Books!

I love books, it’s a weakness. At the moment I’m trying not to buy (m)any but that being said I just got myself a couple that are kinda exciting.
First up is Fashioning Technology by Syuzi Pakhchyan which covers methods of for adding basic electronics to craft projects. Squee! I can think of so many things to try with this stuff. Of course it will have to wait as I’m not presently ready to start lying in all sorts of new supplies and tools (where would I put them?). I love the idea of trying fiber optics and LEDs with shibori, it sets my heart all aflutter!
The descriptions of how to do things seem pretty straightforward, as I haven’t tried any of the techniques yet I can’t say for sure. The projects they show range from cute to lunky but as I’m more interested in how the electronic stuff works this suits me just fine. I may follow a plan once but usually after that I just take the stuff that interests me and reapply it in some thing else.
The second book I got was A Collaboration With Nature by Andy Goldsworthy I’ve seen Andy Goldsworthy’s work before but only bits here and there.

I’ve never known much about him or his methods. It appeals to me so much, I love the process he goes through to create these ephemeral works of art. All of his sculpture is made on site with found materials. He visits a site many times and listens to what it tells him is possible. These are works that are meant to be reabsorbed by the environment they emerged from, either slowly in the case of stones or quickly in the case of leaves or ice.

He often works without tools simply using the things he finds at hand such as thorns or stones. He photographs all of his work including the things that break or disintegrate as he is working. There are terse descriptions along with the images and some of them are really quite funny and revealing. It makes me ridiculously happy that there is someone doing this work even if I never see it beyond books. I expect the reality of his life is quite mundane but the work evokes an image of a solitary druidic figure wandering the woods listening to the suggestion it makes and creating these stunning moments in time.