Pro Tem (Blog) | C A R O L A N N L I V I N G S T O N E

“The English travel writer Bruce Chatwin wrote about a group of white explorers who were trying to force the pace of their African porters. The porters, within sight of their destination for the day, sat down and refused to move. As they explained to their frustrated employers, ‘‘we are waiting for our spirits to catch up with our bodies.’’- John Thackara, In the Bubble: Speed

From the invention of the spinning jenny onward, the Industrial Revolution has concerned itself with speed and efficiency. We wanted to “make products efficiently to get the greatest volume of goods to the largest number of people, turning labor to mechanization…” as William McDonough aptly stated in Cradle to Cradle. Without criminalizing technology and our desire to improve our quality of life, I think it’s worth questioning the effects of efficiency on our lifestyle.

Thackara raises many important questions and ideas:

Speed is not free.
Chronos, absolute time, is different than Kairos, qualitative time.
A speed society might create the precondition for psychosis
Italians have an expression for the ‘sweetness of doing nothing’; dolce far niente. Do we have a word for that?
We have moved into REAL TIME ENTERPRISE, a rapid pace of business that used to be determined by the speed of hand delivered mail.
We are ‘always on’. Does this give us time to reflect?
Nemawashi is a Japanese term that means the creation of trust through time. It is thought to be the groundwork for understanding. If we skip this step, how do we understand one another?
Social capital takes time to grow.
Slowness doesn’t have to be a drag on civilization.
In Israel schools, time is taught as a concept and a way of understanding other cultures. Do we consider time enough?

Speed and time are related to architecture, though it seems counter-intuitive. Architecture is not frozen music, no matter how still it appears to be. For instance, intimate spaces all of have a sense of time. At my own house, we haven’t owned a television in years. It’s not that we don’t enjoy it, or that we judge those who have one, but the temptation to be drawn into hours of semi-conscious watching is too strong. By design, we wanted the furniture in our living room to be arranged in such a way that encourages conversation—something articulated to us by a good friend one day and we adopted. How many people arrange chairs around their wide-screen tv, with no sense of a communal circle in which to engage? By design, spaces can encourage slowness even on a small scale.

Industry poses a larger question; how can a factory support slowness? Should it? In business and industry, constant acceleration is unsustainable. Whether we consider the draining of oil wells, over-fishing, clear-cutting, or massive monoculture farming, it’s clear that there needs to be a balance and moderation in order to support the replenishment of natural resources. It’s redundant and overstated, but true. Acceleration through ‘brute force’ is ripe with negative consequences, but we are a system based on growth.If we slow down, we also need to remain prosperous (see above, `slowness doesn’t have to be a drag on civilization’).

The site of my inquiry is a peninsula that cradles Prince’s Cove, Eastport, Maine. There have been generations of fishery buildings at this site. The earliest structures (at the height of sardine and fish-based fertilizer production in the region) were large and rambling. There were a series of small outbuildings that created a kind of village, a testament to the level of activity that once took place. Eastport at one time had the largest sardine factory in the world. Clusters of sardine packing plants were scattered over the island. As time went by and the fishing industry flagged, the buildings at Prince’s Cove became fewer, and today, three uniform concrete structures are the last remnants of a golden age. As the proposals for new commercial fisheries roll in, plans to demolish the remaining structures are in full swing. What could these new forms be? How might they consider the speed of sustainability, the temporality of enterprise, and their place among the ghosts of buildings past (or to come)?

Architecture students- on occasion- stumble out of the BEB, bloodshot eyes and empty coffee mugs, stowaways from their brick storm-battered ship in port- but only when pressed. The opportunity to venture out was one of the primary draws, for me, to this RISD. I was hemmed in frequently by a heavy departmental regiment of classes, and elective offerings I unfortunately missed included the departments of painting, printmaking, textiles, sculpture, furniture, and glass- to name just a few. Ironically, an elective requirement was all that stood between myself and my precious diploma, at the end of the spring semester, 2011. This may well be the lightest, brightest, and craftiest blog post I have yet penned- hooray for small, rectangular pleasures.

And so happily, I learned to make books.

Concertina

This first example, above, was my all-time favorite; a concertina form that holds separate signatures within a small half-accordion frame. This cover is made from a soft green Lotka paper (traditionally made from a plant in Nepal), with each signature held by waxed binding thread of a different color. This will be the format for a portfolio of architecture work.

This narrow, horizontal book (above) is a well-known Japanese Stab binding, filled with hand-made denim and abaca paper, with tea leaf & abaca `tipin’ (meaning an additional page that is different than the body of the book and often is the first sheet you encounter when you open the book).

Much more of a traditional `book’, the above binding is a kind of Perfect-Bound book, also known as flex binding, where the pages are glued in a text-block but still flexible and separate from the Davey Board spine. The fabric is silk, and the interior of the boards are lined with suminagashi paper (Japanese traditional marbling technique using ink (sumi) and water).

These two books are not shining finished examples of binding techniques, but they were learning experiences and represent two types that I’d like to explore further because of their durability. The top image is a Sewn-to-Tape binding, using a cloth that belonged to my grandmother as the cover. Cloth must first be prepared by adhering it to paper and drying, and if you buy book cloth this will have already been done for you. The tape itself is made of fabric, and can be purchased in various widths. The bottom is Sewn-to-Chord- much trickier in my opinion and I much prefer the tape.

Along with accordion books, we tried several different folded structures that have their roots in origami. This sweet little book includes a ribbon that would allow the book to be tied closed or hung open. I later played with paste papers I had made to create two variations on this theme, below:

Paste papers are just what they sound like– plain paper that is painted with a paste-like paint. Using tools & implements that have texture or teeth, you can manipulate multiple colors and the paper begins to have a sense of depth as a result of the translucency created by the paint. Later, this paper can be trimmed creating beautiful snapshots of color and texture.

The Dos a Dos is a simple folded structure that we learned early on in class while mastering simple binding stitches. It also lends itself well to color and content play:

The Altered Book is something we spent very little time on, but held the most fascination for me. Some altered book artists are just, well, badass. Their alterations are pure labors of love. I hope to post some links to these amazing artists in a future blog, but for now my first humble effort- a used book called “The Fear Makers”– which involved a fictional story set in Germany during WWII. Not knowing the story line (and with no time to read it), I responded to the cover, title, and my own take on the events of the time. This was the altered state:

A few final projects and thoughts:

The box was a time and measurement intensive endeavor, but with satisfying results. This box is made with a linen book cloth, bone clasp (from already deceased animal bones, for those concerned about animal cruelty), and Lotka paper latch and lining:

Along with bookbinding, we made paper (as mentioned) and honed our typesetting skills– with a trio of linoleum cut, wood type, and lead type all poured into one project, we learned to (at the very least) appreciate the pain and suffering of our typesetting forbears and (at the most) appreciate the wonderful possibilities of super-cool antique typesets. Below is the origin of my experiments– a wedding guest book for dear friends:

And speaking of possibilities; paper Paper PAPER! Each project seemed to respond so differently to each choice of paper– texture, color, and weight. Check out the same linoleum, wood, and lead type design on various papers versus book cloth:

Speed and Time

Books and Blogs: Stitching an Interface