Salts Mill in Shipley Saltaire

This Wednesday I went to Salts Mills in Saltaire to hopefully get more book research for my publication. Upon coming to the gallery I went to look in their bookshop to see if there were any books that are interesting and possibly have been designed or bounded in a unique way. Though most of the books there were bounded pretty generically which was quite disappointing I did find some that had some interesting features that made the books more exciting to flip through.

True Stories - Sophie Calle

This was a very irregular size book that I found quite interesting. I don't exactly know the measurement of this book but I think it may be somewhere around an Octavo size book but shorter in width. I found it quite interesting as it fits as a handheld easy to read book but at the same time I fee like it may be quite uncomfortable and weird to read and flip through it first as it's not a book size that we typically read and flip through in the first place. However, as I researched more about the book, I think i kind of understand why it was made in this size. As the book is almost like an autobiography which looks through different fragments of Calle's life including short one page stories and photographs; the book size gives the readers a closer more personal relation to the book. As readers read through the book they made become conscious of how they handle it and as it's quite small bringing it closer to them literally, will may be create a bigger impact and more effective way of conveying the context and content of the book. 

For this publication, I found how the pages have been cut quite interesting. Sectioning the book in this way not only make it really interesting visually and more exciting and playful/dynamic. It's also very functional as readers can quickly go to the chapters and sections that they'd like to go to without going through the pages- it speeds up the process for the readers, at the same time give the overall book a more appealing aesthetic.

Similar to the book above, attention to details like page size to create a more interesting appeal to the book has been done. It looks quite simple however, executing it would have been quite complicated as giving the pages and ascending and descending look would have meant that each page needed to be cut just slightly smaller or taller than the other.  

The gallery also had a lot of corners for different shops. There was an antique shop so I thought I'd check it out and see what they had, unfortunately we weren't allowed to take photos inside therefore I couldn't get any photos of the place. They did have a book corner, and there I found a poetry book called 'Be!' by Paul Reps. I did some research about Paul Reps afterwards and found that he was an American poet and artist know for his Haiku style poetry and has frequented and lived in Asia for most of his career. I think out of the books that I've found in the gallery, this book is very closely related to the research and concept for my own publication, so I bought the book and read it.
*I've made a separate blog for this book research here.

There was also a David Hockney's exhibition for Hockney's 'The Arrival of Spring' work. It was a very pleasant exhibition to see though it wasn't related to the module at all. The drawings themselves were very nice to see and I enjoyed how it was laid out in the gallery; as the drawings were drawn in sequence how they were laid out from winter to spring in the gallery was also effective as it takes you through the whole journey of the seasons much like what Hockney experienced during the months that he was drawing the landscapes. 

Thoughts & Reflections:

Overall although the gallery didn't have as much interestingly bounded books as I thought the whole gallery itself was very interesting. The exhibitions were also a very pleasing part of the gallery and and just the overall atmosphere of the gallery felt very welcoming and cozy. However, I was quite disappointed that I didn't get a much research as I have imagined and intended to help me in this module, however maybe in the next modules that we are about to start that this visit may influence or give mw reference for my future ideas and plans.