Ways of Chronicling the Journey

I apologize if you've been seeing text over images in recent posts. It doesn't appear that way when I preview the post, but I just learned that it shows up that way on the site. I've fixed several but let me know if it happens again.

I'm fascinated by the work Dijanne is doing with her traveller's blanket and traveller's medallions. Imagine the experience of being a traveler before there were cameras, or guidebooks, or postcards; how inventive to build the story of the journey in cloth and stitches. Dijanne's versions are, of course, modern and personal and imaginative, yet always conjuring an echo of ancient travellers whose work has informed her.

In the same vein -- (and stay with me here, I realize that sometimes my connecting of dots comes out like mental hairpin turns to those who aren't in my brain, and actually sometimes it feels that way to me too) -- Sharon B. on Pintangle linked to the newest issue of Bonefolder, a gorgeous free-to-download e-zine on book arts. In this newest volume (Vol. 5 No. 1), book artist Susan Allix has written Colours of Persia: The Making of a Book (page 19 in the magazine). It's a beautiful account of her decision to make a limited-edition book of prints that tells the story of her travels through color. Allix writes, "Travelling around this country with my bag of crayons, sketchbooks, notebooks and camera, I had been quite overcome by its colour. There were turquoise domes against blue or black skies, sun-baked courtyards containing ever-repeated patterns of yellow and ultramarine tiles, glittering mirror work, piles of rosy pomengranates, eye-stretching fields of acid green rice crops. I could buy woven textiles from nomad people and rescue fragments of old blue and yellow ceramic from the gutter to remind myself of the colours when I returned to London. Travellers in Persia always seemed compelled to write of their experiences. In using accounts which stretched from the 1st century AD until the present day and setting them in the places in which they were written, a mind picture could be built across time showing both the continuity and vicissitudes of life. The intimate and narrative qualities of a book, together with its images, lend themselves to a travelling progress." 

Allix, a master book artist and printmaker, has also made a limited edition travel book on Egypt, on view here. Her prints and books and words are all magical. 

If you like printmaking, definitely visit Marja-Leena's Web site; Marja-Leena visits and comments here (and thankfully set me straight on my Swedish-Finnish confusion in the Marimekko post) and her site and work are both stunning. 

One more link . . . the movie Australia has just opened here, and All the Rage has a terrific interview with costume designer Catherine Martin, and her creation of "a staggering 2,000 costumes from 1930s-era vintage gowns to traditional aboriginal dress." I love reading the backstory that Martin creates to arrive at a look; it's a reminder of all that clothing communicates if we look carefully.

Comments

[Heather]

Interesting - my final project in my book-making class here at KU was a book chronicling my travels through North America. I will link to this site as well - you're giving me too many things to read these days!

[marja-leena]

Thanks so much for the lovely mention! I love your title for this post, and it dawned on me that the way we travel the net and connect to each other through blogging is a form of chronicling our journeys too!