Found Objects - January 2025

Our first meeting of the year took place on Zoom on Saturday 25th January, with the theme of 'Found Objects'. In the aftermath of Storm Eowyn which gusted across the country on the 24th, taking powerlines and trees with it, Janet A found herself without power and was unable to join us in person, although she has contributed a lovely book to the swap.

We were also very sad to hear of the death of our Australian member, Mari Harrison, who has been our first - and so far only - postal member for fifteen years.  We're planning a special tribute post to her here in the coming weeks, featuring a retrospective of her books but we're sad to think there will be no more 'Harrison House Productions' heading across the ocean after this meeting.  Mari's books were always beautifully constructed, often featuring her lovely and very distinctive handwriting and her sense of fun and humour came across clearly in her work.   Our thoughts are with Mari's family- she will be greatly missed by us all.

Mari's organisational skills in getting books to the UK put the rest of us to shame - especially those of us who tend to be 'last-minuters'.  This last lovely book gathers together found poems and images on the subject of weather through the seasons:

Ruth's newspaper and magazine collage book showed not only that interesting images can be 'found' anywhere, but that they can suggest entirely new objects - or even a full narrative - to the observant eye:

Pat's 'found object' was a bag with pages from a tear-off calendar, almost forgotten and then rediscovered in a drawer.  She used Sara Coleridge's poem 'The Garden Year' to accompany the images:

Jo's concertina book took inspiration from a visit to the Foundling Museum and the preserved 'tokens' which were left at the Foundling Hospital by mothers hopeful of one day being reunited with their children:

Janet A's flag book focused on amusing and bizarre Road Signs, designed to cheer up the winter and make us smile!

Judi also created a flag book - her first! - featuring her favourite doggy images, from a serendipitously found catalogue:

 Margaret's Found Objects all related to her visit to the fascinating Basel Paper Mill Museum - her descriptions of which made us all want to book a visit right away:

Check out their website https://www.baslerpapiermuehle.ch/en/ to find out more and dream of a visit!

Janet B used found natural objects and a clay leaf from an on-going art project to create this seasonal book, reminding us that great oaks grow from little acorns. She also used 'found poetry' and her own words to create the lovely text:

Our next meeting will be on Zoom on  26th April with the theme 'Stamp Book'.