Studio practice

 The flower seller   

I made this zine after spending a day with the flower seller outside Zara. The actual day with  the flower seller went ok, although it did feel very awkward for me, I think maybe for her too. Throughout the day the awkwardness eased and we spoke more. I learnt a few things about her, she's been selling flowers for 46  years, or as she put it "I've been in the flower game 46 years", I liked the way she phrased that. The way she spoke was fascinating to me, she spoke so casually, knew everyone, mentioned people and places like i knew exactly what and who she was talking about. Another phrase she said that I wrote down  was "I was at snienton, then i started helping terry on a Saturday, that was 36 years ago", I never did ask who terry was but i imagine he used to run the stall. I think most of the awkwardness came from my own head, i stood their strangely half in the stall half not, camera in hand. Yeah, looking back i was definitely the one emitting the awkwardness, but I kept trying to seem more at ease, kept checking myself.

One interaction from that day that stuck with me most was a teen boy buying some flowers. He asked the seller how long she would be there, would she still be there after he finished college. She said yes and he left. She turned to me and told me she had a lot of teens recently, a local boy had died. She said "Its pretty sad, the kids only associate flowers with death or murder. That's the only time I serve them, or valentines day."  This interaction stuck with me for a minute, a sad reminder of reality. Despite spending this day with her, learning so much i realise i never actually learnt her name, Did i even tell her mine? do i go back and ask or is that really to awkward?

For this practice zine i upgraded the paper to some glossy brochure papers, this gave it a more professional feel. Printing on this paper did cause some issues, i practiced with re printing my flowers and lies zine and found i have to change this ink settings otherwise it just comes off all on your fingers. I changed the settings and it worked much better. I practiced this saddle stitch binding and i do like this but for my final book i want to try Japanese stab binding, if i do this i will probably make the book a4 to accommodate losing some page space near the spine. For this copy i made i only used images, i was unsure what text to use, after writing this blog i think ill adapt the first two paragraphs and use that, it explains the experience perfectly.