Witterings about lots of things.
"Imagine your shadow burning off the page / As the dear world and the dead word disengage" - Don Paterson, 'The White Lie'. In the midst of autumn the many lovely libraries of Glasgow are even more tempting than usual... and there's something especially secret and special about the libraries that have maintained that dim,... Continue Reading →
Lorna Sage's daughter, in this wonderful article, describes an early memory of 'clomping alongside' her mother on a walk across a park, in ugly Clark's shoes, while Lorna was 'barefoot and wearing a slinky catsuit zipped down to her naval'. Lorna Sage wrote about Plato, John Milton, Doris Lessing and Angela Carter as Professor of English... Continue Reading →
The rain and wind are caterwhauling around these parts at the moment, but the city has proved itself full of brightness and exciting things (as well as rain), from beautiful foreign films to the thrill of treasure-seeking at a Sunday fleamarket. Here's a look at the gems that I found at the Glue Factory fleamarket today... I got... Continue Reading →
While searching through the bookcases in search of tutoring materials, I pulled out a beautiful 1969 print of Edward Lear's The Owl and The Pusscat. It's so utterly beautiful and of-its-time that I want to frame every single page. Except that I can't bear to rip the book up to do so. Weren't the sixties great? Dreamy, trippy - even the fish in the sea are absolutely gorgeous. I was on a roll by then, and found some other delights, most of them from the 70s. The World of Uncle Peter deserves a place in my heart for featuring a protagonist (Uncle Peter, naturally) who is an ex-art school dude who frequently has daydreams that looks suspiciously plant-based... (this was 1979). There is also a definite Royal Tenenbaums feel to the list of characters. I love that mix of old staid portraits and sleepy cartoon animals. Another gem was 'The Witch's Hat', which was one of my favourite books when I was a little critter. The bat-print on the inside cover is exactly what I'd like in a t-shirt these days... And the illustrations (from 1980) have a certain Pink Floydd appeal to them! Lastly, 'Magic' and 'I thought I saw' used to haunt my dreams as a little one. There was something about bright colours with sparseness of illustration that really got to me - I have no idea why. Now I think they are an inspired bit of art. Part of me really wants all this stuff on my walls - some of it is so perfect. But I don't think I'll ever be able to dismantle the books. They're all little works of genius.
Rainy Sunday (again!) so I caught up with some card-making. The inspiration for vintage-style greetings cards was a big pack of old wrapping paper that I picked up in a charity shop for free (does nobody else want chintzy relics?) In the pack were some fantastically kitsch paper patterns - fluffy white kittens, wearing top hats, sitting in champagne glasses, was a particular highlight. Some gorgeous painted floral paper too. I did another round of the charity shops and picked up a few old women's magazines (from 1939, 1966 and 1977) and bought a few old Jackie annuals on Ebay. Voila: I was ready to assemble all of this cultural flotsam into something new and shiny. I absolutely love the out-dated bizarreness that is dotted around these old magazines - in 1939 a chunky knit was a 'recipe for charm'. 1970's Jackie contained casual, friendly warnings not to fall in love with 'married men', accompanied by a picture of a man with shades and a moustache looking like, frankly, an ominous prospect (was this really aimed at teenagers?) In another 1970s magazine I found an alarmingly blithe 'Are You Poisoning Your Family?' nestled amongst the cooking pages. Hours of happy reading.
I've been collecting pretty books in charity shops for a while now (yes, yes I DO judge a book by its cover) and finally got round to figuring out what to do with them, namely, turning them into little notebooks. The purple Indian ink was to dye the inside covers. A sharp knife and a selection of different strength glues were used to fit all the lovely fancy notebook paper inside. I have no idea where this is going, but once this prototype has finished drying I'll be setting up a little notebook factory. Notebook for Christmas, anyone?
Amy Jardine 