Fifteen boxes of books

It turns out, I needn’t have stressed. The boxes arrived and everything went very smoothly, partly because I had imagined the worst, after which almost every eventuality would have felt easy; partly because my neighbour kindly helped get everything up to my flat. (Thank you, Garth!)

I wish I could provide documentary evidence, but you’ll just have to take my word for it because I forgot to take a single photo. The truck. The pallet. The transfer to my flat. Everything I should have captured, I missed. Pics or it didn’t happen? I really haven’t got the hang of this content thing.  

A little giddy with excitement, I got straight down to hand stamping the covers. Or some covers. I started on one box of twenty. First the image in pink and then the title in grey. The next day I discovered that many of this first batch of twenty were not great: the moisture of the first stamp bled into the second causing the letters of the title to blur. 

First lesson: leave longer between colours to allow the first to fully dry.

Stamping was interrupted by a weekend visit to family in Devon. We took a National Express bus from Victoria. What was already a long journey was made even longer by roadworks on the M4. Still, it gave me time to get stuck into Katie Kitamura’s Audition which enthralled and infuriated in equal measure. The infuriation was, I’m sure, a personal thing. On balance it’s still a firm recommendation. It’s shortlisted for the Booker, apparently, so don’t just take my word for it.  

While in Devon, Budleigh Salterton beckoned. We wanted to see some sea. It’s been nearly twenty five years since I was last there and I’d forgotten how stony the beach is and how varied the size of the stones. A wag has liberated some of the larger ones and distributed them around the town, complete with googly eyes. Made for a fun treasure hunt as we strolled about. 

The stones got me thinking of some much larger ones that I’d seen recently in a video. Max Lamb designs objects that could be pieces of furniture but could also be art. In 2017, he made this series of massively sculptural chairs:

Both the Budleigh googly eyed stones and Max Lamb's boulders are simple, wafer thin ideas, even if the execution of the latter was far from easy. And I mean that as an enthusiastic and envious endorsement. Perhaps inspired by both, on returning to London I was keen to pick up an side-project that never really got beyond the initial proof of concept. A few years ago I bought a small collection of coloured glass shapes. Here are a few examples.

With the right kind of glue and an appropriate jig, I created this...thing. I wouldn't call it a sculpture, even though I find it pleasingly sculptural. Perhaps assemblage is more apt because, well, that's what I did. I assembled it.

Anyway, I made that a few years ago. I have more glass pieces. I think it's time to do some more assembling.

Next week: more hand stamping, some hustling and perhaps some assembling.