Bookshelf: The top 5 reads of top artist and furniture maker, Anton Alvarez

If you haven’t yet seen Anton Alvare’s spectacular thread-wrapped furniture, you’re in for a treat. With the typical RCA-graduate mix of staggering intelligence and creativity in one go, Anton now spends his time constructing incredible furniture utilising machines that he designs and builds himself. Not bad, eh? His bookshelf is, unsurprisingly, an incredibly enjoyable read. Until, of course, you reach the bit about the limited edition Misaki Kawai book, then you just find yourself wondering how best to break an enter into his home.

Expedition Ra — Thor Heyerdahl

My mother gave this book to my grandfather who passed away more than 30 years ago and the book is now in my bookshelf due to a long-term loan from grandmother. As a child, it was one of the first documentary books I ever read and I remembered it as an exiting story. At the time I’d just been to Chile and back in Sweden I was fantasising about sailing back to South America in my own boat built in reeds.

Tibet Special, edition 58/100 — Misaki Kawai

When writing my dissertation at the RCA, The Contemporary Craft of Graffiti Writing, I got financial support from the College to facilitate the work with the dissertation as of my dyslexia. It was very helpful and I used all of the money to buy craft theory books like for example the essay compilation The Craft Reader by Glenn Adamson and The Craftsman by Richard Sennet. One of the days out on the Internet purchasing literature I stumbled on this little book by fantastic artist Misaki Kawai and I couldn’t stop myself of ordering it. I ended up with a distinction on my dissertation.

London AZ Mini — New Edition 2007

This book that in some amazing way contains all of the streets of London and fits in my hand. When moving to London this was my most important book. I was always caring this book in my pocket to be able to help myself to navigate through the city.

The Observers Book of Cats — Grace Pond

It describes all the recognised breeds and varieties, illustrated with 32 photographs in colour and 25 in black-and-white, as well as numerous line drawings. This book is probably like the lol-cats but from 1959. I think this particular book belongs to a friend, but I am not sure.

120×120 — Anton Alvarez

A book of my 120-day long self-initiated period of material research that was occupying me during my first period at the RCA. Each day I created something new and photographed it. I see this document as my research behind my current project the Thread Wrapping Machine. Many of the experiments deals with the problem of how to join things together, the string is something that frequently comes back through the experiment.