Mozart’s music case: artist's book

Here is an artist’s book I recently created using fragments of “Changing Everything”, a poem by Jane Hirshfield; and copies of Mozart’s sheet music from “The Marriage of Figaro”. This was a special birthday present for a creative gardener who loves opera.

I was asked to create a book that would be contemporary with a respect for the traditional. I met with the client and she told me lots of little details about her friend – giving me an insight into what she might like. I was also given some poetry which would have resonance for her and a digital copy of Mozart’s “The Marriage of Figaro”.

I was really inspired seeing Mozart’s music sheets with all his annotations, notes and scribbles. I decided to use this as the base of the book, building up one of the poems around it. The book structure took the format of a traditional music case for holding sheet music. I used handmade grey felt for the cover which acted as a balance for the moss green inner cover.

Throughout the book are hints of silver culminating with a layered silver leaf panel which lies hidden underneath the moss green flap until one opens the book. The pages are slightly translucent, lined with staves drawn by Mozart. On each page lies one line of the poem surrounded by notes and annotations. A hint of the following line can be seen through the paper on the next page. This handmade artist’s book measures 18 x 27 x 3 cms.