Important Artifacts and personal property from the collection of Lenore Doolan and Harold Morris, including books, street fashion and jewelry

A fictional account of a couple's relationship told in photographs of objects collected during their time together. The book which has been conceived by Leanne Shapton was inspired by the catalogue of an auction of Truman Capote's belongings.

Vegetable Materia Medica

This is the book that I spent nearly all my money on at Kempton Antiques market. A manual of Vegetable Materia Medica, by George S.V. Wills M.P.S., &c., published by Simpkin, Marshall & Co in 1878. I don't usually spend more than 2 0r 3 quid on an old book but this is quite possibly the most beautiful book I ever beheld. Still a bargain at £10 and there are 23 more plates of hand coloured exquisite vegetable parts. Sigh.....

I have just discovered more about the author George Sampson Valentine Wills - he was born on Valentine's day in 1849. You can read more about him here.

Enquire within upon everything

" Whether you wish to model a flower in wax; to study the rules of etiquette; to serve a relish for breakfast or supper; to plan a dinner for a large party or a small one; to cure a headache; to make a will; to get married; to bury a relative; whatever you may wish to do, make or to enjoy, provided your desire has relation to the necessities of domestic life, I hope you will not fail to 'ENQUIRE WITHIN'." Published in 1884, London.

Inside the first page are 2 hand-written recipes from 1884, one for marmalade and the other for tea cakes.

Books

This is a collection of books I have acumulated over the last few months from car boot fairs and charity shops. I plan to use some of them in my work, the ones that are in bad repair. You can see a list of titles and dates here.

Delphiniums For Everyone

Mosaic Monday

Mosaic Monday, originally uploaded by Feltbug.

1. Play on vintage book page, 2. Kafelnikov (Mapped), 3. Absence..., 4. happy vintage childrens books bench monday, 5. Bingo Book - Spiffy Hat, 6. my pages in the book, 7. book of secrets, 8. New Book: Stripey Streetness, 9. books, 10. bird sketch book, 11. Zakka Felt Book Bag, 12. Post Book 2004, 13. book on a string (detail), 14. German art history book 1902, 15. Altered book, Found, 16. book cell, 17. Drawings from the Dream Book Nr.3, 18. book experiments..., 19. Prayer Book, 20. books, 21. origami and little books, 22. Book!, 23. Type Specimen book: 1961, 24. altered book, 25. china, 26. última pessoa, 27. 2875749081_e4b37ca5b8_o, 28. book on Gothic England & wip, 29. gothic architecture book, 30. another solarsystem

Created with fd's Flickr Toys.

Here is a selection of photographs and artwork by some of my lovely friends on flickr. Click on the image to go to flickr where you can find the featured artists or use the links above to go to the individual artist's flickr. Thankyou to all the artists for sharing their pictures.

The Man Who Didn't Wash His Dishes

The Man Who Didn't Wash His Dishes, by Phyllis Krasilovsky, illustrated by Barbara Cooney. Published 1962.

11.35am

There is a new group on flickr called desk thursday. I like this group. It has motivated me to tidy my desk. After all that tidying, it must be time for coffee and a look at this lovely book from my local library, Being Human, published by Thames & Hudson. Enigmatic photographs of people by unknown photographers.

Montaigne

Michel de Montaigne

Curiouser and curiouser!

I found this well-loved edition of Alice in Wonderland at the car boot, it is a bit tattered and has some colouring in of the b/w illustrations but not a bad find for 50p. It was published in 1933 with illustrations by D.R.Sexton. Susan Sanford over at Art Spark Theatre has a great series of images inspired by Alice in Wonderland and also this wonderful link to Jan Svankmajer and Tom Waits on youtube.

Jonathan Gray

Jonathan Gray designed this book cover. The Mayor's tongue by Nathaniel Rich. Beautiful.

Jessie Chorley

Jessie Chorley is one of the artists exhibiting at the Flow Gallery in London as part of Making Stories this month. The gallery will be closed from the 24th December and re-opens on the 5th January until the 10th January. Jessie Chorley also has a wonderful shop in Columbia Road which she runs with artist Buddug Humphreys. Go to their website to check opening times.

Michelle Holden

Bookworm

Michelle Holden, 'As an artist – maker, my practice, which originated in embroidery, has evolved into paper and text based works where I combine my desire to hand craft and deconstruct the found object (books and maps) into original works of art through a combination of cutting and stitching.'

You can see more of Shellie's work on her website, Spool.

BIG BAG

Tikki Patchwork is a lovely shop, just around the corner from Kew Gardens, with lots of fabrics and some great books. I found this Japanese craft book there. If you are planning to visit check their opening times on their website as they do vary from week to week.

The Knitting and Stitching Show is at Alexandra Palace in London from the 9th - 12th October.

And Other Observations

And Other Observations, originally uploaded by redredday.

I love this altered book artwork by Mien of Red Red Day - click on the book to look inside ...

Everyman's Library

Everyman's library with dust jackets featuring a woodcut design by Eric Ravilious. 1935

The Street of Crocodiles

I went on a little journey around blogs this evening, starting with Cally creates and her stunning month of pale images, then popped over to Lisa's musings which then lead me to a new blog to me, Abby trys again. Abby has been running a Beautiful Film Week where she has invited bloggers to nominate films. I found this wonderful collection of short films at the library this week by The Quay Brothers. My favourite film from this collection is The Street of Crocodiles based on a short story by Bruno Schulz.

Metamorphosis

I first saw the work of James Thierree at the Lyric Theatre in Hammersmith. Their current production is well worth a visit too. Kafka's Metamorphosis adapted by the Lyric's Artistic Director David Farr and Icelandic theatre company Vesturport is on until 2 February. Photograph by Eggert Jonsson.

The story of Metamorphosis is an early favourite of mine and this Penguin book dates from 1964. The cover illustration is by Yosl Bergner.

Skin

Skin: surface substance and design by Ellen Lupton. This was published alongside an exhibition at the Cooper-Hewitt National Design museum in New York in 2002. Ellen Lupton contributes to the following blogs, Design Your Life and D.I.Y. Kids

This book is mainly about surface in design but it draws on analogies of anatomy which I found inspiring. This is where I found the Marcel Wanders vase and there are a couple more pieces I would like to share with you. The cover of the book shows a design for fabric called Bumps, 2000 by Bullen, Pija Designs Ltd. The book is punctuated throughout with beautiful photographs by Elinor Carucci.

Mariska Karasz

I found this book a couple of weeks ago at the Embroiderers Guild Bookshop in Hampton Court. I had not heard of Mariska Karasz before. She was an artist who worked in fashion, designing clothes for adults and then children. Later on she developed her embroidery skills to make beautiful abstract wall hangings. Karasz wrote a book called Adventures in Stitches - Dear Ada has a link on her blog. She was given a retrospective exhibition this year at the Georgia Museum of Art.