Griffin & Sabine

When the Js were new to each other, when spring turned to summer in Winnipeg and they moved from their separate beds to the coziness of a hammock just wide enough for two, they would often read to one another. An odd assortment of books, some old favourites and some new discoveries. Nick Bantock's Griffin & Sabine was one of the latter.  For those of you who've never picked up a copy, head straight to your nearest used book store. You'll find one, to be sure, and you won't want to leave it behind. These books are not just beautiful to look at, they will lift you up and carry you away. The first (and there are three in the original series) is a collection of postcards, each a unique mixed-media collage that you might wish you had framed and hanging in your stairwell, between two artists who have never met. Somehow, strangely, they come to fall in love and the rest of the trilogy expands upon their journey to find one another.

You can see the appeal to the Js as a new couple. Those books inspired an exchange of love tokens and letters, handcrafted bookmarks, pressed flowers, pages in scrapbooks, bouquets in mason jars adorned with toy bumblebees left at doorstops, posies planted in a pair of shoes waiting to be picked up after work, that lasted all summer. Perhaps they even encouraged J to buy a Greyhound ticket and travel across the country to be with his sweetheart. He hasn't looked back since. More than five years later, J signed them up for an art class that promised to teach how to make collages just like the postcards shared between Griffin and Sabine. For a whole month, the Js cut and pasted, painted and sketched, splattered and stamped. Here are a few of their creations:

 

The Js will leave it up to you to figure out which of these cards was made by Josh and which are Jackie's.