Musings on books

Hollyhocks at Avebury, seems to have been a good year for these plants that love to grow in hot sun in practically soil less ground

Life has been quiet this last week, though I have been dyeing cotton to start a weaving project, but at the same time my mind had strayed to making small books, and when I had ordered my cotton yarn I also bought some handmade Lokta paper, with a brown hand printed (fern leave) paper for the cover. All that is in the future but my interest was sparked by someone I had met at our annual megameet in Avebury.

He is a graphic designer called Andrew Johnstone, (though his forum name is Common Era) and his degree final had been a wonderful book called The Prehistoric Peak, beautifully executed with a cover of leather, but not content with just this book, he had also produced a coffee table book of black and white images, and a whole boxful of coloured co-ordinated small walk guides for the peak. This project had run into thousands, but it had been done with such passionate commitment to the subject matter - them old stones - that one can only hope that he will get over the difficulty of photographing on National Trust sites - yes people 'big brother' has just arrived again, you have to get permission to photograph on their outdoor sites!

Anyway details of his book can be found here, on the Wordpress Heritage Journal

http://heritageaction.wordpress.com/2009/06/27/the-prehistoric-peak-an-exhibition/

And, because I am very proud of how our democratic Journal is progressing Gordon Kingston's essay on 'Some Thoughts on Portal Dolmens' is pretty well spot on too ;)

http://heritageaction.wordpress.com/

My books on the other hand, will be kept as personal commonplace books, recording all the church material which has now gone across two blogs and needs drawing together. Though how I'm going to make them still needs to be worked out.