Properties As My References.

I’m starting this post as series of short posts based on small notes I take while working with my crafts. So this post is to be continued.

When I'm making my crafts, I always have some references in mind that influence and give me ideas. These references are mostly objects I see. Also, when someone ask 'What inspires you?', has the preconception of that you are inspired by some kind of figurative thing, because if you are making something like a simple notebook, you may be inspired by some object or figurative image, and that is true many times, but not always. In my case, the objects or figurative images that inspire me are, for instance, aged books with broken covers and yellowish pages that I often find in antique stores. Then, when I think, for example, about these books at the moment of trying to get new ideas for making the next notebook, I'm remembering these books and the way I saw them. This means that I'm using my visual memory and that the inspiration for my work is quite based on my visual perception. I have a big inventory of images in my memory where I take new ideas from. Visually and figuratively.

But there is something else apart or together with the visual perception of the inspiring objects and their images in my memory. It is something inherent in the objects or more precisely, inherent in the material of the objects. It is the natural properties of the materials, their essential qualities, and that is where I find their beauty and inspiration.

I find these natural properties only in natural materials, of course, like the kind of papers I use for my notebooks, wood, leather, linen… It means that I'm not only inspired by old broken books.

 

There is a strong attraction I feel for these qualities, they inspire me and that is what gives me pleasure in working with crafts.

The pleasure or sensations of the properties is something that I'm always trying to analyze while working with some notebook or other crafts. More precisely, what I try to analyze is the relationship between my internal sensations with the perception of the natural properties of the materials that are external to me. It was because of that relationship that I started making notebooks. I wanted a notebook that was in complete relation between its properties and qualities and my mind.