Saturday, February 27, 2010

Open Sesame ~ Close Sesame

Converge exhibition has come and gone in a flash of five days only. It was a wonderful experience! I met some fabulous people, made great contacts and thoroughly enjoyed being in charge, with Julia and Natalie, of how the exhibition looked and what was included.

We had about 30 people to the 'opening'. Everyone had a great time and the three of us got fabulous feedback.

Here we are, the artists, Natalie Bateman (left), me (in the middle) and Julia Morrell (right). Behind us you can see Julia's triptych "Kingfisher Message" (digital prints on canvas) and Natalie's "Abstract on Lovers" (acrylic on canvas). In the blurry foreground are 4 little artist books by me.

Uncle Martin Ballangarry helped open the show and welcomed us to country. Here he is with his grandson looking at my books. He is such a fabulous guy! I enjoyed meeting him enormously.

Another shot of the crowd. It was a good size. I got to speak to just about everyone I think.


I took this shot the next day so you had a better look at my "bootiques".

5 comments:

Liz Steel said...

Fantastic - glad it went well. Sorry I couldn't quite pop in!

Tina said...

On etsy, I read that for your books you don't use coptic stitch because of the gaps. What kind of stitch do you use as an alternative?

I would like to bind my own sketchbook but I find that most of the tutorials out there are for coptic stitch only. Thanks for any information!

Jan Allsopp said...

Thanks Liz. I'm sorry we aren't closer too. Oh for European distances!

Tina, I use a version of the stitching traditionally used for binding hard cover books (still used today for stitched ones). I don't know what it is called sorry. If you find a tutorial for a hard cover book the stitch used will be suitable. (I've been meaning to post a tutorial for years! One day I'll get to it.) The success of the spine in my books is not only the stitch but the glueing and the addition of scrim. These three in tandem result in a book that opens without gaps but still opens flat. Good luck with it. Email me so if I have your contact details if I discover what the stitch is called.

melanie said...

so glad it went so well :)

I love your bootiques! They look gorgeous.

Jan Allsopp said...

Thanks melanie. They smell good too!