Grooving with the Glitch

I've been prepping a travel journal that I will take to Italy in a few months. It's turning out well. The papers that I'm using for background come from a 1960s schoolbook, Italian Made Simple, which I stumbled upon in a stack of free books at my local library. My theory is that as I work in my journal on the trip, I can refresh my (extremely limited) Italian language skills at the same time. Molto bene! I've also added solvent transfers to the pages, using maps and directions for walks I plan to take.

The journal is built on a Moleskin Japanese album (5 x 8.5), which has 48 folded zigzag pages.
That first page, way over on the left? Well, that would turn out to be the Glitch.

My design inspirations come from what I think Italy will feel like when I get there. Over the base prep I've been making patterns in thickly brushed gesso, then layering on glazes of phthalo turquoise (and various Madonna blues), yellow ochre, siennas raw and burnt, and burnt umber. Vintage European postcards and other materials from my various collections make handy lift-up trap doors and pockets for tags.

Here's a selection of prepped pages and tags. I've managed to stick to my predetermined
 color pallette for the most part. On most projects I wind up doing random color additions
that wind up looking awful. I'm steely about not doing that here, although hits
 of chartreuse and purple have managed to sneak in.

The bad news is that despite all my progress today, at day's end I find myself back at the beginning. My days' ends often work out like that, and I am learning that this is not necessarily a bad thing. For refreshment for the work ahead, I call upon a brooding Malbec.

There was no chianti in the wine rack, so I thought a brooding
Malbec would be a decent substitute.

My last task of the day is not to glory in the progress of my work but to detach the first page in the journal in order to add width. I am doing this because the first page won't even pretend to approach flat when opened, and I just can't stand that. So I slice apart the front page from its neighbor and in so doing liberate the entire page block from the book. I fold over some paper from the second page onto the first, make a new crease, and lay on a ton of packing tape for reinforcement. Geez, it looks awkward. Luckily, I remember that I have a couple of scalloped metal page edges in one of my bins. They prove to be workable and hide most of the packing tape. I'll use one metal edge on the first page, and, for balance, one on the last page.  I know that there will be physical and design repercussions from doing this.

The first repercussion is that the old Italian postcard of the Madonna now sits way too close to the gutter. I will have to rip out the postcard. Such are the dangers of working with original materials.

The metal page edges are made by 7 Gypsies and are nice and heavy—the page
 edge looks okay and as a bonus it weighs down the page to keep it open.

Because I used paper from the second page to widen the first page, another issue is the new narrow width of the second page. The metal edge draws attention to this. I see that I am going to have to lean heavily on the third page to balance out the second page. I fashion a tag holder and insert one of the tags I've already made. The visual weight helps a lot, plus the tag will give me more surface to write upon when I am in Italy.

The tag holder is made from the cover of a music book for voice (1948). It needs
 work but is good enough to give me the basic idea. I've barely sipped my wine, but before
tackling the Madonna, I definitely need a break.

Back to the Madonna. I realize that I actually like the rip in the postcard. Venice is sinking, frescos are deteriorating, we are marching toward the grave, Mother Earth is roaring--at least here on the East Coast of the United States--with an earthquake past and a hurricane future. A brooding glass of wine indeed! Yet I have the luxury of piecing together a Madonna. And for pure serendipity, there is the way the infant's feet point the eye to my little solvent-transfer line of text, the one that says, upside down of course (because that is sometimes the way I am), "introducing myself."

Still life with Madonna and Malbec

And that is what I did last night. Thanks for listening.