Memory in an Impossible Bottle — Memoir Bridge Project 1

For the first project, we were tasked with creating an artifact that serves as a vessel for memories… Here’s what I came up with.

Originally I wanted to use Augmented Reality (AR) to create a literal vessel (in this case a vacuum chamber) full of my memories (photos, in this case) floating around inside it that I can digitally place in my living room.

But then I found out that I had to use found materials… Okay, fine, what materials do I have lying around?

Leather.  Recently I have been getting into leathercraft (making wallets, bags, etc) and had a ton of scraps left over from my projects, so I decided to use that.  But for what?  I continued this silly search throughout my room until I found things that I deemed suitable for this project — An old bottle and deck of cards.

Over the course of planning out the object, I made various sketches, mind maps, and mood boards, which document my thought process throughout the assignment.  Though I didn’t make a “timeline” in the traditional sense (linear), many of the sketches incorporate, or remind me of, specific memories that I intended on capturing with this artifact.

 

I liked the idea of a strange object that clearly holds some meaning, but only certain people would be able to understand, so after doing some tinkering and research, I settled on an “Impossible Bottle” covered in a leather flask holder.

Basically, an “Impossible Bottle” is any type of bottle that has something inside that typically would be much too large to fit through the neck/opening.

The type of bottle seen most often is a deck of cards.
Yes, I know I used a deck of cards a few times already in class, but there’s genuinely is so much that can be done with one creatively–but don’t worry, I’ll use other materials in the future…

On a personal level, cards–and specifically magic and mentalism–got me through some of the toughest moments of my life so far.

Throughout my elementary school years I struggled with mental illness and depression, and performing magic was the one thing that I clung to, and it acted as a coping skill — That, and Game Development, but that’s a post for another time.

 Regardless of how I was feeling on the inside, I was able to put on a figurative mask, and make someone else smile with a simple trick–make them forget about the crap going on in their life for just a moment, and nothing is more powerful than that.

Nowadays, while I still do shows regularly (at least before COVID), I choose to lock away those difficult memories and not think about them, so I figured that would be the perfect topic for this assignment–keeping an artifact of the person I used to be, totally contained, and impossible to come back out, contained by years of experience and growth as a person to be who I am today.

“I have already lost touch with a couple of people I used to be.” – Joan Didion

I used the leather scraps to create a flask holder to go around the bottle, which, of course, has a full deck of cards somehow inside it.  I struggled with the best way to wrap the leather around but eventually figured it out.  I used some leatherworking thread, punches, and glue to layout, cut, and sew together the flask holder.

Do I really have to describe how I put the deck in there?  That would spoil the mystery!  No, I did not cut or melt the glass in any way 😀

Work in Progress

I knew I wanted the bottle to be able to stand alone as a cool piece if necessary, so I made the leather cover removable.  The photos above are in an early stage.  I ended up adding little touches to the leather–such as a question mark made with a metal rivet and tan stitching–to add to the mystery as you can see below in the final product!

Looking back on the project, there are definitely things I could have done better.  I would like to have used a brand new deck, sealed in cellophane, though I didn’t have any unopened decks that I felt comfortable using for this project.  Additionally, I would have preferred using Vegetable tan leather, but I only had Oil tan.  More weather resistant though!
y’know, for when I take this strange object outside in the rain…?

Overall, making this artifact was a great learning experience.  I learned how to use stitching for patterns, as opposed to just attaching material together, as well as how to couple that with riveting.
On a more serious note, when putting this together, thinking about the meaning forced me to be a little more introspective than usual, which was therapeutic in a way.

Thanks for reading!

Judah Mantell
www.JudahMagic.com | www.MidnightCoffeeInc.com