Linda Calgaro took this piece home with her yesterday, and I realised I hadn’t blogged about it, so here are some notes about it.
John Irving is my favourite author.
Hotel New Hampshire is one of my favourite books (I have many).
I picked up a lovely second hand hardback copy of HNH a few years ago, but kept the old paperback I’d bought in the 80’s because i couldn’t bear to chuck it away, even though it was falling apart.
So this piece uses that old falling apart copy of the Hotel New Hampshire.
The box is sits in is an old stationery box.
Then there are a number of smaller boxes inside, each with a tiny book.
Each tiny book’s cover is a chapter heading from HNH
There’s a monopoly dog (in honour of Sorrow, the dog in the story)
Each book in the boxes is done a little differently.
The mossy green is a stamp pad. I also used rubber stamps and sewing pattern tissue paper.
This book sits on its cover – a concertina which has been glued together and finished off with a sewing machine.
I love this tiny tiny book the best. It’s made of tiny price tags, each covered in some well-loved wrapping paper on one side and book pages from HNH on the other. The letters rubber stamped with sepia ink make the words “Keep on Passing the Open Windows”, one of the mantras in HNH
Overall, I think it looks a lot like a box of chocolates, which isn’t such a bad thing! materials, in case you’re interested, upcycled stationery box, cardboard, paper, ribbon, ink, rubber stamps, monopoly dog, ribbon, waxed thread.
