Building Books and Sketching Structure

So, I was doing something else, but in my research, I came across this amazing project on The Guardian website and I thought I would share it here (also so that I won’t forget about it).

The idea of representing the structure of a book in three dimensions is, of course, not new – I mean artist’s book makers do this routinely, but I like the cross-over of literary work and model making. It also reminded me of both the tunnel books and, of course, the poem houses we have been making at some of the Writing in Creative Practice workshops.

And thinking of the structure of writing as having a shape is something that can be incredibly useful when writing. I have been sketching models of how my research is organised for both my Masters and my PhD – and in a way am doing something similar with the quilt (which is the thing I was doing when I was getting sidetracked, so more on my progress on that in a future post). I know that Pat Francis encourages her students to describe the shape of their writing to identify more clearly where they are going – is it a Christmas tree? is it an hourglas? is it a number of blocks that are fitting together like a dry-stone wall (or do they need to be moved and shaped slightly to make the fit work)? – and seeing how the argument develops and where the evidence is presented.

Right, just thought I would share this. Going back to work now…