blanket stitch

i think my favourite way of making books is to attach pages using a blanket stitch. these books are good because they are easy to make: simple, repetitive and easily recognizable. i feel that a blanket stitch has a kind of intimacy. especially if they are small (i like to make them palm size). the books that i make never have covers. but the pages don’t open that easily, they flip back quickly into place, hiding their contents. the books are revealing but also secretive. if you tear out a page of the book, a nice pattern is made along the edge of the paper where it has been ripped from the thread. when all the pages are gone, the stitches left in the thread are quite beautiful. they retain their shape somewhat, and have torn remnants of pages tangled up in them. the pages and the stitches keep a noticeable reminder of each other once they are separated. i like all these things.

i have been trying hard not to remember my dreams. also i have been trying to think of amazing, fantastical things before i fall asleep so i have more chance of dreaming about great situations rather than lovers.

i think that if i were to make art about scent i would only want to record the scents of other people (people who i have strong relationships with), and also of things close to my heart. i would, for example, have a small box full of jasmine flowers because i think that is exactly like romantic love; intoxicating, overwhelming, sweet, sickly and private. also the flowers wither, die and rot. the scent changes (but it doesn’t necessarily go bad). i would accompany a person’s captured scent with a piece of writing, the smell memory or the particular feelings i have associated with that scent.  an example might be these sentences, which i wrote to my sister: … i don’t know exactly how i feel. i know i love things about him such as his smell, which is really comforting like sleep. when i visit on cold nights he gives me his blanket. it smells warm and safe and good, and it makes me feel that way too. perhaps the smell of other people would be in their blankets, although i think blankets hold their own special scent which is like a sleeping person rather than a person in real life. for my own smell, i would have pink blanky for my sleeping state and red jumper for my waking state.