From texts to totes: Pittsfield woman gives old books new lives as purses
PITTSFIELD
Lynette Cornwell had a novel idea. Out of it grew a – Novel Idea.
The backstory to that change from lower to upper case, began a few years ago in a local collage art group she’d joined. Collage is the art of decorating flat surfaces with pasted-on materials.
“One woman brought up the idea of making a purse out of a book and collaging it,” Cornwell said in an interview last week.
She tried it, herself, and out of that idea grew a whole line of book purses – Novel Idea -now with fabric compartments, long and short straps and bead clasps and ornaments.
Instead of covering up the book covers, however, she lets the titles speak for themselves – and the women who carry them.
“I discovered
people are drawn to the titles,” she said. Whether they give the purses as gifts or keep them for themselves, buyers see the book titles as extensions of identify, occupation or interest – e.g. a law dictionary purse for a lawyer, for example, or an arcane medical tome for a doctor.
While she’s found a handful of other women around the country who make purses from books, she believes she is the only one who personalizes them.
“That’s what makes me unique,” she said.
Cornwell will make a book purse to order – if she can find a book cover to match the buyer’s interest. She said she shops for vintage volumes at library book sales and at Goodwill and the Salvation Army.
She removes the pages, leaving only the spine and front and
back covers intact. Then she constructs inside compartments in complementary fabrics, and glues them to the covers. Styles range from clutches to shoulder bags, the straps run through grommets punched through the covers with the help of her husband, Ray Hescock.
Cornwell has been selling her purses at crafts fairs, through her website – novelideabookpurses.com – at the Happy Valley shop in Northampton and, most recently, at the Albany airport gift shop. She credited Berkshire Made, an artisans group, with helping her to develop a marketing plan plan.
Her own professional background helped.
Cornwell worked 20 years as public relations director at Berkshire Community College, where she now coordinates the Rhodes Scholar (formerly Elderhostel) program part time. But “my purses are my passion,” she said, adding that she’s often up until 2 in the morning working at a design.
They range from $50 to $150 depending on size, she said. She’s made ones of two-volume book sets and is contemplating a style to fit a Kindle e-book reader.
Buyers, Cornwell said, often reveal that they are looking for a gift for a mother-, sister- or daughter-in-law – in hopes, perhaps, of impressing with something unique.
“Is she a hippie or a Talbots type,” she will ask, to decide if the look should be funky or classic.
The most popular book title has been “Jane Eyre”; the most often requested but hardest to find, is the hardback version of “To Kill a Mockingbird.” The book alone can run $40 to $50, if she can put her hands on one.
The most unusual? “A Short History of Marriage,” given as a gift to the guest of honor – at a bridal shower,
To reach Charles Bonenti: (413) 496-6211
To find them
Lynette Cornwell will display her Novel Idea book purses:
Today from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Pittsfield Art Show, Palace Park, on North Street; Aug. 7 from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. at Handmade in the Park in Lee;
Aug. 19 and Sept. 16 from 5 to 7 p.m. on Third Thursdays at Dunham Mall in Pittsfield.