Cyrus' Cylinder Part 2

For my second piece for the ‘Made to Fit’ exhibition I made another version of Cyrus’ Cylinder, this time, influenced by my course with Louise Baldwin, I used various papers,including some very delicate Japanese papers, stitched into the seams around the cylinder. On some pieces of Vellum I printed either lines from the Bill of Rights, or some of the quotes from the actual cylinder.
On a trip to the British Museum I asked where I could see the cylinder but had a blank response. Fortunately in the Enlightenment Gallery, I found a number of incised cylinders and presumed one of them was the one I was looking for.

This is a piece I made in Louise Baldwin’s workshop which relates to the finished piece.

I stitched a piece of calico with a twin needle to get the shape of the cylinder. This is the inside, I stamped both sides with a handwriting stamp and added rolled beads made from book pages as in version one.

How to get the pieces to keep their shape; it was simple in the end, when I got the idea of using empty cardboard toilet rolls. I did paint them nicely with gesso.

---------------------------

Here is a tip if you haven’t thought of it already.

When I went to throw away my old window cleaning spray, I thought how useful the spray attachment looked.

Cut down it works well should you want a sprayed background, especially on the days when you haven’t enough puff for the diffuser or the tiny spray bottle is too fiddly.