Thinking Way Back, Waaaay Back

I've been thinking about early inspiration.  The earliest memory was the summer after Kindergarten.  At the end of year I brought home the booklets containing my work and Weekly Readers.  I worked over the worksheets several times.  The booklets themselves were folded sheets of construction paper that became the cover and staples down the margin kept everything in.  I used my mother's pinking shears to cut squares of newspaper which I pasted down.

In the first grade, there were several students who attended speech class.  They came back from sessions with composition books that had work sheets, such as a large snake making an S glued in.  It intruiged me.

Next was likely after Christmas in 1961.  I took some used gold foil giftwrap and some used sheets of paper and my sister's Tot 50 stapler to create a workbook. 

After that was the creation of a teachers grade book which I made out of scrap paper.  I was fascinated by that mysterious book that teachers had with the big paperclips holding in absence notes that were in various states of crumple.  I played school a lot as a child. 

In junior high I was into minatures.  Like dollhouse things.  I would take the top of a  zip out page notebook that was used up and cut it into small books.  I also made a few from scratch.  The tinier the better.

My imagination has always been more creative than imaginary.  I can think of things to do and make and alter other ideas readily.  I always wished I was better at imagination.  Not the thinking up things, I am very good at that, but pretending.  I always needed someone else to pretend with.  I could never do it alone.  My daughters were good at it, they had imaginary friends.  I'm still envious of that ability which is why I made up Ianto. 

These days I am working on grunge books.  I still love the rustle and crunch of "abused" paper.  I've been taking printer sample books and soaking them out doors in rainwater with coffee, ink, dye and whatever strikes my fancy.  I am now in the process of drying them out.  It is so much fun to see how each and every page turns out.