THE GLASS BOOK

Consider this book a window into my mild-to-severe obsession with glassware.

 

The starting point to this project was mapping the shopping district close to my neighboorhood, where 4 kringloops are scattered among the countless high-end furniture and home goods stores. Coming across these stores was as random as most of the things you can find in them.

 

After a thorough examination of each of them, I decided to focus on just one section, which was the most interesting to me: the glassware section.

 

My research consisted mostly of learning patterns: patterns of the glasses, patterns of the people who buy them, patterns between the shops and even patterns of my own way around the area (which you can see in the embroidery of this page).

 

While the look, shine and sharpness of the glasses has been reproduced quite well on the page, there is one thing that the printer could not bring to life, which is the texture. And so, for that, I decided to introduce embroidery as a tactile and colorful contrast to the black and white pages of the book. These embroideries are reinterpretations of the patterns I found on the glasses during this research.

 

The final product is an accordion style book(let) which hides the backside of the embroidery when reading it, while still allowing a look “behind the scenes” to those who are curious.