January 2024 - 'Locality'

Our first meeting of 2024 was on Zoom on Saturday 27th January, when our swap theme was 'Locality'.  It was lovely to see the different ways in which this theme had been interpreted, with people taking a wide range of approaches to the word.

(At the time of writing, not everyone had managed to send me photos, so I'll update this page as and when they arrive!)

Margaret B took us on a fascinating  tour of her home village/town of Haxby, using a flag book structure within a concertina book.

Janet B's epic Hadrian's Wall book is 2.5metres long, representing the wall snaking its way across Northern England, including 3D milecastles and a handy tourist map. 

Pat D focused on the history and development of her local park, in a structure which folded out from a photo of the park gates.

Judi P's petite concertina book was placed inside a box embellished with real shells and containing calligraphed lyrics from the traditional Northumbrian song 'When the Boat Comes In' alongside a shoal of 'little fishies'.

Jo D created a hand drawn map of her house and surrounding area, which also happens to be on the site of the world's first steam-powered railway line, carrying coal from Hetton Colliery to the banks of the River Wear.

Mari H was inspired by free postcards from Australia Post designed to be sent for free to 'someone you care about'.  These formed the covers, bound with ribbons and the pages contained Australian picture clues and thought-provoking questions. 

Ruth R indulged her love of miniature books to create a little library of volumes, one of which contained her own paintings of Richmondshire.

Janet A created a beautiful book listing the fortresses and castles of the borderlands between Scotland and Northumbria, evoking the routes of the Border Reivers.

Karenna F's book explored the history of the area she lives in, with focus on some of the historical buildings and fascinating characters who had lived there.

Jill W had created an album of information and specially taken photographs of her home area, which she decided she'd keep as it had grown too big and heavy to post!

On the whole, we all agreed that we'd really enjoyed the research side of this theme and it was really interesting to hear about the stories we'd each uncovered.

Next meeting will be April 20th - a week earlier than usual - when our theme will be 'Heroes'.  

August 2023 - Buffet with Books!

Almost a year after our last in-person meeting, we met up again on August 2nd at Café 16 in St Nicholas’s Cathedral Newcastle- 14 past/present members and some long-time friends of the group! It was a very rainy and rather miserable day weather wise, but the sun was certainly shining in our corner of the café as we enjoyed a delicious buffet lunch and swapped news, stories and some beautiful handmade books.   

One of the joys of meeting in person is that we all get a chance to handle the books, rather than just seeing everyone else’s over Zoom and each of these books made its way slowly round the table before reaching its new owner.

Our swap theme was to make a book using paper that we had been saving (or hoarding!) - a crime we're all a bit guilty of!

Marise H brought a concertina book of precious Art Deco pictures adorned with lace, ribbons and flowers:

Pat D had made an exploding kaleidoscope book which twisted to reveal four different sides:

Jo D used small pieces of much loved papers to remind her of places where she’d bought them:

Karenna F created a very clever binding using leather and cork fabric to hold precious papers from her stash:

Judi P had created a book with Gateshead’s  Arts Diamond organisation which used some lovely paper swatches and fitted into a decorated box:

Janet A calligraphed the words of a beautiful Irish blessing, inspired by a choral piece she’d sung:

Janet B used a precious piece of illumination she’d created and added some letters to remind us to ‘Shine’.  The pages were cleverly held in place with ribbon so they can be removed if needed:

Mari H sent a cunningly folded and bound book which held inspirational quotes about writing:

Margaret B used some much loved paper to create a book of fluttering butterflies and quotes about friendship:

(Photos are mine, mostly taken at the table – apologies for any stray crumbs or photographer shadows!)

Thank you to Janet B for all the organising  - such a lovely day.  

Our next meeting will be on Zoom on Saturday October 28th when the swap theme will be 'Woven, Sewn or Printed.' 

 

 

 

January 2023

Our winter Zoom meeting was blighted by serious internet connection issues, although thankfully the fact that our signal kept dropping out didn’t affect the meeting too much!

Our chosen theme was ‘Unusual Shapes or Structures.’

Margaret demonstrated an amazing piece of paper engineering in her stunning folded triangle book:

Mari H sent a spooky book from Australia:

Janet B was inspired by a tutorial on the British Library website and her Christmas copy of the Radio Times to create ‘I’ve always had a soft spot for Columbo’ – a heart shaped tv quiz book:

Janet A was inspired by the Mantras of Mother Theresa:

Jill used handmade paper and a ‘Flat style Austrian Reverse Piano Hinge' binding (the one Margaret calls a ‘Striptease!’) to create her ‘Spring’ book:

and Pat D was inspired by bees and honeycombs:

In a slight change, we’ve decided the next meeting will be at a slightly earlier time  – 10am – and on a Sunday morning, April 16^th with the theme ‘Contrasts’.  

We’re also hoping that our summer meeting will once again be an ‘in person’ event, with food!

October 2022

Apologies for the delay in posting this!  Somehow Autumn and Winter have passed by!

Our Autumn Zoom meeting took place on Saturday October 29^th and the theme – appropriately enough! – was ‘Autumn’.  As always, it was fascinating to see so many different interpretations of the theme!

Janet B used ink decorated real autumn leaves to decorate and embellish her book:

Janet A’s book recalled her visit to ‘New England in the Fall’:

Jo D used her super set of Crayola crayons for a hand-drawn ‘abcde-rie’ of Autumn:

Pat D was inspired by Bep van Gasteren’s embroidered books and a stash of
autumnal fabrics:

Margaret B used words and printed cards to create her variation on a star book:

and Mari H sent us sunshine from Australia in her ‘Sunny Book’:

Next meeting was planned for January 28^th 2023, with the theme ‘Unusual Shapes and/or Structures’.  

August 2022 - The Live Event!

 After two and half years of Zoom meetings, we were finally able to get together IN PERSON in Newcastle upon Tyne for lunch on Thursday 4^th August.  

This much anticipated meeting was organised by Janet Barnett, who had also discovered the perfect venue –Café 16 at St Nicholas’s Cathedral, not far from the Central Station.  Run by the Oswin Project, it aims to support former offenders by giving them training and employment. 

The café is in a beautiful building (with an amazing ceiling!) at the back of the Cathedral. The food was delicious and very reasonably priced. with cakes and quiches from the bakery at HMP Northumberland.

They had reserved a long table for us and were more than happy for us to stay and do our book-swap after we’d eaten our lunch: we were even treated to some live music as the afternoon wore on!

It was wonderful to see people again, talk about bookmaking and other shared crafting interests, and catch up on life post-pandemic. 

It was also fabulous to have a live book swap and a chance to handle and examine everyone’s creations at close quarters.

Margaret had also brought us a lucky-dip bag of swaps from her stash and shared with us the amazing ‘Cacophony’ by Ed Hutchins which is even more impressive in real life than it appeared on Zoom!

Of course, Quarto has always been a place where cake is greatly appreciated and so the sharing of Lemon Drizzle, Carrot, Chocolate, Coffee and Rainbow Cakes cake – provided by the last of the Tea and Coffee fund money – made for a fitting finale before for our journeys home!

Our theme for this swap – most appropriately – was ‘Happy’ or ‘Happiness’ and as always there was a wide interpretation of the topic.

Mari H had sent another lovely book from Australia – we were particularly taken with the simple but really effective binding as well as the appropriate sentiment that happiness might be ‘Lunch with Friends’! 

Marise took inspiration in the teachings of Buddha and the idea that ‘Happiness is a Choice’:

Janet A used a rainbow of wow-folds to create her two-sided book celebrating an ‘Amazing World’:

Jill’s signature stitched book was an album of ‘People and Things’ which bring her happiness:

Pat’s construction – a collapsed exploding box! – focused on her ‘Happy Places’:

Ruth’s book used hand decorated and calligraphed pages to explore quotes about happiness:

Jo had set herself a challenge to remember that ‘Happiness Lies in Small Things’:

Janet B repurposed a lovely fabric cover and some handmade petal paper to explore the poem ‘Buttercups and Daisies’:

Margaret created collage paper from calligraphy newsletters created for Northumbrian Scribes by the much-missed Susan Moor.  She had also raided her postcard collection to create an envelope book with bookmark corners and some secret hiding spaces:

(Apologies for some of the less than brilliant photos taken on the day - I seem to have been in my own light! Thanks to Janet Ashmore for the photos of her book and of us all together.)

We’ve decided that this needs to be an annual event and are hoping to repeat the experience next August in the same venue.  It was also decided to continue on Zoom with the Autumn meeting which will be on Saturday 28^th October at 10.30.  Our theme will be ‘Autumn’ and a Zoom invitation will go out about a week before.

One page of Ruth’s book seemed to really sum up how blessed we are in being part of such an enthusiastic group of creators: we certainly lived up to this mantra on Thursday! 

Enjoy the rest of the summer!

Susan Moor

We are all deeply saddened by the recent death of Susan Moor, one of the earliest members of Quarto, a phenomenal book artist, scholar, teacher and friend.

As a renowned calligrapher and a scholar of illuminated manuscripts, Susan’s own work was often breath-taking in its attention to detail. On several occasions, Susan shared her research with us at Quarto and listening to her was fascinating: her passion was infectious and her ability to explain complex ideas in terms a lay-person could understand made her research so accessible.

Susan was the maker of exceptional books – those she put into the swap were always deeply desirable objects, coveted by everyone who saw them. When we all displayed our work together at the start of each meeting, no one ever needed to ask which book was Susan’s: her talents as both calligrapher and artist made her books a visual joy, and her eclectic knowledge and vast range of interests led her to interpret each theme in a completely unique way – only Susan, when given the theme of ‘Butterflies’ could have created an incredible ‘Killing Jar’ book!    Those fortunate enough to draw her name in the swap took home true works of art.

Aside from her talents as an artist, Susan was also a patient and skilful teacher. For many of us who joined Quarto in later years, she was the gatekeeper to both calligraphy and book making, opening up the possibilities for us of what a ‘book’ could be.  She was generous to a fault with ideas and inspiration and was always happy to give advice and make suggestions about paper and ink choices, techniques and formats.  It was always fascinating to see the structures Susan had taught us re-surfacing in later book swaps.

Above all, Susan was a much-loved friend, someone with a strong sense of humour and the absurd, who brightened up a room just by being in it.  We will always miss her.

(The photos on this page are of just some of Susan's Quarto creations.  If anyone has any other photos of her books they'd like to share, please do email them to me and I'll add them to this post!)

UPDATED: Many thanks to Janet Ashmore, who has shared her photos of the book she received from Susan in 2007.  The pen lid alongside gives a really good indication of scale.

April 2022 - Bumper Double Post Part 2

 Our April meeting took place on Saturday 29^th, again on Zoom.  It was particularly lovely surprise to have Karenna join us for this – we’ve really missed her! – and to catch up with everybody’s news - book-related and otherwise! 

Our theme for this meeting was ‘Hope’ which seemed particularly appropriate, given the events that have happened since our January meeting, and once again it was fascinating to see how the theme had inspired different makers in very different ways 

Pat Duncan’s book followed a plant from hopeful seed planting to full bloom and included a surprise pop-up and a little packet of seeds to ‘grow your own’ version!

Margaret Beech took a favourite quotation ‘Hope is an obligation’ and used it to create a folded out structure, decorated with paper she designed using the ‘My Word Art’ app.  The repetition of the words makes the whole piece feel like a real affirmation of hope.

Janet Ashmore used a fan structure and the very dry humour of Flanders and Swann to ‘celebrate’ the British weather  - and one not-so-dry element in particular -  in ‘The Joys of our Year’.  (Janet even sang it to us herself!   If you missed it, clicking this link will take you to the original version Flanders and Swann - A song of the weather - YouTube )

Mari Harrison used lettering and collage in a side-bound book to think about different types of hope and when it might be needed most.

Ruth Rowland took inspiration from the words of her favourite poem ‘Ithaca’  by Constantine Cavafy. She used her own hand marbled paper, made during one of our ‘messy days’ and handmade paper to create a side bound, hand lettered book. 

Jo Duncan was inspired by a construction by Diane Bond, Mexican ‘nichos’ and personal shrines and included found objects and words by Emily Dickinson and Mother Julian of Norwich.

Janet Barnett found hope in the philosophy of Winnie the Pooh by A.A. Milne and used a 3D concertina box construction with origami inspired by Japanese thread books to create scenes from E.H. Shepard’s famous illustrations and some of Pooh’s wisest words.

We are delighted that after two and half years of 'remoteness' we are finally planning a face to face meet up in early August and members can either swap books in person on the day, or can opt to join in with the postal swap instead. 

Although we decided that we think what we do is really just 'nonsense with paper', it is a huge source of happiness to all of us and so our theme will be ‘Happy, Happiness or Things that make you Happy.' Here's to raising a cuppa to that in person!