Make it anyway.... life is not perfect....

Decluttering is going well.

Out went the things that son didn't want but I found it hard to let go of.

Out went two oboes. There is no point playing the oboe if you can't count bars in an orchestra. And as the oboe doesn't play a lot of the time in classical pieces the bar counting is mega. More counting than playing in fact.

Out went several more framed art works, a lot of old hiking gear and more books. No one needs three spare lightweight anoraks.....

Mental decluttering is another thing altogether. I am trying to make more space in my head for creative thoughts. I have made some progress using the 'screenzen' app for my phone. I now have about one extra hour per day to be in the real world, thinking about creative projects.

I have resigned from my poetry group. It was hard to say 'this is not really working for me', but having said it, I feel relieved. No more writing for a specific reason. No more listening to poems that I really don't understand or enjoy. No more cake.

​All of these actions are freeing me up to make stuff. And what could possibly go wrong with making stuff?

​

Holding the Line | Caroline Fraser

Quite a lot, it turns out.

Making a book requires many different steps. Designing, making a mock book, printing the pages and then fabrication. Unfortunately a lot of effort goes in before the fabrication stage, but so much can go wrong at the last hurdle. And does.

Bin it or make it anyway?

​My new motto is 'make it anyway'.

Make it even if you trim the pages wrongly and chop the bottom off the images. Done. 

Make it even if it looks too small because you wanted to be economical with an expensive sheet of Japanese paper and fit all the pages onto one sheet. Done.

Make it even if the cover paper rips as you flatten it down after gueing and have to hide the error with black marker pen. Done.

Make it even if you have a lot of pages where the printer made a mess and you have to cut off half the page. 

​Make it when the paper is too thin and the cover shows through on the last page and you got glue on the page that leaves a mark.

the quirks of pansion paper...... it is not opaque.

not quite perfect.......

I realised that people don't mind a few imperfections when they wanted to buy the book that I didn't want to sell. The fact that it had empty pages and that the typewritten poem had typos didn't seem to bother them. I even wonder if they like it because of the imperfections. An enjoyment of the hand made.

If I had binned each book when it went wrong I would have nothing to show for the last two weeks work. Instead I have three new books, all different, and all trying different papers, covers and shapes. I now know that I am no longer happy with standard photo paper with its harsh white pages. I love the off-white shades of Japanese papers in differing thicknesses. They feel better. 

​But most of all I love the book made from all my errors with my 'test my patience' printer. 

Scissors, Paper, Stone | Caroline Fraser 2026

It got its name from the idea of cutting up the photos with scissors to remove the ink blotches added by my printer. Stones the topic, paper the medium and scissors the method. 

I am ready to make more of this collage style of book. It allows much spontaneity and as many errors as I like. For who is to know what is intentional and what is mistake? And I get to do more hammering out words on my tyepwriter which is more therapeutic than almost anything else I know.

​Life is not perfect. And nor am I.