Leslie Wilson-Rutterford, London, (UK)
Well Thumbed
Reflecting on my contribution to Reading Around I felt the theme of ‘Well Thumbed’ could be developed further. Bookmarks Vl provided
a good opportunity to zoom in closer. I’ve gone back to the novel Even Cowgirls Get the Blues, by Tom Robbins for ideas and content.
Cardboard boxes that carried goods, in big trucks across the states, giving lifts to hitchhikers, become signs telling of desired destinations,
written, painted with whatever materials you had at home, or along the roadside. I painted facsimile hitchhiking signs from discarded
cardboard boxes, creating a raw tactile base material from which to make the bookmarks. I used the haunts the main character, Sissy
Hankshaw restlessly and relentlessly hitches and stomps between, like Fargo (North Dakota), Richmond (Virginia), Taos (New Mexico) and New York.
The painted signs contrast with the intimate and neat text attached on the other side. There, the background imagery is a pale collage of a
bygone age in America: of hitching around the country, roadside signs, hippies, and B-movies . At the lower edge of the bookmarks I have
added selected text from the bottom of each page, from 1 - 100, of the book. Where there was a blank page, I extracted lines from the back cover.
The bookmarks are a tribute to the book, and even promote it in a new way with snippets of text which tantalise and make you want to read more.
They play with the act and nostalgia of thumbing across America, while their title, ‘Well Thumbed’ alludes to the heroines apppendages,
the road travelled and the well-read book. The bookmarks are individually finished off with a thumbprint.
A special montage covered box was made to transport them.
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