Crafting Readers

Items

• Souvenirs / "The Little Prince"
  This series of postcards, letters, and photos represents an imagined collection of correspondence between the Little Prince and the Rose. Scrapbook, collage, and letterpress techniques transform the abstract lessons the Little Prince learns on his journey into tangible memories. The Little Prince collects and carries with him various items that represent his shifting perspective on life and willingness to grow. Each lesson embodies how wonder, connection, love, and loss can be felt and remembered through sensory experiences, whether through the physical act of carrying a letter in one’s pocket or the creation of a new bond. The meticulous act of deconstructing previous material into a new item (collage) and carefully typesetting letters together (letterpress) reflect how important life lessons require endurance, patience, trust, and the bravery to challenge preconceived notions. This series emphasizes how tactile engagement deepens our understanding of life’s most essential truths and provides souvenirs to carry with us. MELANIE TURUNEN ON WHAT THIS CRAFTED OBJECT TEACHES US: What we feel shapes how we understand the world—but what about what we touch? In The Little Prince, author Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s poignant messages about love, friendship, and loss remind us that we can only truly see the world with our hearts, not our eyes. My project explores whether we can also perceive the world through our sensory experiences. Using postcards, letters, and photos, I create an imagined correspondence between the Prince and the Rose, employing scrapbook, collage, and letterpress techniques to transform the abstract lessons of his journey into tangible memories. Ultimately, my project explores how physical representations of emotional experiences help us better understand and connect with intangible concepts like love and wonder, offering deeper insight into the meaning of Saint-Exupéry’s text. The Little Prince was first published in French and English (translated by Katherine Woods) in April 1943 by Reynal & Hitchcock. Initially, The Little Prince received a modest reception, spending just two weeks on the New York Times Best Seller list, compared to the success of Saint-Exupéry’s earlier work, Wind, Sand, and Stars. Critics were divided on whether the novella was meant for children or adults. Despite puzzled reviews, Reynal & Hitchcock claimed that the novella “[changed] the world forever for [its] readers” (Castronovo), and British journalist Neil Clark called it one “of the most profound observations on the human condition ever written” (Clark). By 2024, The Little Prince had sold over 140 million copies, making it the second-most-translated book in history, with over 550 translations. Adapted for film, radio, ballet, and other media, it remains celebrated for its deep reflections on love and life. The novella’s themes of imagination, wonder, and emotion lend themselves to various art forms, including scrapbooking. Scrapbooking originated in the sixteenth century with the album amicorum or “friendship book,” used primarily by “male aristocratic university students” (Day 564) to document their travels and studies. The “commonplace book,” another precursor, served as a personal repository of knowledge, quotes, and letters. By the late nineteenth century, with the rise of photography and the manufacture of decorative elements like ribbon and lace, scrapbooking evolved from a “predominantly textual to a more visual practice” (Day 562) used to document significant life events such as births, marriages, and travels. Scrapbooking enables artists—both historical and contemporary—to preserve fleeting moments, explore personal narratives, and experiment with mixed media. Through scrapbooking, I transform the Prince’s intangible feelings into concrete forms. When the Prince realizes he does not know how to love his Rose properly, he journeys across the universe, discovering the true meaning of friendship, love, and loss. I reimagine these themes as physical mementos kept in a travel scrapbook. Like the “commonplace books” of the past, my scrapbook becomes a repository of memories and emotions, combining pieces of the Prince’s journey (collage and letterpress) with my interpretations of the novella, much like how our memories accumulate and shape our understanding of the world. Just as the Prince learns that “it is only with the heart that one can see rightly” (Saint-Exupéry 87), my scrapbook invites viewers to engage with my project not just visually but also through touch and emotion, bringing abstract lessons to life in a personal and tangible way. Moreover, letterpress printing allowed me to explore the physicality of communication. Invented by Johannes Gutenberg in the mid-fifteenth century, letterpress printing revolutionized communication by enabling mass text production. All writing had previously been done by hand—a time-consuming and expensive process—but Gutenberg’s printing method made books, pamphlets, and personal letters more accessible. By the eighteenth century, letterpress printing was integral to communication, with organized postal systems supporting broader social correspondence and creating “communities of interest […] which previously would not have been possible to exist” (Meaney 6; Anderson). The physical impressions left on paper allow viewers to feel the texture of text and image, fostering an intimate connection between creator and recipient. The Rose’s letter to the Prince makes the lessons of love, connection, and growth tangible. The Rose reminds the Prince that he must “endure the presence of two or three caterpillars if [he wishes] to become acquainted with the butterflies” (Saint-Exupéry 40), teaching patience through hardship and uncertainty. I did not originally intend to incorporate letterpress into my project. However, as I typeset and inked my quote, I realized how letterpress—like love—requires us to arrange and rearrange, embracing mistakes and clarity to create something meaningful. Throughout the Prince’s tumultuous journey, he overcomes most caterpillars, “except the two of three that [he saves] to become butterflies” (87), showing how carrying a physical reminder of his strength helps him persevere. While emotions are immaterial and ephemeral, written communication allows us to physically hold onto them. Printing this letter showed me how tactile communication and engagement help us reflect on how we connect and grow through our interactions. Furthermore, collage demonstrates the Prince’s journey as he assembles new perspectives from old ones. While collage techniques date back to 200 BC, when paper was invented in China, the art form emerged in the tenth century when Japanese calligraphers “[applied] papers glued together to write poems” (Adibi 1). Collage spread to Europe by the thirteenth century, gaining popularity in the nineteenth century for creating “memorabilia such as photo albums and books” (Adibi 2). Collage allows artists, past and present, to explore human experiences by using fragments and layers to create visual narratives that reflect how our experiences shape our identities. Collage is central to my project, reflecting the Prince’s journey of transforming narrow, materialistic views into deeper lessons while preserving his innocence and wonder. By the end of the novella, his perspective is a collage of lessons, love, and loss. The two collage postcards represent the lessons that the Prince learns on his journey. The postcard from Asteroid-330 reflects the Geographer’s lesson on exploration and self-reliance, with the surreal image of making a bed in space symbolizing how the Prince must face challenges with wonder and courage. Upon arriving on Earth, surrounded by a vast desert, he realizes that “what makes the desert beautiful […] is that somewhere it hides a well” (Saint-Exupéry 93), illustrating how hidden challenges can be enlightening. The postcard from Asteroid-325 shows how the King’s authoritarian nature teaches the Prince that true connection requires understanding, not power. The gathering of people symbolizes how growth depends on friendship, connection, and seeking help. My project evolved as I worked on it, with the final addition being the collage letter from the Prince to the Rose. Made from cut-out letters and words, the letter demonstrates how time spent with something deepens our understanding of both the world and our relationships, whether with a loved one or a story. The letter is both a collage of the Prince’s personal growth and my journey of getting to know the novella through crafting. The larger collage image of the Prince and the Pilot symbolizes how the Prince’s final lesson about friendship is intertwined with loss and longing. The Pilot “lived [his] life alone” (3) before crashing his plane into a desert and meeting the Prince. Over eight days, they explore how the desert—representing life—can be both “beautiful (70) and “a little lonely” (72). As the pilot repairs his plane and the Prince’s journey ends, they realize that relationships require growing together, sometimes in different directions. The black-and-white collage background symbolizes Earth’s isolating and disenchanting nature, while the hole in the centre (a result of their friendship) allows colour and life to emerge. Together, the Pilot and the Prince overcome loneliness, filling their lives with imagination, innocence, and love. Tearing the magazine to create this photo was intimidating at first, but it soon taught me how the loss of something can lead to the creation of something else—something beautiful, meaningful, and full of potential. Lastly, the collage Polaroid of the Prince and the Rose captures the Prince’s realization that the Rose “has tamed [him]” (80), highlighting the deep emotional connection with and responsibility he feels toward her. The Prince’s love for the Rose develops gradually as he reflects on their relationship and the lessons from his travels. While my project focuses on making the intangible tangible, the Polaroid echoes the idea that “what is essential is invisible to the eye” (87). Despite being photographable and composed of physical matter, the night sky remains vast and unknowable. The silhouettes of the Prince and the Rose are cut from a night sky, displaying how their love, though represented through sensory experiences and physical correspondence, cannot be fully understood through mere sensory perception. The Prince and the Rose’s bond exists beyond the visible world, where true connection transcends sight, touch, and articulation. While love can be explored through collage and letterpress, it ultimately resides in a space that only the heart can truly understand. The collaborative nature of my project reflects the Prince’s journey of piecing together lessons, mirroring my engagement with The Little Prince. By assembling fragments into a coherent whole, my scrapbook helped me explore how sensory engagement can deepen our understanding of complex ideas and uncover insights missed in previous experiences. Through my transforming the Prince’s emotions into physical objects, the abstract concepts of the novella became more concrete to me, from the nature of love to the value of hands-on, tactile learning. As we learn to love our own Roses, it is through caring for them and attempting to make the night sky a bit more tangible that we may come to grasp the depth and ineffability of love.