dinghies, which tourists had used to spell out their initials, like I used to do with the rocks in the crater of Mt Eden.

I loved the juxtaposition of natural materials in the grain heavy timber, the different rich shades of varnish each cabin had, and the walls created by layering flat slate rocks on top of each other. The small cluster of sparely but sturdily built shacks reflected the village's sparse rocky surrounds and muted colour palette - greys, browns, greens and blues.

3 Grains of thought

Two recent wood grains I have come across over summer, and a close up of LIMBS, a work I did for The Physics Room Kiosk in 2009. The first is the side of a small shack at Helgummanen fishing village on Fårö. The second is a wood grain blouse from Weekday.

If I was a pattern I would most definitely be wood grain. The search continues for more wood grain printed/patterned/covered apparel/furniture/odds and ends.

People these days are always seemingly talking about 'inspiration'. Who inspires them, what inspires them and so on, as though their inspiration divulgences somehow justifues one's idea. People bemoan the demise of originality, the constant complaint of 'everything being done', but if perchance someone unearthed an original idea, it would have to be inspired by something. It couldn't just exist, could it? I was thinking about something along these lines today while I was ironing my wood grain shirt and admitting to myself that wood grain "inspires me".I don't actually know if it is the wood grain that actually inspires me, but perhaps the associations I make with the wood grain which forms a mind map of interlinked and intertwined inspirations.

It is strange thought. One I obviously haven't thought too clearly about. But it is quite nice having half realised thoughts on your finger tips.