Joan
My book for this month’s theme, ‘Harbinger’, was based on William Blake’s Europe: a prophecy (1794). I love the way in which Blake combines text and imagery in his work and the subject matter of this particular book is so relevant to the theme. In its day, Blake’s book was a brave critique of the Enlightenment’s promotion of science, logic and mathematics, at the expense of human imagination. He criticised the impact of organised religion for restricting spiritual freedom and the imposition of inflexible ‘laws’ and he parodied Freemasonry and the idea of God as a benevolent designer. It was not a prophecy in the sense of predicting the future, but an analysis of European society and beliefs as he saw them at the end of the 18th century.
My book is a simple concertina, with mono print and bound in a soft cover of waxed paper.
Gill
For this months theme of Harbinger I chose the Magpie as a Harbinger of bad luck, using the well known rhyme…. 1 for sorrow….etc.
I cut the magpie out of lino then hand burnished the image onto a variety of papers. I used an already made concertina book.
