As you may know this is my year of taking time out and living slow in order to mend.
At times this makes life a little lonely and isolated unless I make the effort to travel and push my anxiety. So today I did just that, I volunteered for my favourite people/ place/ festival/ oraganisation: Wise Words Festival. If you don’t know what they do check them out. They are an extraordinary festival run by people with enormous hearts and passion for change through the arts.
Anyway, I go every year, whether working or as a guest, and always get involved. Last year I worked collaboratively with them on a number of projects :
- Curating and creating the festival’s family area alongside families and children of all ages. We also worked with performers to create walk about and story telling acts: The Most Unlikely of Places
- Joining the global ‘create a Roald Dahl inspired character’ competition
- Being the Artistic Director for Cotton Tales at BOing! International families festival
- Partnering to create Wide Eyed Theatre’s HLF funded Smugglers Tales exhibition in Herne Bay
- Drinking lots of coffee and having lots of chats
This year I’m unable to work to my usual capacity but want to be a part of the goings on, so I decided to volunteer as an artist and maker instead.
Today we met at my beloved Cowshed Studios to add the ever-increasing flock of book birds that migrate to the festival each year to roost in the trees. I’ve always loved them as a feature and thought they looked like the most complicated things to make. Little did I know how easy they are to create. If you have an hour to spend and a free pair of hands you can make them too. Warning though, its hugely addictive and you may take to your bookshelves, so make sure the books you use are ones you’ll never want to read again.
All there is to it is paper-folding, much less complicated than origami, and a lot of repetition as you need to fold each and every page. You only have to turn to Pinterest to see all the ways you can repurpose and up-cycle old books. I just searched ‘book folding patterns’ to discover all of the marvellous things people create. I managed 4 books today using simple folds. Here are some pictures of my efforts.
Being a creative I chose a book of mathematics to transform first. I did end up getting caught in some of the pages as I was folding.
The best thing about this activity is not the result but the process of making. It is manual, easy, and repetitive (like a nice set of sums!). Before long it become calming and meditative, productive and relaxing. I could spend hours folding and chatting.
Why not give it a go yourself with an old book. All you have to do is pick a type of fold and repeat with every page in the book till it’s wings unfurl and a new bird has hatched.
If you are in the Canterbury area you could volunteer too, just follow this link to find out how…
theresawolfatmydoor.com 