Notebook Entry 20th May

This from my notebook: 20/05/09

Spent all day preparing my 1.5mm plywood that I "found"...well, kinda procured. It was a road sign, but it had been dumped behind a post and I'd seen it there for weeks before I took it. (With moral support of course...crime is no good without an accomplice! Hehe!)

Because it had a stickered surface on one side I had to spend a lot of my time peeling it away, painstakingly for 2 and a half hours! After all my hard work (including physical injury in the form of a few grazes and repetitive strain injury!) I tested its weight resistance and realised that it would snap or bend under pressure from the books on top. The moral is...test thing FIRST!

It was also pointed out to me that my finished coffee table would need to be transported so I decided against glue but was left with the task of finding a way round this.

It was suggested to me that I could drill holes into the book sculptures (table legs) and sit the wood on top with bolts or by using a length of dowelling. I went with the dowel solution. So I enquired at the wood work shop but there was a bit of concern whether a drill bit as thick as 12mm would work or just destroy the books!

I tested this out on another book to be safe and much to my relief it worked. In fact it reminded me of a bullet hole (which, incidently, has inspired another book piece...but I'll get on to that later on!).

As the dowel was 12mm I also noticed that if I hammered it into the 12mm hole it would be stuck (thus the idea of transporting the work could be forgotton!) So, I went over the holes with a 13mm drill bit so that the two would fit more like a puzzle. Success!

Another point to consider...Should I paint the spines of the book legs because they aren't "coffee table books"? Aesthetically, I love the bare pages showing as they create a wood-like effect but the covers detract from this. However, another student commented that she liked seeing the spines. Although, I dislike it as some are very badly damaged. I suppose because of this I could claim that, like "coffee table books" I am giving unusable books a use/function?!

Had I have considered this to begin with I could have chosen ONLY damaged books. Or, designed the table a bit 'better'. I suppose I had originally intended to paint the whole thing but then during the process of gluing the books I liked how the glue dripped and the pages (some of which were up to 50 years old) looked like wood stacked up on one another.

Note to self: PLAN THINGS IN ADVANCE IN THE FUTURE! My old nemesis TIME MANAGEMENT rears its ugly fat head!