[Sarah-Jane Crowson]

Matt and Christine,

Thanks very much both - you’ve both nailed a large thing that isn’t working for this (the use of the tunnel book) and you’re both right. As Matt already knows, I love paper theatres and playing with theatre imagery, and so I’ve made a couple of sample tunnel theatre books and then just got stuck on the idea of tunnel books. But it’s not right for these, particularly with the circle ‘tunnel’. It’ll be right for another project, instead. I think I probably need, as Matt suggests, to start playing with ideas of circles and movement and then that’ll take me to end pieces that work better with the tunnel book form. And I'll think hard about how to layout the text on the next circular project (and your thoughts, again, were very helpful).

Anyway, today I experimented with small flat images and a simple accordion book. I also made a tiny fold-out theatre which works nicely despite its scale (9x12cm). And on nice heavy watercolour paper the accordion sample looks quite cool even with home printer small float-mounted images.

Five palmist images aren’t quite enough for an accordion book, so I think for this specific project what I’ll do instead is use nine small theatrical images so that I have nine folds, and then have envelopes with a small tunnel book in one (again theatre themed) and some ‘characters’ in the other, plus an explanation. That might work just right.

So although this isn’t the right rabbit hole, it’s coming together in my head. Using an accordion book also means that I can float mount or photograph mount the prints in the book so people can then ‘have’ them loose to frame if they want, too.

Anyway, I’ve bought some lovely book cloth and end papers ready to work on a more professional sample of an accordion book with extras. It’s coming together, I think and would haven’t done without both your thoughts, and I am very grateful.

Apologies too for my lack of critiquing when there is interesting work around. I need to prep images to print tomorrow and then I’ll have a little more time.

Thank you both again,

Sarah-Jane

[Orwn Acra]

I'm a few months late to this but it's a slow-moving forum. The look is appealing enough, and it seems you have ideas of where you want to go with it (or already have gone with it at this point). It might benefit from some sort of visual, if not textual, narrative. I've only "read" one tunnel-book: Edward Gorey's The Tunnel Calamity. The story, told in images only, is of a man walking down the street after another man hands him an envelope. It's a simple narrative but it's there and told through the literal layers of depth the tunnel book provides.

What if in yours the hand slowly opened, layer by layer, to reveal the fortune? This would also provide movement; whereas now it feels static and my eye doesn't know quite where to go (well, I guess around in circles!)

A fascinating form with a lot of potential for poetic narration. I hope you continue to make these.

[Sarah-Jane Crowson]

Thank you, making the hands unfold is a good idea. It's got me thinking.

In the end, with this idea, I moved on to a different visual with the tunnel books (I had to make some objects for a show) and made tiny diorama paper theatres (with surreal characters with peonies and birds for heads). They worked well in practice but weren't particularly exciting.

I made the palms into an accordion book, which worked practically but not conceptually, and I like your idea of having the palms open out to show the fortunes. It's made me also think of whether I could print the fortune on glassine paper, interleaving the palms. And a different idea around palms opening might be a flicker book. There are so many plays on hands that would be cool in a flicker book.

Anyway, thank you very much. You have returned me to thinking about this, which is good as I still need to make something for ethelzine pretty soon, and the theatres are fine but not 'wow'.

Sarah-Jane

And here are some other cool paper tunnel books (none of them have text, though, to the best of my knowledge) https://www.vam.ac.uk/articles/paper-peepshows