Last monday evening I ventured across cold, wet London on my bicycle to find the most steamy windowed, patterned tabled, cosiest little cafe of them all - Olivers Cafe in Belsize Park - where I discovered three women seated at a table covered with the most bewilderingly beautiful collection of hand-crafted books. I had come to a Pop Up Book workshop organised by Transition Town Belsize, but the problem was I didn't have much inclination to make anything myself when surrounded by such inspiring artworks to leaf through. One sassy community artist lady had brought in a collection of 'shared' reclaimed books that she had made with her friends. She would find a book, decorate the cover, give it a theme and title, embellish the first couple of pages and then send it by post to another friend. Like visual chinese whispers the book would be posted around the world until finally it returned to her, filled with unexpected delights.
We spent the evening gazing at hand-made and professionally published pop up art books, attempting to follow complex instructions in How To guides, and generally getting hysterically over-excited about the cross-overs between pop-up books, toy theatre and paper arts. All hail, pictures that pop up...
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