Serving of Sentiment
My work entitled, A Serving of Sentiment, showcases a series of seven handcrafted artist books, crafted to resemble the various recipes significant to my family. To represent the handmade elements in my grandparents cooking, I chose to construct these recipe books out of handmade paper. The paper is made out of recycled paper material and dyed with water color and dyes mixed with glitter.
The recipe cards are printed on handmade paper with letterpress techniques and the recipes are hand-written by my grandmother. Once all of the pages are printed, written on, and dyed, they are bound with either twine or embroidery floss. The binding of the books are all hand stitched. In the final presentation of this project, the books are displayed on thrifted glassware, emulating the dining setting at my grandmothers house.
Each book measures at around seven to eight inches and the larger book are around ten inches. The watercolors used in the books are representative of the colors of the food each book is depicting. The different shapes seen are all hand cut and designed from memory of familial recipes.
I made these pieces to document my memories cooking with my grandmother as a child. Their functionality as recipe cards is not as important as their reference to a moment in time when I cherished the time spent with my grandma.
The memories I have along with the crafts I would make with my grandma influence the formal decisions within my work. Many of the shapes used in my books are very simplistic and contain obvious moments of handcraft. These moments also aid the books in looking like they were used and made around the kitchen. The intentionally smudged text, ripped parts of paper, and unevenly dyed surfaces allows for the books to look like loved familial artifacts rather than a pristine artist book.
The imperfections and inconsistent moments hopefully guide the viewer to look deeper into the project and remind the audience of a comforting moment spent with family.
