Scrapbook / Toby Thompson

"Last summer I bought a book of blank music manuscript paper. Around the same time I found a collection of illustrated Vogue covers from the mid 20th century, and started slicing them up with a scalpel and ruler. I spent two days binge listening to the audiobook ‘My Family And Other Animals’ and it’s sequel ‘Birds, Beasts and Relatives’ by Gerald Durrell, sitting in bed making the front and back covers in a mess of glue and offcuts. Then I started figuring out how to notate some songs I knew and others I wanted to learn.

My mum has a book a bit like this from when she used to play piano and sing in bars and restaurants. I always found it kind of bewitching seeing the handwritten lyrics and chord names scribbled on those pages, in ink that sank into the paper long before I was born. I’ve grown up hearing her play those songs, and that book has been for me like a time portal through which i can travel back to the moment she first set about wrapping her fingers and voice around those songs.

I guess I also wanted to do some collaging that was just for me. I think maybe I wanted for the book as an object to represent for me the very idea of having a hobby. Playing piano isn’t something I do professionally, but it’s one of the deepest sources of satisfaction in my life. I liked the idea of having a physical home for the journey of learning I’m going on with it. Having something to prioritise for its own sake rather than in order to further my career or any future centric thing like that. Also the stuff I make is rarely very visual at all, it’s all sound and language, so it’s nice to switch realms every once in a while."

Toby Thompson is a performance poet from Bath who first performed at Lyrix Organix aged 17 years old, with Akala’s Hip Hop Shakespeare Co (2011). A founding artist of Lyrix Organix ‘UnFOLD’ (2014), Toby recently won a Pleasance Indie award at Edinburgh Fringe for his one-man show 'For The Record’ (2018).