An offcut from a 100-year-old piece of paste paper. A little treasure from Wyvern Bindery.
For centuries, bookbinders have used leftover binding paste to make decorative papers. With a little pigment added, this glue becomes an expressive and versatile medium for mark-making, etching, stippling, scratching and painting.
Are you allowed to take photographs of books in bookshops? Every time I go to Hay-on-Wye in Brecknockshire, Wales, I can’t help but document all of the most appealing book covers. I get in a bit of a font frenzy.
There is something about Hay that is so seductive and ancient, in a similar way to Lewes in Sussex. Browsing in shop windows with the Brecon Beacons or in Lewes’ case the South Downs silently waiting for you notice them in the background. It seems quite surreal. The complete antithesis to a shopping centre.
Here is a book I couldn’t leave in the bookshop as it’s so mad. ‘Aphrodisiacs in your Garden’ by Charles Connell (I can’t find anything about him online), published in 1965 and illustrated by Quentin Blake, nonetheless.
Who knew?!
Needless to say there isn’t much science in here but a lot of amusing anecdotes by certain ‘Mr K’s and ‘Mr G’s. Also worth noting is the fact that the man is always drawn in full gardening get-up, whilst his female companion seems to prefer sowing her seeds in the nude.
Her face!
Here are some of my favourite covers from this trip:
Perhaps my favourite find - a little hand-painted note tucked in a book. Are those UFO’s above the swan?
