telling my story

Last week my section had a critique to see what people have been working on.  Since I had had so many realizations in that past week, I thought it would be a perfect opportunity to share the process I've been going through and the new decisions I've made (see post below).  So, I decided to make a book telling that story.  First I wrote a really long journal entry making sense of it all, writing in a way that I would want to portray it to other people.  Then I figured out what kind of book structure would be appropriate for conveying this story.  I settled on the Concertina Binding, which I had never done before but is expertly explained in Keith Smith's "Non-Adhesive Binding Volume I" (side note: I was ecstatic when I found out that the library carried some of his books, and I am planning on renewing them continuously until I can't any more or I find a way to own them myself - they run at about $30 each!!)  Anyway, next I condensed the writing I had done into more concise parts that I could hand-write on the pages of the book.  I painted some words in watercolor.  And then I think I might have broken the world record for book-binding speed: I started the book the evening before the critique and finished it about an hour before.  Oops.  Due to the stressful nature of this process the craftsmanship leaves much to be desired, BUT I finished it.  The critique was also a little anxiety-ridden because not everyone had a chance to actually read it and we only had 5 minutes to present it and get feedback (not good), but I think I got some good feedback from a few people and although sharing something quite personal was challenging, I'm glad I did it.  Also, I really loved this binding and I want to explore it more!

Here are some pictures.