Remember those fabulously ornate prop books I wrote about a little while back? One of the things I said about them was that I wondered what kind of text you'd put in them, beyond a full-bore fantasy novel or a grimoire. Well, I don't think I was far off, and here's the lady to do the job: Mia Leijonstedt. Her books are one-of-a-kind constructions using wood, leather, metal, fur, and natural found objects. Some seem less like books than artifacts.
And what draws me to her work is that she's just as concerned about content as she is about form, though that content is not always in the form of words, it always tells some kind of story, or exudes a sense of mystery waiting to be unlocked or interpreted. A couple of them are in cases with "dolls" though I use the term loosely as they aren't the kind you play with, necessarily. They're more like accessories to the crime. Take a look at Spells of Seduction and you'll see what I mean. This book also offers the solution to what to put inside Tim Baker's prop books. Lovely calligraphy and interesting, uh, content, too.
Leijonstedt's books aren't whimsical, but they draw heavily on myth and archetype for their themes. There's a book of Merlin's lost spells, a shaman scroll filled with Laplander symbols, and a scroll of "fairy tales" written entirely in symbols with accompanying dried poppies to add fragrance. Here's one of my favorites, Under the Ice, which "explores the marks left in nature by the formation and movement of frozen water." This is a palm-leaf book, a structure she seems to like.
Go take a look. There's lots more. (Via BookGirl.)
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