Week 50: Some Eden...

   In Week 48's book-of-the-week, The Garden of Peace, reference was made to a unique and fantastical garden...

"Beyond the gate was some Eden... beautiful flowers, exotic plants of every kind and form. There were giant clay figures and small pools of fat orange koi where red painted bridges spanned across. It was the life's work of some visionary and prophet, an ark of growing things and art... and it was created with love." 

That fantastical garden is a real place. It's located in a village called Gardone Rivera on Lake Garda in Italy. With a view of the Alps to the north, this tropical paradise is kept unusually warm by the huge glacier-created lake that abuts it. This excerpt from the webpage http://www.hellergarden.com describes this amazing garden...

"the Giardino Botanico, a collection of flora from all over the world with plants from Africa and South America interspersed with species from Asia, Europe and Australia. Edelweiss amidst orchid meadows; tree ferns several metres high next to pomegranate wonders. Streams and waterfalls; ponds with sacred koi carp, trout and the reflections of dragonflies in flight; hills of dolomite rock alongside cacti and towers of ivy. Indian and Moroccan sculptures in harmony with installations by Roy Lichtenstein, Susanne Schmögner, Mimmo Paladino and Keith Haring."  

This enchanted place is the genesis for this week's book.. a carousel book titled Some Eden.

The book, all folded up and tied with a satin ribbon...

   The entire book is made with photographs taken on a sunny afternoon in September, 2014 at the Giardino Botanico Fondazione André Heller (André Heller Botanical Garden). The front cover has a cut-out photograph of the iron front gate. The whimsical imagery is a hint to the joyful and inspiring beauty amassed beyond the gate. Gold-printed Japanese Chiyogami paper alongside Italian print paper and this artist's pastepaper and marbled paper are the background of the carousel book. The backing paper is heavyweight archival construction paper from The French Paper Company®.

looking into the book at photographs glued into cut-out frames..

Red and black-spotted rayon handmade bookcloth is used to bind the pages accordion-style, then the two separate accordion strips are sewn together with a series of pamphlet stitches. As is true for all carousel books, the forward set of pages have cutout sections so the anterior imagery can be viewed. Using this type of book is a great way to teach geometry, and angles were used in determining the dimensions of the roof and floor triangles. For a six-section carousel book, 360 degrees is divided by the number of sections, 6, to determine the angle of each floor triangle... in this case 60 degrees. For a pointed roof, the angle must be larger than 60 degrees. For this book, 72 degrees was selected for the center vertex of the triangles creating the roof.

looking down on the carousel roof... beautiful pastepaper

the beginning of the circle of a carousel book...

The carousel book can be stretched out to form a long strip.. where each page resembles a sort of house.

the six vignettes, all lined up...

The backside of the accordion strip can also be used to tell a story. In Some Eden a map of Italy has been printed onto handmade Hahnemuhle® paper and affixed to the back of each panel.

its place in the world... how to find this Eden

Inside...

a string of prayer flags are strung across the first page..

an iron gate with the moon and the stars...

a huge clay face from the land of Persia, studded with gems and tatoos...

beautiful flowers and the goddess Guanyin by a pool...

a little clay man gives praise for his blessings...

a little clay lady sings to the flowers and plants...

When it's all wrapped up the carousel book is housed in a slipcase that rests beneath the magic box book The Peace Garden.

Some Eden in its case under The Garden of Peace

slipping out of it's case...

Some Eden opened beside The Garden of Peace...

   For all its misery and war, poverty and sickness, fear and prejudice ... there is still beauty, purity, and joy in the world. There is somewhere Some Eden...