Book who's talking

Hi, happy Book Week!

In 2015 I started making kiln fired, hand painted, ceramic sculptures of books I really like and then taking them along to book events to share with the authors. 

To celebrate Book Week I thought I'd share five of these sculptures from my collection.

First up, here’s a sculpture I made last year of a book by the inspirational Australian writer Helen Garner!

I feel so lucky to have been able to meet Helen last November and show her this sculpture, and she was kind enough to sign it.

I love this book, if you haven't read it yet then you're really Garner love it too :)

The second book sculpture for today is one of my favourite books from 2017, Chloe Hooper’s The Arsonist. 

When I borrowed this book from the library I found a note left inside it. I loved the note so much I made a ceramic sculpture of it as well.

The third ceramic book sculpture I wanted to share for Book Week is the memoir How To Make Gravy, by one of my favourite singer-songwriters, the great Paul Kelly.

And here's a new ceramic sculpture I made of a tin of Gravox, which is how I make gravy :)

For the 4th book of Book Week, here's a ceramic sculpture I made of the stunning book Theme Park by contemporary artist Brook Andrew.

Huge thank you to Brook Andrew for being so kind and signing the sculpture. Also, a huge thanks to the brilliant artist Giulia Giannini McGauran for taking these next two photos of me and Brook Andrew with my book Andrew.

And my last book for Book Week is the fantastic At My Table, by English food writer Nigella Lawson.

My favourite part of this book is where Nigella writes about when NASA originally designed their first spaceship they didn't put in a table, it wasn't thought necessary. But it turned out the astronauts did mind. They asked for one to be put in, even if it meant strapping on a tray with velcroed food to it. As Mary Roach wrote in Packing For Mars, in the alienating isolation of space the astronauts wanted "to sit around a table at the end of the day and eat".

Nigella suggests that a table is more than furniture, just as food is more than fuel. She quotes M.F.K. Fisher who says that "Our three basic needs, for food and security and love, are so mixed and mingled and intertwined that we cannot straightly think of one without the others." And Nigella adds that "around a table is where these three things meet".

And so to finish up Book Week, here's a pic of the great Nigella and I around a table.
A humungous thanks again to all the writers for being so amazing and signing the book sculptures, and also a huge thanks to you for reading this. I hope you've had a nice Book Week and that you have an even nicer Book Weekend!