A Piece Of Remember Handsewn Hardcover Book Series

A Piece Of Remember

Layout, Cover Design, Hand Sewn, Published
Tony Besné (bydeadface)

Private press only.
©2014-2019

A Piece Of Remember...is not meant to be used; it’s meant to be held, smelled, felt. Glanced at as you walk by it in your home, sticking out on the bookshelf, if just for a moment, you see it in the right light, leaving a picture in your head, attaching an emotion to the instance.

This book is meant to be a symbol of that instance. A singular experience in the collective of one’s own experience(s); personally found to be mundane moments, but critical to remembering those pieces that when put together take you back to that time of a certain safety, a warmth that leaves you feeling secure. Objects foreign to your past experiences can symbolize those deep personal feelings. New items can symbolize and trigger old remembrances and allow you the same satisfaction as if the memory was happening for the first time all over again. It is difficult expressing these moments to others with mere words because no amount of words pieced together could paint the picture you see in your head and the feelings that you have. A Piece Of Remember is about my most important instance; a moment in my life that created a path well before my awareness of it, a path I feel I am still growing into.

The following is a detailed description that will place the picture as well as the feeling of that time that still remains a defining moment in my life.

It was in 2nd grade when I checked out from the school library what I now know was the 1968 Louise Darling illustrated edition of Beverly Cleary’s Ramona the Pest. The book’s subject matter was of little importance as I became intimately connected with the look, the touch, the way it made me feel emotionally and how it felt in my hands. The softness of the dust jacket’s acetate with its worn and torn edges from students prior. The checkout card; each line containing a decade’s worth of names who had once held something made for me, before me, but mine nonetheless. Turning the pages, feeling the tooth of faded-edged and arbitrarily dogeared paper that stunk of the ages. An acquired taste for the nose but quickly to be considered a fragrance of my liking. The smell was that of a grandparent’s attic, any grandparent's attic. Holding that book in my hands, staring at it, I felt as if I was staring life directly in the face. My life. A physical representation of what it is to see god, to hold god, and for god to hold you, gifting you the awareness of your own presence. I was 8.

Holding that book, I felt like I was home. I had a purpose and meaning and because I was able to see that I became driven more than ever to pursue that vision.

I had no choice, I stole the book. I hid it away the best an 8 year old me knew how by tucking it securely under my bed. The best place I thought to store the key to life.

Then one day it was gone. Soon after I forgot about it. I would continue to create throughout my life with the feeling of searching for something knowing it was that feeling that drove me. An itch I could not scratch, and as I continued to refine my craft, with each year passing by, I felt I was getting closer and closer to the source of this feeling that felt as old as time itself; searching for the right words and utilizing graphic design to communicate them.

Then one day I stumbled across a picture of the book online.

Years into my work of book design and I stumble across a piece of my own remember that started it all. It was like finding myself all over again. The first instance experienced all those years ago left me with the drive and creativity to find purpose and meaning in my life but I lost the “why” to the equation when I lost the physical book. Ultimately that lead to a slow but steady degeneration of the feeling and importance of the experience altogether but not the memory of it. Seeing the book brought back the "why" to the experience.

I still can’t find that book; that exact one. An obsessive and excessive amount of hours were and still somewhat are devoted to the search of that exact book, with it's library stamps and overfilled checkout card. At this point I don’t really care to find it or for it to find me like it had all those years ago. I like to think that for the time I had it in my possession I consumed everything it had to offer to me and then it disappeared when it wasn’t necessary for me to hold onto it anymore. Now I am privileged with the ability to create those same feelings and to have the opportunity to effect people on a level that I believe is at the core of the human experience. A point of reference, a piece of remember. It’s a book last, and a feeling first.