I recently bought a typewriter. I love it. It’s from 1963, an Olympia Monica de Luxe, and comes in a heavy grey container that acts as suitcase and shell simultaneously. It has a couple of sticky keys- the ‘f’ and ‘l’, in particular, which have to be constantly fixed back into place. On a few occasions the backspace bar has jammed completely, forcing it to be left alone for a week or two, slowly decompressing in its box.
Since acquiring this typewriter, I’ve thought a lot more about the materials I write on. Notebooks must now be separated so I can run them through the machine, and papers are scattered across piles rather than contained in neat books. I’ve type-written onto fabric, onto plastic and tin foil and photographs. At Christmas I spent hours collecting seaweed from rocks across Cornish beaches, then methodically drying them, intending to run them through the small typewriter bars (this did not work- they cracked when dried).
I’m constantly looking for new things to write on. Chalk on floors and walls. Ink scrawls on labels, on skin. Permanent markers on food packaging in a shared fridge. Spray paint on anything. We’re surrounded by shapes and fabrics and objects that can be written onto, or arranged into words, or indented into letters.
What do you write on? The magna carta was written on the skin of a goat, as were many manuscripts across centuries. Papyrus, vellum, parchment, became paper became our notebooks. Moleskine notebooks, ring bound spiral planners, Cass Art concertinas, various leather bound or gold foil lined or light emboss edged diaries. I’ve met many a 26er who covets a good notebook. I’ve not met as many who opt for sticky notes or envelope backs or scraps stapled together to form a makeshift book. There are a few of you I’ve met, like this month’s Artist in Conversation, who take it upon themselves to make their own notebooks. These are the most intriguing of all the notebooks. Whether grand or scrappy, a hand-made notebook draws me in as something more than a vessel for words to sit on. It merges writing and object until you have neither, and both, and a sculpture appears. An interaction, a work of art. Each page has been placed and bound and set into its position, and as the notebook is written, the art comes alive.
Lisa Andrews is a bookbinder, printmaker, artist, writer, and long-standing member of 26. An advocate for a City Lit class, and for the mantra ‘throw yourself into new things and see what sticks’, Lisa came across bookbinding at a one-day intro workshop, and was captured by the potential to make an object simultaneously practical and useful; beautiful and complex.
During Lockdown, Lisa ordered a couple of starter packs from the Artful ‘Art School in a Box’ program. They had a series of boxes with different mediums, encouraging potential artists to experiment and try new skills. The first month was a pencil drawing starter pack, the second month was lino cut. Lisa opened the lino box that October, deciding to give print making a try. And it went from there.
In the 6 months following, Lisa’s dining table was transformed into a print making workshop. She was instantly drawn to the medium. Claiming not to be a natural drawer, having been told as such during school art lessons, Lisa found the process of cutting lino simplified any unnatural feeling. It was no longer hard to concentrate on what she was drawing, and her cut curves shaped intentionally and creatively.
Lisa is drawn to sculptural things; the feeling of art made with your hands. Ink, rollers, the technical process of cutting and pressing- they remove the impatience felt with drawing. As her connection to the process grew stronger, the textures and mark making in Lisa’s prints became more dynamic and bold.
Bookbinding extended from printmaking, and both practices intertwine in Lisa’s works. In her book for the 26 Bridges project, where she was the artist for Chiswick Bridge, Lisa used Coptic stitch to assemble the notebook’s exposed spine. Folding the paper to form signatures, Lisa sewed the front and back cover directly to the pages, until the book was bound so that it lay completely flat when opened. The artwork’s accompanying poem was printed at points throughout the paper, combining the crafts of printing and bookbinding into one.
It takes a minute for people to realise just how much of each book is made from scratch. Each paper is folded, aligned and stitched together. Holes are stabbed through the spines, then chain stitches are made to connect the signatures. End papers are created, sometimes marbled or patterned, then stuck and strengthened and glued. Ribbons or decorative headbands are attached. Covers are cut; books are assembled as hardbacks or paper backs or exposed spine concertinas. Each action is precise and considered, changing between books as variables are adjusted.
On to the paper. When we spoke, Lisa told me it was ridiculous how much paper she owned. She spends a lot of time choosing them for her books, and uses paper ranging from cotton, to linen, to Japanese silk. Each decision acts as a new design feature of her books. At points she chooses to contrast her work, at others to match. There are technical processes to arranging the paper grains, meaning the direction the paper is structured. Wetting the paper shows the direction of the grain, and the pages must be folded in the direction that fits.
There’s lots of learning, and lots of mistakes that leads to lots more learning, but the problem solving that goes into such a technical practice is something that pushed Lisa when making these books. She enjoys the constant possibility of it all going wrong. As it happens, Lisa’s books always appear to look pretty perfect. They’re so considered, and the dedication to the process of making builds to beauty in each finished book.
I wanted to know how Lisa connects her bookbinding to writing. As a writer, I thought Lisa might have been drawn to bookbinding and printmaking as a way of extending a written craft into a physical format. Making an object, particularly a book, seems a natural connection, and very in the realms of what 26 encourages. Lisa told me, however, that this was pretty much the opposite. She came to print making, and then bookbinding, as a creative outlet, an escape, from writing. From feeling disconnected to writing. She wanted to do something that wasn’t about writing at all, and this came out as art. Lisa had been writing her whole career- since she was as student at the uni newspaper in Cardiff. She’d always wanted to do creative writing but never did, but said she would. Now she feels she may not have the patience for creative writing, but does for creative making. When she wrote, she told me she’d give up as soon as something went wrong. Now, the process of making builds so much that you can’t give up until it’s finished. Sometimes the imperfections are what make things more beautiful.
What Lisa learns from making art, combining it with writing, and surrounding herself with art in life and in friendships, is that nobody has to ‘just’ be a writer. Writing is creativity, is art. Art is interdisciplinary, and impactful, and writing is creative, inherently. When you make a book or write in a book or pick up a book, you interact with art and you interact with words. They’re all there together at all times.
Thanks, Lisa. It was great speaking to you. I’ll be at my typewriter.
– Joni Brown