It's January and the approaching Australia Day long weekend always signals the time for one of Brisbane's best twice-annual events: the Lifeline Bookfest.
Last time I went to Lifeline's huge charity book fair (February last year, just after the devastating Brisbane floods), I was heavily pregnant, had just moved back to Brisbane, and was searching for really old/quirky storybooks with amazing pictures that I could use to collage the nursery wall for my soon-to-be-born son.
But this time around, my focus had changed.
I'm very conscious of the knowledge that I have plenty of books, squillions and squillions of them. In fact, I'm currently half-way through the massive task of unpacking the dozens of boxes full of books I've accumulated in my short lifetime (boxes we've just gotten out of storage) and trying to work out how to best cull/redistribute/give away about 80% of what I'm unpacking. It's certainly a daunting task! But one that highlights an inescapable truth - in my current phase of life, I feel I need to own less books, not more.
So my recent visit to Bookfest was taken with that thought heavily in mind. And yet, because I really enjoy "the thrill of the hunt", I gave myself a limit of 10 items, knowing then that they'd have to be the 10 very best things I discovered.
Once inside, I looked through the children's books, I looked through the travel books and the tacky old cooking books, I perused the board games and the foreign language section (where last year I found some gorgeous Scandinavian storybooks!), but disappointingly I was finding very little that was good enough to make my 10-list.
And then I stumbled upon the section that yielded much more in the way of fascinating finds: the section uncommitedly titled 'Rare and Out of Print' - and my quota of 10 was filled up very rapidly!
Almost immediately, I came across a small book, The Observers Book of Ships, that had some wonderful colour-plate graphics of International Code flags/pendants, and the colours and insignia of shipping companies, passenger liners, tankers, and cargo ships. Being a graphic designer, I love finding these kinds of vintage graphics, and already I've tacked these pages up on the 'collage wall' of my studio, awaiting that spark of an idea to one day find them a more permanent and practical use. For now, I'll just enjoy looking at them :)
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Further along the table, I came across a soft-cover stamp album, of the type where the stamps are glued down on the gridded pages (rather than sitting loose behind stretched rows of plastic). For this reason, most people had passed over the album, since it renders the stamps worthless, but I saw the potential for some of its pages to be used as readymade backgrounds for collaged artworks. Or even, as in the case of this lovely page of 1960s Italian stamps, I figured some pages could be an eclectic artwork 'as is', and I promptly used the Italian-stamps-page to fill an empty Ikea 'Ribba' frame I had lying around. Voila - instant art.
Also, plenty of the pre-decimal and foreign stamps (like these unusual 1961 Mongolian stamps, below) are little beauties all on their own, and I can see myself using them in some form of paper artistry down the track. So, the album's now been dissected and all useable bits have been filed away in my drawers of collected paper ephemera, ready for future projects...
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Vintage storybooks were always high up on my list of books to rummage for, and while now I can usually resist the temptation to buy more, I couldn't resist this very cute 1960's storybook, the Jolly Jingles Annual. Extra especially because of the quirky juxtaposition created by a torn endpaper inside the front cover. Love it.
I also particularly love its colour combination of red/blue/black/white in the illustrations throughout the book...
...and lots of its full-colour illustrations are jolly cute too:
The book's in ok condition for its age, but since a number of its pages have come loose, I'm reluctant to add it to Little D's bookshelf. So I've photographed my favourite bits, have kept the best pages (including the composition made from that piece of torn endpaper), and the remainder will go into the box that I'm delivering to Reverse Garbage next week, for someone else to creatively re-use.
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Something I always find myself doing at charity book fairs and op shops, is flicking through the books to see if any little snippets of long-forgotten paraphenalia have been tucked away between the pages, waiting for someone to discover them after being hidden away for years or even decades.
On previous occasions I've found old train/tram tickets (probably used as bookmarks), children's drawings, recipes, folded-up shopping lists, plenty of handwritten notes, even the occasional photograph. Sadly though, I have never, ever, ever, found money. I continue to flick in hope...
This Bookfest, however, I came across a few little bits and pieces of forgotten ephemera - a faded aqua-coloured dress for a paper-doll; a fragment of map depicting the African continent; a handful of Shell Petroleum collector cards from the Meteorology Series; an electrical Trade Practice ticket from 1955; and a couple of 'track times' newspaper clippings and several horseracing betting slips from 1962...
I found the map inside a book of Beethoven's pianoforte sonatas, with its gorgeous letterpressed cover of an intricate indigo pattern, a coveted find in itself.
The meteorology cards were in this Madame Butterfly book (below), which also had a very striking and vivid cover.
Despite the saying, I often do choose books by their covers. Sometimes I have zero interest in the contents at all, and quite often I'll strip the book of its cover and then recycle the innards, as is the case here with both Madame Butterfly and Beethoven's pianoforte sonatas. That's just the way it goes with paper ephemera collecting - you can't keep it all.
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And finally, this brings me to one of the quirkiest things I (have ever) found at Bookfest, and oddly enough, the very last item I happened to see and choose for my 10-list - it's an album of greeting cards, telegrams, and other papery mementos from the wedding of Valerie and Jim in February 1957.
The meticulously compiled album contained engagement cards, wedding cards, and anniversary cards, as well as a handful of telegrams and letters from friends, the menu/placecards/napkins from the wedding (at The Maple Lounge), and the breakfast menu from their honeymoon stay at Homesdale.
It's fascinating to read through these things from over half a century ago - I was amused by the simplicity of the menus (a boring choice of either rolled oats, corn flakes, All Bran, Crispies, or Weet Bix the morning after your wedding?...woo hoo), and the wedding caterer's quoted price of 22/- per guest for a choice of either the seated or buffet meal (and I don't even know what 22/- means, let alone how much it roughly translates to in today's decimal currency), and also I was left wondering about how the telegram system actually worked back then (I noted that they calculate how many words used on the telegram - was it like primitive SMS?).
I'm also amazed at how elaborate these 1950s cards are - almost all had some combination of foiling, embossing, metallic inks, textured paperstock, die-cut windows or shapes, layered/folding elements, or all of the above! Some also incorporated real lace or ribbon, or were embellished with glitter or faux gemstones, and many of the cards featured a sheet of textured gold-foil behind their diecuts. All very decadent! And the aged 'vintage' colours were just gorgeous, of course.
(Click for an enlarged view)
And a few little cute details:
As with a lot of items I pick up at these Bookfest events, I don't exactly know yet what I'll do with all these gorgeous vintage cards, except that I'll file them away in my drawers of 'found' ephemera until a future project summons them forth for use, whenever that might be.
But what I do know is that I genuinely enjoyed my little Bookfest 'treasure hunt' adventure..!
I originally went in to Bookfest thinking I was looking for books, but in truth, I was actually there to seek out items that would be most impossible to borrow from a library. I was looking for raw materials (and inspiration) to feed my creative projects - things that were unique and unusual and curious, and of course they had to have that exact right level of 'vintage'. Old things that have been around long enough to gather themselves a bit of age and wear and character and history and nostalgia, those are the things I like to hunt for!
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And just before I sign off, here's a pic of that framed page of Italian stamps I mentioned earlier, hanging up on my bedroom wall, with the paper doll dress added-in for a touch of layered goodness. It needn't be a permanent installation, and I'll likely swap it for something new at a later date, but for now I'm just happy to celebrate a small piece of serendipity - a few 'found' fragments that bring a little colour to an otherwise beige wall.
Hooray for Bookfests!!
Michelle
xx
The bookfest sounds fabulous. I can't believe you brought home so many fabulous pieces and pages. Like you I am culling and have been going through old books that have no other value than their subject is of interest and I like the graphic on, often, one page. I am scanning pages and pics and creating an archive of raw images and edited images and a folder of kept pages. Other pages are going into the recycling. Or, I am keeping covers for other projects.
Posted by: katiecrackernuts | January 27, 2012 at 09:13 AM
I sooo know what you mean Katiecrackernuts - it's an ongoing battle for us hoarders, umm, I mean, collectors... ;)
Posted by: Shelbyville | January 30, 2012 at 09:18 PM
Hi Michelle just wondering if there was a last name to the Valerie and Jim wedding book. My grandparents are from Brisbane and that's what their names were. Grandad originally came from Scotland and Grandma grew up in Mt Gravatt. Anyway would love to know as they have both passed away, as well as their one of two sons in the last 3 years.
Posted by: Kylie Jensen | April 04, 2012 at 02:17 AM
Great post on the bookfest. Valerie and Jim's album is just wonderful but at the same time I found it quite sad that this album which has been put together so lovingly was found at a bookfest..... :'(
One a lighter note, I will keep my eyes peeled next time I'm there for some of my own little treasures! - Thanks for the inspiration :P
Posted by: Susan: My Food OBsession | April 04, 2012 at 05:36 PM