BookGirl

A Yen for Paper

2010-04-16T10:56:00.008-04:00

I seem to be obsessed lately with advertising involving the clever use of paper. Maybe it's because interesting advertising is rare. But there's also a bit of nostalgia here, as paper becomes less and less important in society -- newspapers losing ground to reading online, books in print being overshadowed by ebooks, etc.

Paradoxically, paper has become even more important to me in the past few years. I've always been an avid reader of books, magazines, and newspapers (not to mention cereal boxes, catalogs, posters -- you get the idea), but now that I make books, I've developed a whole new and delicious appreciation for all kinds of paper. In some ways, then, I may be going backward instead of forward in time. In this case, I don't think it's a bad thing.

This is the trailer for Le Petit Nicolas, a live-action film based on the book of the same name. The book was first published in 1959, written by Rene Goscinny (who also wrote the Asterix comic books), and illustrated by Jean-Jacques Sempe. Followed by several more books about Nicholas and his friends, the books became wildly popular in France in the 60s.

Thanks to Celeste Frittata for the heads up on this video.

How about you? Do you, too, have a lust for paper?

P.S. For those of you who are much more Blogger-savvy than I, how do I get an accent mark on that final 'e' in 'Rene' and 'Sempe'?

Ads Don't Have to be Boring

2010-03-13T12:15:00.005-05:00

I've written about Su Blackwell's work before, and it continues to amaze. Below is a 45-second t.v. advertisement for Beringer wines from 2007 that I learned about on All Things Paper (thanks, to Ann Martin).

Blackwell, a UK-based artist, combines arts (pop-ups) and paper-cutting in remarkable ways. Worth seeing is the "making-of video" for the Beringer ad (also below), which features Blackwell.

And just for fun, in case you missed it the first time 'round, is a charming video from singer-songwriter Lisa Hannigan's CD, Sea Sew, which I wrote about here.

Here's Lisa's official You Tube Channel.

Stop-motion video seems to be encouraging advertisers to do more with paper arts (hurray!). Have you seen any examples recently that we may have missed?

How Do You Feel About the Printed Word?

2010-03-04T12:07:00.012-05:00

I have a new widget -- I Pledge to Read the Printed Word -- on this blog (see left) that I found while reading one of the (too many) blogs I follow on my feed reader.

I embrace technology, particularly the extraordinary access to data and knowledge that it provides through the Web -- no, I'm not forgetting the also extraordinary levels of useless detritus, but for me, the pros far outweigh the cons. I also appreciate the value of a Kindle when traveling -- I wish I'd had one when I seemed to live on a plane during a past work life.

So I'm certainly no Luddite. Nevertheless, the printed page is to me one of the true wonders of the world, and I'll be forever in debt to Herr Gutenberg. Curling up with the Sunday Times or the book I'm currently reading (you MUST read this) is one of my great pleasures. Curling up with a Kindle? Not so much.

When I came across this wonderful "manifesto" from Mrs. Fischer's English Classes, I had to share it:

I, hereby, pledge to read the printed word. I pledge to hold books in my hand, to visit public libraries, to flip tangible pages, to read for pleasure and imagination, to pause from my reading to tilt my head heavenward to consider what information I have just absorbed.

I couldn't have said it better.

What do you think of "Mrs. Fischer's" pledge? Any thoughts on electronic readers such as the Kindle?

Image Credit: takomabibelot on Flickr
The Reading Girl (La Leggitrice), model 1856, carved 1861
by Pietro Magni (sculptor), Italian, 1817-1877
Collection of the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC

A Life in Post-its

2009-07-11T15:51:00.004-04:00

There's a special type of creativity that makes art from the mundane. I love this animated stop-motion video, Deadline, by Bang-yao Liu. It was his senior project at Savannah College of Art and Design. Liu says: "where my idea comes from is that every time when I am busy, I feel not that I am fighting with my work,...I am fighting with those post-it notes and deadlines."

The second video is about the making of Deadline.

Deadline
Directed by Bang-yao Liu
Music by Röyksopp (http://royksopp.com)
Sound design by Ian Vargo, Shaun Burdick
Actor: Chun-yao Huang

The Making of 'Deadline'
Filmed by Jay Tseng
Edited by Bang-yao Liu

Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland

2009-06-26T10:07:00.011-04:00

I was delighted to hear that we'll be seeing director Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland next year. Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (read and see the facsimile of the original book, with Arthur Rackham's illustrations, here) and Through the Looking Glass (read here) are two of my early favorite books, and anything by Burton (his most recent film was his version of Stephen Sondheim's Sweeney Todd) is bound to be, at the very least, a visual treat. The cast includes Johnny Depp as the Mad Hatter, Helen Bonham Carter (Burton's wife) as the Red Queen, Anne Hathaway as the White Queen, Stephen Fry as the Cheshire Cat and Mia Wasikowska as Alice.

According to Burton in an article in Disney's new magazine, Disney Twenty-Three, the new film is not a re-telling of the 1865 novel, but a new story that has Alice returning to Wonderland, as a teenager, several years after the events of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass. He describes the movie as "kind of a mixture of some distorted live action and animation." Hmmmm.

Here are a few of the images that recently were released by Disney to give a feel for Burton's artistic concept. You can find more images here and here. I'm looking forward to learning more.

Johnny Depp as the Mad Hatter

Helena Bonham Carter as the Red Queen

Making Books with Andrea Dezsö

2009-05-20T10:54:00.015-04:00

I wrote in this blog about Andrea Dezsö a year-and-a-half ago. I began with "How smitten am I with Andrea Dezsö?" Well, I'm even more smitten now. When I found out that Andrea was teaching at the Southeast Association for Book Arts (SABA) conference, a scant two-and-a-half-hour-drive away, I signed up immediately. I didn't even read the description of the class.

As it turned out, the two-day class covered tunnel books on day 1 and pop-up books on day 2. Andrea, whose regular day job is at Parsons New School for Design (you can see her work here on Parson's site -- including her pop-up and tunnel books), kept things simple. She doesn't believe in showing students how to replicate one of her books; she prefers to teach them the form and let them experiment with their own ideas. During our class, Andrea was available to guide, demonstrate, and answer questions, but made a point of not imposing her aesthetic on us.

She showed us two alternatives for a tunnel book: the first was the more traditional accordion style; the other is a, simpler, wrap-around format. In the latter, each individual "screen," or portion, of the tunnel book has side tabs that are are affixed to a long strip of the same material. The strip "wraps" around the sides and back of the book. You can see some of the work our class created at the end of this post. And I couldn't resist including some images of Andrea's tunnel and pop-up books.

This is the first time I'd attended the SABA conference, which is organized by the Art Department at the University of South Carolina in Columbia, and held there for four days every two years. The organizers are a mix of members of the Art and English departments at USC, and they did a terrific job. Each day began with a presentation from one of the instructors, and lunch included a lecture or workshop by someone from the school -- for example, the head of the university's rare books collections spoke on what book artists can learn from such a collection's resources. A national exhibit of artists' books, Intimate Curiosities, was mounted in conjunction with the conference, juried by artist Bea Nettles (Bea also took Andrea's class) and the opening of the exhibit was held at the University's McMaster Gallery during the first evening of the conference. Magnolia trees were in full bloom in Columbia during our visit, and Andrea, who'd never seen the flowers, was immediately captivated, saying that they were "as big as a person's head!" (As a side note, she made some beautiful sketches, including of the flower and its striking seed pod, during class).

I was delighted with the entire experience: with the professional and still friendly way in which the conference was run, with the organizers and speakers from USC, with the exhibit, with my fellow students, and of course, with the program and the instructors (and a good word, too, for The Inn at USC, which gave us great rates, and cookies and milk every night). I'm only sorry that it comes around only once every two years.

If you'll be in New York City between October 2009 and January 2010, check out the Museum of Art & Design's show: Slash: Paper Under the Knife, an international exhibit that will include Andrea's work.

(Note: the image at top right is Andrea Dezsö's tunnel book: Living Inside: The Forest. Andrea mentioned that this book was stolen from a gallery in April 2008. If you learn its whereabouts, please contact Andrea via her "Contact" link at Parsons.)

Bea's tunnel book

Marvine's tunnel book

Marjorie's tunnel book

Clara's tunnel book

Susan's tunnel book

Gina's pop-up book

Andrea explaining a pop-up structure
Andrea's Dezsö Pop-up Book: Stillwater

Andrea Dezsö Tunnel Book: Living Inside: The Mantis

Magnolia bloom "as big as a person's head"

Andrea's sketch of the magnolia bloom

Lisa Hannigan - Handmade

2009-04-22T14:56:00.011-04:00

Is it just me, or are we seeing a surge of of pop-up-book art and paper-cuts art? I know we're seeing a renewed interest in and appreciation for the handmade object. Singer and songwriter Lisa Hannigan's new CD, Sea Sew, and the promotion for the disc, incorporate all three of these elements. Hannigan hails from Ireland, and sang backup for Damien Rice before being fired by him after seven years (see this NPR interview).

The central image for the web site for Sea Sew is a piece of knitting by Hannigan's mother. The original liner notes (song lyrics), photographed and included in the CD package, were hand-embroidered by Lisa (see the lyrics for Keep It All above). The song Lille -- the first of the two videos below -- is illustrated by pop-up imagery. That's Hannigan turning the pages. The pop-ups are by Maeve Clancy and Jamie Hannigan. The second, I Don't Know, has Hannigan literally "cutting-and-pasting" a room for herself (also created by Clancy). You can buy the album here and here. I love both of the songs and videos and have been playing them all afternoon.

Hannigan's blog entry for March 10, 2009 recounts her appearance on The Colbert Report. Catch that interview and performance here and here. Image credit for Keep It All lyrics (above): ATO Records. Thanks to Blue Roof Designs for the heads-up.

"Lille"

"I Don't Know"

Making Paste Paper

2009-04-20T08:36:00.002-04:00

I had the great good fortune to take part in a paste paper* workshop with Larry Lou Foster recently. Larry Lou (Louise Lawrence Foster), a book artist and fine binder, is a respected expert and innovator in paste-paper design. She has studied paste-paper traditions extensively and, over the years, replicated many historical patterns, as well as created new designs. It was a delightful and intense two days of work and study. Larry Lou is as generous as she is knowledgeable, and she was determined to share with us as many of her techniques and insights as our time with her allowed.

Printer, paper maker and book artist Frank Brannon, who met Larry Lou while in the MFA in Book Arts program at the University of Alabama, introduced Larry Lou to Laurie Corral, director of Asheville BookWork s, who immediately engaged her for a weekend workshop this spring. Frank is working on an edition of a book that will contain many examples of Larry Lou's paste papers, along with a discussion of her work. He not only designed the book and letterpress-printed the text, but made the paper for it as well. Once he's incorporated Larry Lou's paste-paper samples, which she created for the edition, he'll bind the books and make them available for sale.

Here are a few photos from the workshop. All of the paste papers pictured are Larry Lou's, although each of us who took the workshop came home came home with a lovely and ample supply of our own paper for book covers, boxes, cards, collage, etc.

* Paste papers are one of the earliest forms of decorative paper, first used in the 17th century for covers and end papers in books. Many of the beautiful and intricate designs of these papers are being used as inspiration by today's paste paper artists, who are also creating wonderful contemporary designs. The "paste" in "paste paper" is usually a wheat- or rice-paste mixture, to which pigment (acrylic paint or ground pigment) has been added. The colored paste is brushed onto dampened paper, then a variety of objects -- kitchen tools, carved brayers, and found objects, -- are used to draw into the paste while it is still wet. For those of you who may not have the convenience of a class, one of the best books on paste papers is Diane Maurer-Mathison's The Art of Making Paste Papers.

Larry Lou, using a long dowel to create diagonal lines on the paper,
over which she'll draw a design.

Sunday in the Park With...

2009-04-06T12:56:00.011-04:00

A digression from "bookishness" today: I thought I'd share some photos of our outing yesterday with our two pups. We're fortunate to have several dog parks in the area, and we visited one of them for the first time yesterday afternoon. Coco (in spite of being the youngest and smallest of our two dogs, and among the smallest at the park), immediately took to the adventure. (That's Coco to the right, being "chauffered" to the park.) She made friends with everyone, dogs and people alike, and ran as fast as her very-close-to-the-ground legs would carry her. Twiggy, a more tentative pup, stuck close to me and Steven, venturing out only when Coco was with him. I was impressed at how well-behaved all the dogs were at the park. None of them showed any aggression, and all welcomed Coco's friendly overtures.

Next we headed downtown for a stroll. We live in a very dog-friendly place, so we can always depend on finding other people walking their dogs downtown on a weekend. Many shops allow pets inside, too. Twiggy and Coco had a great time exploring, then, when we took a break for hot cocoa and cookie, watching dogs and their people walk by.

This "puppy love" is a relatively new state of affairs for me. I've never been much of a pet person, and were it not for Steven, I doubt I'd ever have shared my home with an animal. Once we were married, 'though, Steven started to work on me, slowly but insistently, until I said 'yes' to bringing Twiggy home a little over four years ago. I still have a hard time believing that I agreed to a second dog (might Steven have put something in the water?). Nevertheless, I'm now besotted with Twiggy and Coco, and I've become one of those people to whom I used to feel superior while smiling indulgently as they talked about (and to) their dogs.

There's a moral here somewhere. Maybe one of them is that it's sometimes good to let go of old biases and welcome the unexpected.

Oh, by the way, Twiggy has his own blog (yes, clearly I've gone over the edge). He took a break after Coco arrived -- she's quite a handful -- but he expects to be posting more regularly again.

Getting to know the dog park pups.

Coco makes a (big) friend.

Twiggy makes a friend downtown.

Spring is here (and Steven's behind it).

Coco watches the Sunday strollers.

Twiggy wouldn't mind a bite of Steven's cookie.

Going home after a long day.

Gocco

2009-03-21T11:11:00.010-04:00

I bought a Gocco (from a Japanese word loosely translated as "make-believe play") more than a year ago, and I've yet to use it. Mind you, when I learned that the manufacturer was going to stop making Gocco and shipping supplies to the U.S. in December 2008 (see here and here), I stocked up on inks, screens, and bulbs in a panic. But, nooooo, that didn't motivate me to actually use my Gocco. The Gocco and the supplies still sit on my shelf, untouched.

I don't know about you, but I'm pretty visual when it comes to learning how to make something. But I also need to hear the instructions -- for some reason, visuals without words don't seem to take -- so the best combination for me is both hearing the instructions and seeing the action.

So I was delighted when I came across this video (below) from Etsy Labs on YouTube. Not only does it promise that Gocco printing is insanely simple, but it shows this to be really, truly so. So for all of you who have been procrastinating about making Gocco prints (to use in your books, natch), you have no excuse now (I'm saying that to myself as well as to you). Get out your Gocco and print!

P.S. Here are some FAQs about Gocco, should you want to learn more. And for inspiration, the beautiful Gocco print shown above is by Yellena, who has some gocco prints among the work for sale in her Etsy shop. And here's a gorgeous multi-color Gocco print from nebo peklo and some lovely work from Two Guitars, including these cards:

Gocco Printing From Etsy Labs

The Journey

2009-03-10T10:08:00.007-04:00

This is a wonderful short video based on the recordings of Alan Watts (1915-1973), produced by Trey Parker and Matt Stone, the creators of South Park. Watts was a British philosopher and writer. He was well known for his writings and lectures on Eastern philosophy and religion and the nature of reality. I initially read his work years ago, when it seemed everyone was enamored of all things "Zen." His words, which then had the air of fashion, are now simply real and true. Here, Watts talks about likening our lives to music, that is, savoring the journey.

(Parker and Stone have produced several videos based on Watts' recordings, including Prickles & Goo, based on names Watts assigned to personality types. For Gumby aficionados, this is where Gumby creator Art Clokey got the names for Gumby's pals -- Clokey was Watts' lifelong friend).

Music and Life

Margaret Kilgallen

2009-03-02T14:49:00.010-05:00

The late Margaret Kilgallen was a central figure in the San Francisco Bay area street art movement. She was influenced by American folk art, hand-painted signs, typography, and symbology. I was first drawn to her because of her dynamic images and lettering, and only recently learned that she was a bookbinder and had been a book conservator at the San Francisco Public Library. In addition to her mural work, Kilgallen also worked on found paper -- including discarded book endpapers, -- reflecting, it seems, her book arts background.

The first season of the PBS documentary series Art:21 profiled Kilgallen, and had this to say about her:

"Early experiences as a librarian and bookbinder contribute to her encyclopedic knowledge of signs drawn from American folk tradition, printmaking, and letterpress. Painting directly on the wall, Kilgallen creates room-size murals that recall a time when personal craft and handmade signs were the dominant aesthetic. Strong, independent women walking, surfing, fighting, and biking feature prominently in the artist’s compositions. Her work has been shown at Deitch Projects and the Drawing Room in New York, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts and the Luggage Store in San Francisco, the Forum for Contemporary Art in St. Louis, and the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston. Kilgallen’s work was recently presented at the UCLA/Armand Hammer Museum. She died in June 2001 in San Francisco, where she lived with her husband, Barry McGee."*

In the Art:21 documentary Kilgallen says:

"I like things that are handmade and I like to see people's hand in the world, anywhere in the world; it doesn't matter to me where it is. And in my own work, I do everything by hand. I don't project or use anything mechanical, because even though I do spend a lot of time trying to perfect my line work and my hand, my hand will always be imperfect because it's human. And I think it's the part that's off that's interesting, that even if I'm doing really big letters and I spend a lot of time going over the line and over the line and trying to make it straight, I'll never be able to make it straight. From a distance it might look straight, but when you get close up, you can always see the line waver. And I think that's where the beauty is."

This snippet of the documentary shows Kilgallen working,; she also talks about her influences.

You can read the Art:21 interview with Kilgallen here, and see images of Kilgallen's work on Flickr here.

*sadly, Kilgallen died at 33, of complications from breast cancer, three weeks after the birth of her daughter.

Image Credit: Work on paper from installation at UCLA Armand Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, 2000. Photo by Robert Wedemeyer

Creavity a la Tharp

2009-02-27T21:14:00.007-05:00

I've been reading Twyla Tharp's book The Creative Habit. In addition to thinking that she's a terrific choreographer and dancer, I have a soft spot for Ms. Tharp. For my 30th birthday, two of my friends from high school flew me Washington, D.C. to see her company perform at The Kennedy Center. Not too longer after that, in Miami, I saw Mikhail Baryshnikov dance (beautifully) in Tharp's Sinatra Suite and
Push Comes to Shove, which Baryshnikov had commissioned for American Ballet Theater, and I was hooked.

I read 80 pages of the book this afternoon in one sitting, partly because I find Tharp's message compelling, and partly because I find her dedicated approach to her art appealing. She's of the school that believes that talent doesn't count for much unless you're prepared to work hard and consistently. And that's much of what the book is about: setting work habits that foster the conditions in which creativity is most likely to flower. Here's some of what I jotted in my Moleskine this afternoon while I was reading:

"When I'm unable to shake my fears sufficiently, I borrow a biblical epigraph from Dostoyevsky's The Demons:" I see my fears being cast into the bodies of wild boars and hogs and I watch them rush to a cliff where they fall to their deaths." [beats counting sheep.]

"The other obstacle to good work is distractions. When I commit to a project I don't expand my contact with the world; I try to cut it off...I list the biggest distractions in my life and make a pact with myself to do without them for a week." [she cuts out movies, multi-tasking, "numbers," and music. Add the Internet for me.] "Subtracting your dependence on some of the things you take for granted increases your independence." and

"There's a difference between a work's beginning and beginning to work." [In other words, starting to work doesn't necessarily mean that you know how the work will begin.] "Just start. You never know where it will take you."

Here's Baryshnikov in a bit of Tharp's Sinatra Suite and in Push Comes to Shove, for old times' sake:

What I'm Listening To Today

2009-02-09T11:26:00.003-05:00

Forgive the digression from books today.

Oren Lavie: Her Morning Elegance

According to Lavie's blog on MySpace, the video is made up of roughly 3225 still photos, using one camera hanging from the ceiling. It took four weeks before the shooting to create the animated storyboard for the video, using 3-D dummies.

More about Lavie here, who in addition to writing songs, writes plays and children's books. Thanks to Steven for the heads up.

2008 Reading Redux

2009-02-06T10:14:00.014-05:00

As usual, there were some standouts in the year's (2008) reading, as well as some clunkers. Reading is such a personal experience, 'though, that I hesitate to mention the latter, since my clunker may someone else's well-oiled machine. I'm reminded of The Memory Keeper's Daughter, which I read in '07 and thoroughly, deeply disliked. It was a selection of my book club, and at least half of the group -- and we have a large group -- thought it was terrific.

I had a great time reading or re-reading several classics -- Jane Eyre, especially. I'd forgotten what a smart and strong (and feminist) character Jane is. (I was so taken with the book that I wrote about it here.) I enjoyed my sojourn into Henry James country, re-reading some novels and savoring some short stories for the first time. I went on a bit of a Henry James jag and also read a very good biography, The Mature Master, the second of two volumes on James by Sheldon Novick, and an equally good fictional version of James's literary life by David Lodge: Author, Author.

Other books that have stayed with me -- which is one way I judge a book's value, with the caveat that some of the truly bad ones also won't go away -- include When Will There Be Good News, the third book in British author Kate Atkinson's series about Jackson Brodie (wonderfully written and cleverly crafted); A Long Way Down, by Nick Hornby (as usual in Hornby's work, funny and touching at the same time, but never sentimental); Per Petterson's Out Stealing Horses (a quiet, lyrical novel), Child 44, by Tom Robb Smith (a compelling thriller set in Russia during Stalin's regime), and The Suspicions of Mr Whicher, by Kate Summerscale. This last focuses on the actual murder of a child in 1860s England, and Summerscale uses her extensive research to explore the rise of the English detective and his role in English society. Wilkie Collins' The Moonstone, which I'm reading now, and which was written a few years after the case described in Summerscale's book, borrows much from that book's real-life detective.

I loved Three Junes, Julia Glass's first novel, which I came to late, after having read and enjoyed The Whole World Over a couple of years ago. I liked Willilam Gay's Twilight (no, not that Twilight), a strange, striking novel set in the Tennessee country in which the author lives; enjoyed The Accidental Masterpiece, essays on art and artists by Michael Kimmelman, and Valentines, a slim volume of poetry by Ted Kooser; and was nourished by poet Kathleen Norris's thoughtful The Cloister Walk, about her retreats in a Benedictine monastery.

Thankfully, I didn't read anything last year as unfortunate as The Memory Keeper's Daughter. Still, there were ho-hum books, the kind that take up time that could have been spent reading something one enjoys more. Among these were In the Garden of Iden, The Society of S, The Spellman Files, The Writing Diet, (a weight-loss book by Julia Cameron of Artist's Way fame) and Zen and the Art of Motorcyle Maintenance (what's with all the fuss over the years about this one?). But, as one good friend says: "If you like this kind of thing, then this is the kind of thing you'll like."

Here's to all the books yet to be explored in 2009. Happy reading.

[Photo Credit: Woman Reading by Henri Matisse]

Crowned for the Holidays

2009-01-27T15:53:00.006-05:00

When I returned from Penland last summer, I wrote here about artist and friend Margaret Couch Cogswell, who is currently a Penland resident artist. As you may have gathered from that post, I think her work is terrific. There's much to like: her versatility, her sense of color, the surprising ways in which she combines media. I think, 'though, that what I appreciate most is the sensibilities Margaret brings to her art, which resonate for me.

So when my husband surprised me on Christmas day with a piece he'd commissioned from Margaret, I was more than delighted. I'm not easy to surprise, and my husband is not good at keeping secrets, so how I managed to open the box without even the tiniest inkling of its contents still amazes me. He knew I would love one of Margaret's crowns, but I'm told that the only guideline he offered her was that she should incorporate the concept of keeping doors open to creativity (no doubt in part because I tend to be just a tad (!) hard on myself about my own creations).

I can't imagine changing a thing about this beautiful piece. It inspires me each time I look at it. Margaret will soon launch a blog, and she's also in the process of building a web site, so you'll be able to see a good deal more of her work online -- and make it your own.

The Day After Christmas

2008-12-26T12:20:00.004-05:00

Obviously, Lev Yilmaz has met me. Clearly, he knows how I feel today.

Lev Yilmaz's Tales of Mere Existence: "Ready"

Yilmaz is a San Francisco-based animator and cartoonist who considers himself an "Ambassador to the Alienated." On his MySpace page he lists among his heroes Rod Serling, Kurt Vonnegut, Matt Groening, Alfred Hitchcock, Egon Schiele, Iggy, Ziggy, and Adam West. Check out his Tales of Mere Existence on his web page.

Playing for Change

2008-12-21T08:29:00.005-05:00

This post has is not about my usual topic: books, but it it speaks -- if indirectly -- to the season. The video is part of the documentary "Playing for Change: Peace Through Music," released by the Playing for Change Foundation (PFCF). Among other projects, PFCF is building and supporting a music school in the township of Guguletu, South Africa, as part of its program of uniting communities through the arts. Following this is an inspiring and informational interview with Mark Johnson, co-director of the film and co-founder of PFCF, by Bill Moyers on Bill Moyers' Journal (it has a nice bonus: "One Love," from the documentary).

Enjoy both.

Playing for Change: Song Around the World: Stand by Me

Bill Moyers Journal: Interview with Peace for Change's Mark Johnson

Oops!

2008-12-18T16:35:00.003-05:00

A City Made of Books

2008-12-14T10:49:00.004-05:00

Here's a must-see video commissioned by UK publisher 4th Estate and created by Apt Studio. According to the post on 4th Estate's blog by Peter Collingride of Apt Studio asked Apt "to create 'something stunning' that would help them celebrate [their 25th anniversary], as well as celebrating books and [4th Estate's] ground-breaking, international, literary agenda." The result is wonderful three-minute film: 25th Estate: This is Where We Live (see the embedded video below).

According to Collingridge -- his post is a well-worth-reading appetizer to the film -- "more than twenty animators and model-makers worked with over 1,000 books to build a world, and an everycity, made from the world's literature."

"The film incorporates works from many of the 4th Estate's acclaimed authors: Jonathan Franzen, Jean-Dominique Bauby, Fay Weldon, Simon Singh, Dava Sobel, Nigel Slater, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Alaa Al Aswany, Giorgio Locatelli, Robert Fisk, Spike Milligan, Eric Sykes, Francis Wheen, Alexander Masters, Joan Didion, Michael Chabon, and many others.

"My personal favourite moments are those of almost hidden detail: zebra crossings made from the paperback jacket of The Corrections; the Imperial War Museum modelled from Robert fisk; the Greenwich Observatory made out of Longitude; the cinema made out of all the film tie-in editions, and the homage to The Corrections when the father falls out of the boat. The film is stuffed full of these references, and whilst they were a labour of love, they are (to me) what makes the film sing."

Enjoy!

This Is Where We Live from 4th Estate on Vimeo.

P.S. Collingridge mentions that the pages of the books were influenced in part by artists Thomas Allen and Su Blackwell. See my earlier post about extraordinary paper artist Blackwell here.

Thankful

2008-11-26T15:00:00.012-05:00

This video -- made by Canadian director Andrea Dorfman using Tanya Davis's song, Art -- reminded me of the joy that art brings me. Making it, appreciating it, discussing it -- what kind of person would I be without it? I have much to be thankful for, and today is art's turn.

My mother tells me that when I was three or four years old, I memorized the words of a children's book she often read to me. When we had visitors, they would point to a page and I would "read" it, to their surprise. Was that my first memory of the rewards of reading? Maybe. What I know is that books were my portal to the person I am today. Reading led me to many of the other art forms that I've enjoyed over the years: theater, foremost, but also dance, music, the visual arts, photography, design, and the handmade object.

And now a different kind of "book lust" is opening new doors. Book arts has introduced me not only to the craft of making books, but to art forms -- like printmaking -- that I'd only admired at a distance in the past. The more involved I become, the more I realize that the beauty of the handmade book is its ability to take on many forms, both literally and conceptually. It can exist on its own as an artfully-made object -- a blank journal, say -- or it can serve as a vehicle for expressing large and small ideas that incorporate a range of art forms -- as in artists' books.

In my case, my appreciation of book arts is directly connected to my lifelong love of books and reading. And yet, some of my book artist friends are not readers. Hmmm. Sounds like a subject for another post. Happy Thanksgiving, all.

Slow Blogging

2008-11-23T19:24:00.008-05:00

Interesting article in the Sunday Styles section of today's New York Times about "slow blogging" and the apparent shift in blogging patterns. Turns out that Todd Sieling, a technology consultant from British Columbia, wrote a "Slow Blog Manifesto" in 2006 positing that "not all things worth reading are written quickly." Hard to disagree with that.

Later in the article someone who studies popular culture and technology says that bloggers who tend to write short posts -- ones that mainly point readers to something they should read or see -- are moving to other venues, like Twitter or Facebook. Barbara Ganley, the blogger featured in the article, seems to agree. Her motto is "blog to reflect, Tweet to connect." As for me, I've yet to Tweet. For one thing, I like to communicate in complete sentences.

I suppose it's inevitable that there would be a blogger shakeout. Burn-out, lack of time, and loss of interest are probably the major factors for those who stop blogging. I'm certainly guilty of the second, and very occasionally the third.

I wonder how arts/artists' blogs fit into the discussion? Most of them, I find, are less about analysis (e.g., political blogs) and more about sharing and inspiration, and that may set them apart. I blog about books and book arts (and occasional asides) partly because the passion I have for these encourages me to share what I learn with others who have similar interests. And over the months that I've blogged, I've been so inspired and delighted by other bloggers' contributions that I feel a certain responsibility to give back, to contribute to the whole.

I'll be interested to see how this develops.

Slow Book Salon Exhibit

2008-09-25T09:27:00.012-04:00

I'm fortunate to be part of a group of regional bookmakers, the Slow Book Salon. The title is modeled after the "slow" movement: things done with attention, intention, and care. For the past three years, the group has been invited to show its work at the Design Gallery in Burnsville. Burnsville, a small, charming town about an hour northeast of Asheville, and about 15 minutes from Penland. The Design Gallery is a lovely space, featuring the work of regional artists, and the exhibition coincides each year with the Carolina Mountains Literary Festival, which Burnsville established and hosts. The book exhibit plays on the theme of the Literary Festival, which changes annually. This year it was "The Beloved Community."

I love seeing the work of my fellow bookmakers together in one venue. As happens whenever I'm lucky enough to visit an exhibition of book arts, I'm delighted by the variety of the work, and the many interpretations of the book form. At this exhibit, I particularly enjoyed learning more about the personal aesthetic of each of the members of the group -- some of whom I know well and others whom I see only occasionally.

Here are just a few of the books in the exhibit, which closes this week. A detail from Annie Cicale's book -- incorporating watercolor and calligraphy -- is at top right.

The images in Susan Doggett's The Red Thread are linoleum block prints on mulberry paper.

Kathy Steinsberger's Happily Ever After includes collagraph prints & photopolymer prints.

Each year Carol Norby makes a "slinky" book using postcards from the prior year's exhibition.

In Boundaries, Lisa Blackburn created a -and-box combination that s handmade paper and image transfers. This is one of the spreads.

Bryony Smith presented an ancient book form.

Margaret Couch Cogswell's mixed media creation, The Village Idiot

Another mixed media work, Carol Norby's These Beautiful Counties

Priscilla Hill created a mixed media book with mica covers and pages.

Sharon Sharp's linocut print was the centerpiece of her book.

Sneak Peek at Interlude Editions' 2008 Small Book Edition

2008-09-11T11:26:00.014-04:00

I've been meaning to write about Interlude Editions, and now's the perfect time. IE is a small organization that funds residencies for artists who want to create limited editions of artists' books and fine arts prints for education, exhibition, and distribution.

A group of book and print artists living and working in Western North Carolina founded IE in 2007 to address the needs of artists working the book form for space, equipment, creative resources, and dedicated time to create editions of their work (in the interest of full disclosure, I'm on IE's all-volunteer Board). You can read more about the artists' residency program, eligibility, and the application and selection process here. IE Artists are resident at BookWorks, which provides studio space, the use of specialized equipment, and staff support.

Currently, IE's budget is tiny, and includes provision of a small stipend for the IE resident artists, which typically pays for supplies the artist is using in her/his project. IE's first resident artist is Frank Brannon, a letterpress artist and papermaker. During his residency, he created an edition of more than 80 books featuring the paste-papers of "Larry Lou" Foster. Foster, who lives in Alabama, is a book artist, fine binder, and teacher, and is particularly known for her innovative paste-paper designs, many of which are based on traditional motifs. She and Frank will be at BookWorks in March 2009 to talk about her work and their joint project.

IE's Small Book Edition came to life in 2007 as one way to raise funds for the residencies (the Cold Mountain Collection is another -- more on that later!). Fourteen book and print artists each created a handmade book, each book no larger than 3" x 3," for the collection. The books were placed in a handmade display box, and the collection was auctioned at BookWorks' annual BookOpolis event. The winning bid was from Western Carolina University, and the 2007 Small Book Edition is now in the collection of the Fine Art Museum at that school. (You can see a photo of the 2007 collection here.)

This year we're holding a raffle. The 2008 Small Book Edition includes 17 books. Inspired by Gaston Bachelard's The Poetics of Space, the collection is housed in a wonderful one-of-a-kind handmade box with "movable rooms" created by mixed media artist Sandy Webster. The books incorporate a variety of printing and binding techniques and include both traditional and nontraditional books forms.

IE is selling raffle tickets at $10 per ticket, or $25 for three tickets. We're selling only 200 tickets (I told you our budget was small), so chances of winning are excellent. Having seen the full array of books, and the display box earlier this week, I've already bought more than a handful of tickets myself. The winning ticket will be selected on September 26, BookOpolis' opening reception (see more about BookOpolis here), and you don't have to be present to win (which is good for book arts friends who live elsewhere). By the way, there's also time to submit a book for the BookOpolis exhibition!

Here are some pix of the 2008 Small Book Edition collection and just a few of the individual books. The photo at top right is the amazing "box" that contains the books. Enjoy!

the display box, opened to reveal its treasures (the "egg" book on the 3rd floor is by Margaret Cogswell, whom I wrote about recently; there's a tiny "room" in the attic for Dan Essig's book, "next door" is Heather Allen-Swarttouw's book (see below)

a spread from Annie Cicale's accordion book, Poetics of 204,
about the building of a new family home

Matt Liddle's tunnel book (I took a printmaking class, which I loved,
from Matt at PBI this spring)

a spread from Frank Brannon's letterpressed book
Eye Think A Lot About Potatoes: They Make Me Quite Round
(Frank is the first Interlude Editions resident artist.
He's teaching a letterpress concentration at Penland this winter)

Heather Allen-Swarttouw's untitled contribution to the collection

We Now Interrupt This Program...

2008-09-01T09:52:00.007-04:00

A brief break from my posts about this summer's Penland experience, occasioned by my discovery of the blog slow reads. Glancing through the New York Times' books blog, Paper Cuts, I read a comment to a post about the lack of good essays in the current crop of literary blogs. The author recommended several blogs that he felt provided just that. One of them was slow reads. I plan to dig into it further, but the main conceit of the blog, the pleasures of reading slowly, struck a major chord. For me, not all books merit slow reading (what, as English majors, we used to call 'close reading' in college): if I'm reading nonfiction, and purely for information, for example, I rarely slow down. But there are books that offer many more rewards to the slow reader than they do to the speed-reader.

I couldn't resist including a few quotes from an essay by writer Teju Cole, reprinted in the blog, and titled, naturally, "slow reader:"

"One day I went to the bookshop and selected a pile of books—Svevo, Kafka, James, Calasso, about a dozen in all—and from each I read page fifty. Naturally, I often found myself in the middle of a sentence at the page’s beginning or end. But these are the fragments from which a life is made, like those snatches of conversation one hears on the subway, which are free-floating pages from a much larger and more intricate narrative. I eventually left the bookshop, late late in the afternoon, and it was as though I had been to the world’s greatest luncheon..."

and

"As for Love in the Time of Cholera, don’t even get me started. I've read the first hundred pages of that book no less than three times, Saint Ursula is my witness. The first time was out-loud to my wife, three pages a night. Maybe or maybe not I will eventually read the rest; more likely, I’ll go back and read the first hundred again..."

and

"Life is too precious to waste on fast reading; I bet Neruda says something like that in his Memoirs, but I haven’t gotten to that part yet."

And here's the first paragraph of an essay by Dave Bonta (who blogs at Via Negativa, another blog mentioned in the Paper Cuts comment), about the joys of second readings:

"Reading something for the second time is so much more satisfying than that first read-through. So many books withhold their full treasures from the first-time reader. Not that the first time can't be special too, of course: surfaces are beautiful, and not to be taken lightly. During that first, heady encounter with a text, it is not merely the words that entrance us. The typefont, the design, the texture of the paper, the look and feel of covers and slipcovers, even the smell of the bindings - if new - or the patina that comes with good use: these too are manifest occasions for pleasure and surprise.
"But few of us possess the skill as readers to avoid succumbing to that first-time excitement and finishing the book too soon. And to lay it aside at that point, never to return, would constitute not simply callousness but profound disrespect. Unless the book at hand be some cheap, manupulative thing, in which case even a single reading amounts to little more than "an expense of spirit in a waste of shame," as Shakespeare once said about something else entirely."

Penland 08 - Part 3

2008-08-29T10:16:00.013-04:00

One of the pleasures of my two weeks at Penland was getting to spend a little time with my friend, Margaret, one of Penland's resident artists. Part of the fun was visiting her studio and taking a look at some of her new work. Margaret is one of ten-or-so resident artists at the school, which has a highly-competitive resident artist program, providing artists with studio space, housing, and most importantly, a community of like-minded folk, opportunities for artistic collaboration, and an intensely creative atmosphere.

I met Margaret Couch Cogswell in an artists' books class we took at BookWorks. My first introduction to her work was by way of her project for the class. The shape of a canned-ham can had caught her eye at the grocery store. She didn't want to waste the ham, so she took it to the local homeless shelter and kept the can. She painted it, attached wheels to it -- reminding me a bit of a vintage Airstream travel trailer standing on one end -- and made a book that hung inside the can. The result was both weighty and whimsical and so...., well, so Margaret.

Next, her cloth books captured my attention. It wasn't just the way that she combined colors and fabrics -- although that made me look twice; it was the elements she worked into them -- geometric and organic shapes that turned into characters, whether or not they were definable as such. These characters, which find their way into many of her mixed media pieces, seem to be related, residents of a community that exists in a parallel universe in a corner of Margaret's brain.

Then there's the eclecticism of Margaret's work. She makes crowns that no self-respecting, self-anointed, prince or princess should be without (see image above right), fanciful figures that beg to sit on your desk (see the pencil, clip, and paper creation below), cool stuff on wheels, lovely calendars, and cheerful metal and wire repositories for unique books (see one such piece from an exhibition at Penland's Gallery last year).

Visiting her studio at Penland made me salivate. It's spacious, with large double doors at one end to let in light, breezes and views (they're huge windows, really, since it's a second-story studio, and stepping out the doors would make for a long drop). Margaret's dog, Tessie, no fool she, has claimed the spot in front of the doors as her lounging area.

Margaret teaches both at BookWorks and at Cloth Fiber Workshop.

Looking in from the large double doors

An accordion book

Prints. -- These two sold while I was in the studio.

I love the pairing of these utiliarian objects with a book-page tutu.

A wall piece with layers and stitching (and great colors!)

A book with its own means of transportation -- a movable feast, so to speak.

Penland 08 - Part 2

2008-08-27T15:29:00.015-04:00

The instructor exhibits at the Penland Gallery are always favorites of mine. You get the see the work of teachers that you're working with or with whom you've studied before, or whose work inspires you to consider learning from them in the future. Of course, I'm always drawn first to the work of the book arts instructors, and I took some photos of new work by Dan Essig and Julie Leonard.

The pieces on display were examples of their more sculptural work. As to some of Dan's pieces in particular, I can already hear some viewers asking "so, what makes this a book"? It's a topic that book artists and their audiences have been talking about for many years -- although admittedly, it's the academics who seem the most excited about the dialogue. For me, the more artists' books I experience, the less interesting the question becomes. So I guess we'll have to ask Dan.

Kelly O'Brien at Designing a Life was lucky enough to take Julie's class at Penland in the session before mine (check out some of the work she produced via the prior link). She tells me that Julie invited Dan to the class as a guest artist. Now if I'd only been able to take two classes at Penland this summer instead of one...(sigh).

Check out both Julie's and Dan's work in The Penland Book of Handmade Books.

I like the shadows that these books of Julie Leonard's cast on the walls.

Book of Nails III: Of Thunder, by Dan Essig

Horn Book: Wren, by Dan Essig

detail

N'Kisi Bricolage, by Dan Essig

another view
In each of the three works shown here, Dan's included a perfect, tiny, coptic-bound book (or two). Here it's on the top side of the piece.

detail
Notice the tiny "signatures" and the use of mica to hold the treasures in the compartments/windows.

Penland 08 -- Part 1

2008-08-25T13:12:00.022-04:00

Another two terrific weeks at Penland this summer. I feel very fortunate to have this national center for art and craft virtually in my back yard. I'd been searching for training in using digital technology for surface design for a while, so when I saw this listing in Penland's catalog, I signed up in a flash. The class focused on inkjet printing on fabric, but I knew that I could adapt the techniques to paper, and I've also been interested in incorporating cloth into my book work.

Having taken a class at Penland last summer -- which, by the way, added a new dimension to the way I think about bookmaking -- I was less nervous this time about what to expect. The stars seemed to be particularly aligned: my room was in one of the more recently renovated buildings (some of the accommodations at Penland are a bit too rustic, particularly after spending a 17-hour-day working in the studio) and my dorm was across from Upper Textiles, the third-floor studio where I worked; and instead of the miserably hot mid-August weather that I'd been expecting, highs ranged from the high 70s to the low 80s, and I never used the small desktop fan that students were encouraged to bring.

Our instructor was Patricia Mink, an assistant professor in fiber at Eastern Tennessee State University, and an innovator in inkjet printing on fabric (here's an article from Fiber Arts magazine on digital quilts, which includes some of Patricia's work) . She uses her own photographs and inket printing as the base for the large-scale art quilts that she makes, working back into the fabric with sewing, embroidery, and other ways of creating layers and building texture. She's particularly interested in walls, and has been working on a series of quilts inspired by photos she's taken during her travels.

Here are a few photos to set the mood. The one to the right is of what I've come to think of as the Penland llamas, although, in fact, they don't belong to Penland, and only lodge there.

the dye shed

the printmaking wing of the new, light-filled letterpress/print studio

Upper Textiles, our third-floor studio. Lots of windows and large tables. That's my table-mate, Catherine, setting up.

Arts Criticism Goes the Way of the Typewriter

2008-07-07T09:44:00.006-04:00

Yes, BookGirl is again thinking about arts criticism (or the lack thereof). BookGirl knows she'd be better off (or at least keep her blood pressure lowered) if she just stopped reading those darn articles about the importance of thoughtful professional criticism, but she just can't seem to stop herself. She's been hyp-no-tised.
So for those of you who care about such things, here's an article from the UK's Financial Times, whose writer opines about the state of arts criticism in the U.S., and the value of good critics. A sampling:

"Essentially, our civilisation is tilting towards anti-authoritarian contests. Audiences, not judges, select winners. Call it the American Idolisation of culture. On TV, contestants get voted off without explanation. Quality is measured by thumbs, up or down. Scholarly analyses have turned into irrelevant extravagances for snobs.
"Many US papers have abandoned thoughtful, detailed reviews altogether. Publishers, editors and, presumably, readers want instant evaluations and newsbites, preferably with flashy pictures. It is Zagat-think, simplicity for the simple-minded.
"Of the thousand journalism jobs reportedly lost during the past year, 121 belonged to specialists covering music and dance, film, books and television. The music critic at the Kansas City Star was told to walk after eight years of heavy duty. The Miami Herald’s critic was granted eight weeks’ severance pay. The Los Angeles Times no longer employs a dance critic. The Village Voice in New York and the Los Angeles Weekly have ceased coverage of “classical” music. The Seattle Times no longer employs a music critic. Even the relatively secure New York Times has found two of its venerable critics – one in music, one in dance – to be expendable. Time and Newsweek gave up earnest arts coverage long ago.
"The departure of a staff writer does not invariably mean the end of criticism. Sometimes the gap is filled by “stringers”, often inexperienced freelancers paid by the piece, and not paid well. Some papers rely on recycled wire service reports. Exclusive viewpoints are low priority, if any priority at all. When Rupert Murdoch took over the Wall Street Journal, he proclaimed his intention to compete with the New York Times by expanding arts coverage. The evidence of that remains slim and dim.
"...Historically, the best critics have guarded standards, stimulated debate and, in the complex process, reinforced the importance of art in society. They have been tastemakers, taskmasters and possibly ticket-sellers. Some have even written well. Despite automatic controversy, they played a role in aesthetic checks and balances. If their opinions were important, the reasons behind them were more important."

In short, while we all are entitled to an opinion, rarely does an opinion informed criticism make (more on that here). BookGirl thinks we need both.

One Reason I Heart NPR

2008-07-01T18:27:00.008-04:00

In a welcome example of trend-reversal, National Public Radio is expanding book coverage on its web site, and adding six (count 'em, six!) new book reviewers, including a graphic-novel reviewer. Quoted by Publisher's Weekly in a recent article, senior supervising producer Joe Mattazonni said: "we're building up our book coverage because book content really works for our audience." Golly, a customer-driven web site. What a concept!

Mattazoni noted that NPR.org has a mandate to develop original online content and that the new book features are part of that plan. In addition to the work of the new reviewers, NPR.org will expand its Book Tour feature, which takes recordings of readings done at D.C.'s Politics & Prose bookstore (a great bookstore, by the way), edits them, and offers them as podcasts on the site.

BookGirl readers may recall my angst last year over the continuing drop of arts journalists, particularly book critics, from the editorial rosters of newspapers throughout the country (look here and here and here for the sake of nostalgia), so it's a joy to hear that book critics are getting work, and that readers (and visitors to NPR.org's Books page) will be the beneficiaries. Gee, I just may send them a check.

Book Marketing

2008-06-16T09:37:00.005-04:00

As both a book lover and a marketer, this video hit the spot. It's very funny, but a little sad too, if you think the many writers out there facing similar situations. Dennis Cass, who's both the creator of the video and its star, is a writer and journalist, and author of HEAD CASE: How I Almost Lost My Mind Trying to Understand My Brain. And yes, the video is about that book, which was recently published in paperback.

The BIG Picture

2008-06-12T11:25:00.005-04:00

The Boston Globe, on its boston.com site, has a neat feature it calls The Big Picture. It includes a brief news story, but the real story on the page is the very large photo that illustrates the news item. The photos, in addition to their unusual size, are usually arresting and interesting. At their least, they're a visual treat: witness the one below of indigenous Brazilian tribesmen protesting a proposed hydroelectric dam (click to enlarge and get the full effect).

Book-a-Day: Day 5

2008-06-06T09:25:00.008-04:00

My few-and-far-between posts for Dan Essig's Book-a-Day class at BookWorks have become more like a book-a-month. But if not timely, I'm nevertheless tenacious, so here's the fifth and final installment in the series (scroll down -- skipping the X-Files post -- to see the rest). Our fifth book had us working with leather and another long-stitch binding. The stitch is surprisingly simple;the trick is getting started, since it's not an intuitive beginning. Dan demonstrated several closures, and I chose one of the simplest: one end of a long leather strip (trimmed to a point at one end, and wider at the opposite end) goes in through a slit in the fold-over cover, approximately three-quarters-of-an inch from the edge; comes out the cover via another slit approximately one-quarter-of-an-inch from the edge. Make a hole with a Japanese hole punch at the other, wider, end of the strip, through which you'll slip the end of the strip that's emerged from the slit in the book. Presto! You can now wrap the strip around your book and slip the pointed end through the space between the book and the wider end of the strip. Simple but effective.

I love this fat little book (approximately 3 1/2" x 4 1/8" closed). It's a perfect keep-in-your-bag journal. Here are a few photos of the book, and some additional treats:

My friend Priscilla and her collection

Lisa and three of her books

A long-stitch book from Dan's collection that he bought from a student in Boston. Every stitch is functional, not just decorative!

Some of the wonderful awls that Dan makes and sells.

Book-a-Day: Day 4

2008-03-16T20:03:00.009-04:00

I've been moving -- slowly, I know -- through the products of my BookWorks class with Dan Essig. On the fourth day (this series is beginning to sound like an installment from Genesis) our focus was a concertina binding. Think of it as one, long continuous spine-guard that covers the spine-edge of each signature. The concertina adds particular strength to the binding. Folding the concertina EXACTLY is one of the challenges of making this book. In the photo to the right you can see the folds of the concertina between each signature.

It's not an easy binding to stitch, since you're trailing the concertina while you're attaching each signature, but it gets easier with practice (and, of course, as you keep attaching signatures, the remaining amount of concertina lessens). We used a coptic stitch with bent needles. Dan doesn't like curved needles, but straight needles don't do the job, so we softened the metal of our needles over a candle flame and bent the ends at a 45% angle with pliers. Personally, I love curved needles for coptic bindings.

The cover was attached in a style very similar to the one we used for the papyrus book on Day Two. With this fourth book, when we covered the front and back cover-boards with paper, we left a "flap" on each cover on the spine side. We sewed through the inside fold of each flap, treating the cover like another signature. We used Cave paper for our covers, so it was strong enough to withstand being sewn through. If you were using a lighter-weight paper, you'd want to reinforce the area with a material such as Tyvek, which is strong and thin.

We also practiced making insets in the cover (indentations made by lifting layers of board with an exacto knife before we covered the boards). I adhered leftover bits of paper I'd painted and used for signatures in an earlier book.

Dan's primer on concertina-folding

We had great fun, but worked pretty intensely too.

X-Files Redux

2008-03-11T19:02:00.007-04:00

I was a big fan of The X-Files when it went on the air in 1993. I'm not a fan of science fiction, but I appreciated the premise -- rare for a tv show -- that the two main characters, a man and a woman, could work together as equals without the usual "will they or won't they" love-interest storyline. Credit Chris Carter, the show's creator and main writer, for that. Dana Scully (played by Gillian Anderson), probably the more complex of the two leads, was smart, strong, ambitious, independent, reserved, and caring. She and her partner, Fox Mulder (David Duchovny), treated each other with respect, and as they continued to work together, they developed a strong sense of loyalty to each other (and, granted, you did hope that they would get together).

I was less interested in the running story about a government conspiracy and an alien settlement on earth than I was in the individual stories and how Mulder and Scully dealt with the situations and with each other. I stopped watching about four years into the show, after I moved to a new city and gave up my VCR. The show ran for nine seasons, and Time magazine named it among the 100 best television shows of all-time.

I also liked that Mulder was the "believer" and Scully the skeptic. She was a medical doctor and grounded in science; Mulder was a criminal profiler and went on intuition. This, too, played counter to the usual boy-girl scenarios and stereotypes. When Scully became convinced that Mulder was right, we, as her surrogates, believed it too.

A couple of months ago I discovered that the SciFi Channel was re-running the series. I started Tivo-ing the episodes I hadn't seen, and stacking them up for later viewing. Every once in a while I watch one, and it's a treat. Most episodes were very dark, but once in a while Chris Carter, with a big wink, would throw in a comic episode: Mulder and Scully spend Christmas Eve in a haunted house with ghosts; an obnoxious guy takes over Mulder's body and comes on to Scully, and "Mulder" plays the De Niro "you talkin to me?" scene from Taxi Driver in front of his mirror.

All in all, for a show about aliens, conspiracies, and UFOs, it was remarkably grown-up.

Book-a-Day: Day 3

2008-03-09T22:10:00.009-04:00

We made a book with mica covers on the third day of Dan Essig's Book-a-Day class at BookWorks. This may have been my favorite book of the week. One reason is the binding, called a french link stitch. It's the same binding I've used in Secret Belgian Binding books. The difference is that in the latter, it's hidden by the spine that's added to the book before binding the spine and the covers to the book. The french link is a gorgeous stitch, and it's good to see it recognized here for its aesthetic qualities as well as its functional ones. The book is fairly delicate -- you wouldn't want to throw it into your backpack -- but stronger than it looks.

We used large sheets of mica, a bit thicker than the usual mica I've used in the past. Dan buys it in large quantities locally from a company that supplies large corporations with huge amounts of the stuff. We sewed over Tyvek tapes (which we'd painted with acrylics first). We sandwiched images in between each cover (each cover made up of two sheets of mica) and tucked the ends of the tapes in between the images, gluing them in.

a better view of the french link binding

a sample book Dan made for another of his mica-book classes

One of Dan's books, showing another way to use mica. Here it helps encapsulate an object.

Book-a-Day: Day 2

2008-02-28T22:48:00.009-05:00

The book for Day 2 in Dan Essig's Book-a-Day class (see my earlier post for more about the class) was a small papyrus book with a coptic binding. To make each cover we adhered a sheet of papyrus to cardboard, then folded it in half. (You can use heavyweight card-stock or light-weight board instead of the cardboard.)

We treated the covers as signatures, sewing through the fold in each cover. At the end, we glued the sides of each cover together. For a papyrus book I made in another of Dan's classes, we laminated 8 sheets of papyrus together, omitting the cardboard altogther, then folded the laminated sheets in half.

Leaving each cover open until the end has several advantages. You can pierce the outer side of each cover to sew in a button or bead (front cover) and tie in a thread or cord (back cover) to wrap around your button for a closure. If you have sufficient thread after you tie off your binding, you can also bring the thread through the back cover and use it as the tie for your closure. And you can cut a window in your front cover and put an image behind it, sandwiched between the two parts of the cover.

Are you thoroughly confused yet?

I used a piece of mica on the cover over the image, running PVA along the inside edges to secure it. It makes the book a bit more delicate, since the mica is raised above the cover, but I like the look.

I learned a couple of interesting things about papyrus during the class: first, papyrus is not paper; it's wood -- essentially, very thin plywood; second, it has no grain. By nature, it wrinkles and buckles when it encounters moisture (such as PVA), which to me is part of its charm.

The book is small -- a little more than 3 inches high and about 2 1/2 inches wide.

Peeking through the window is a tiny scrap from a map of Rome.

Dan cutting a window in the book's cover.

Book-a-Day: Day 1

2008-02-23T21:42:00.009-05:00

What could be better if you love book arts than a week spent making books? Well, perhaps a week spent making books with a terrific book artist and great teacher. I'm fortunate to live in book artist Dan Essig's home town and just as lucky to have access to BookWorks, a wonderful book arts center, where Dan taught a "Book-a-Day" workshop this past week. About half of the students came from out-of-town, and most of those from outside the state, fairly typical for Dan's workshops.

Dan is best known for his books in wood and for his sculptural works (see The Penland Book of Handmade Books -- that's Dan's book on the cover), but this class covered books made with paper, papyrus, leather and mica, employing various bindings.

Here are some pix from Day 1. The book's cover houses two text blocks. It's not a dos-a-dos (a book that contains two text blocks, each text block having its own cover and the two books sharing a back cover); instead, the two books face in the same direction, and fold over each other. Each text block is attached to the spine with a long-stitch binding. We used paper made by papermaker Anne Marie Kennedy. It's wonderful, strong paper that behaves very much like leather, which makes it perfect for this fold-around cover.

Dan has tools, such as awls, available for sale. Some he's made, others are made by book artists and master toolmakers such as Jim Croft.

Above and below: two "bonus" long-stitch books from Dan's collection.

Ice Storm

2008-02-10T20:23:00.000-05:00

We had an ice storm a week ago. It's hard to believe that something so beautiful can be so dangerous. We have a lot of trees on our property, and at first blush, seeing them covered with ice is magical. But the weight of the ice on the trees can do a great deal of damage. Smaller trees can bend and break; branches of larger trees can split off; and larger, rotting trees can come crashing down.

One of our trees did, in fact, come down. Luckily, it came down over our driveway and not our house. One of our neighbors, who is a builder, came by with his crew (and a power saw) and cleared the driveway and cut the tree into firewood for us. We're fortunate to have such good neighbors.

The second, equally magical phase of an ice storm takes place when the sun comes out. The sun made the ice glisten on the trees. The sound was a little frightening, as chunks of ice slipped from the trees and fell to the ground and onto our deck. Two days after the storm, we had temperatures in the low 70s. Go figure.

The weight of the ice can bend small trees and branches precariously

The ice built up to a diameter of a half-inch. An amazing sight.

The tree that crashed down over our driveway.

The sun starts coming out. Pretty magical, isn't it?

Recent Books

2008-01-21T21:08:00.000-05:00

Before Christmas, I spent several days making books -- for one, I borrowed a form that I learned in my very first class in book arts, called a "Spine Surprise;" for another, I used the covers of a lovely old book in French that I'd had on my shelf for over a year; for a third, I re-discovered a sheet of paper that was perfect for a "puppy journal." (I'm still not sure what a puppy journal is, , but as the owner of a new puppy, I knew I had to make one!)

The Spine Surprise book is an accordion-style book with signatures on both sides. One side has pockets and and a signature pamphlet-stitched into the center fold; the reverse side contains two signatures, one in each corresponding folds. The book is secured it with an elastic band.

The other books are coptic-stitched. I used a four-needle binding and combined two different colors of waxed linen thread.

A Year's Reading: Part Deux

2008-01-11T16:08:00.000-05:00

Yes, I did say in my last post that I was only listing "some" of the books I most enjoyed reading last year, but when I looked over my reading list again, I felt guilty about not mentioning a few more favorites:

The Places in Between is a book I likely wouldn't have read had it not been a selection of my book club. It turned out to be one of my favorites of the year. Rory Stewart, the author, is a Scot and a former British diplomat who was posted to the Middle East. The book is a recounting of his walk across Afghanistan. Some of the members of my book club thought the book too slow and some thought it a failing that Stewart didn't tell us "what to think" about what we were reading. I thought the book's pace and style fit the content precisely, and Stewart's even-handed way of describing what he encountered on his trip actually said a great deal.

I read T.R. Pearson's first book, A Short History of a Small Place, years ago. It was a wonderful discovery for me, and I've been reading Pearson every since. A Short History had a voice I'd never heard before (you'll either like this or you won't), and was very, very funny. Cry Me a River is a very different type of book. What Pearson's fictions shares, 'though, is his ear for language and his eye for character.

This year I read more "how-to" art-related books than usual. One I recommend highly is Steve Meltzer's Photographing Arts, Crafts and Collectibles. In addition to learning about photographing the subject matter, the book answered a lot of questions for me about photography in general.

I feel better now that I've told you about these... Happy reading!

Artist Credit: Reading Woman (c. 1670), by Pieter Janssen Elinga

A Year's Reading

2008-01-10T10:01:00.000-05:00

Here's the list of the books I read in 2007. I've been keeping reading lists for as long as I can remember. I'm not quite sure why, other than to stay focused on reading, and to refer to when someone asks me for a recommendation. But it's also a good way to look back with a bit of distance to see which books left an impression, and which I might have done without.

It's a reminder, too, of the truth of the "so many books, so little time" adage. And that, even among those books I was able to read, so few left a significant mark -- books that I remember months later and still get excited about.

Some of these include Patricia Hampl's Blue Arabesque, a quiet, meditative book about art and artists (this was the first book I'd read by her and it won't be the last); The Mystery Guest, an odd little book (by Gregoire Bouillier) about....well, about the narrator's former romantic relationship, a bottle of wine, a party, and his role as the party's "mystery guest." It's much more, and perhaps much less, than that. I liked it a lot. Truth and Beauty, by Ann Patchett, is about her relationship with her close friend, the writer Lucy Grealy (see Autobiography of a Face). Patchett is a wonderful writer, and her description of her friendship with Grealy is alternately fascinating and infuriating, but always heartfelt and honest.

I'd never read Sharon McCrumb, but found The Ballad of Frankie Silver strangely affecting, perhaps because the setting is the mountain towns of North Carolina, where I live. The novel is based on the true story of the first woman executed (for murder) in the state. McCrumb is a terrific story-teller. Another favorite was Charles Baxter's The Feast of Love. I'd been hearing about this novel for years, but got around to reading it only recently. It's full of characters you want to know more about, and permeated throughout with a feeling of magic. It made me want to know Charles Baxter better, too. I enjoyed Balzac and the Little Chinese Princess, by Dai Sijie, a lovely story of two Chinese boys who are sent to work in a rural area of China during the Cultural Revolution. And I liked Elizabeth Gilbert's Eat, Pray, Love. It was only after I finished the book that I remembered having read a novel of hers on a lark a couple of years ago, Stern Men, only a little about lobster men in Maine, that I'd much enjoyed.

Of the books I re-read, I fell in love again with E.M. Forster's Howard's End and My Antonia by Willa Cather. I admit that it was hard to read Howard's End this time without seeing Emma Thompson as Margaret Schlegel (Emma played Margaret in the film based on the book). No doubt that added to my enjoyment, but on its own it's a beautifully layered book. My Antonia was a lyrical journey. I don't remember being very excited about it the first time I read it (come to think of it, that was probably in high school or college). I'm convinced that a major part of the reading experience is the reader's readiness. They say that timing is everything, and it certainly applies to reading. Which is why re-reading, years after you first read a book, can yield such great rewards.

What did I not like? Well, perhaps the worst books are those that I think of as the equivalent of Chinese food: moments after you've finished them, you've forgotten them and are hungry for a real book. Usually, though, all's well while you're reading. To extend the metaphor, they're a little like comfort food. As to what I plodded through, The Mists of Avalon, by Marion Zimmer Bradley, a book I read for a book club, and My Name is Red, another book club read, top my list. They're very different books of course, and Orhan Pamuk received the Nobel Prize for his body of work recently. I found My Name is Red to be terribly repetitive, as if Pamuk wanted to make sure that the reader GOT THE POINT. The Mists of Avalon, which I understand is a huge favorite of many and a cult book of sorts, was also repetitive (and very, very, very long). But more than that, it wasn't much fun, and a book about the Arthurian legend (told from a feminine -- and feminist -- perspective) should be fun. Instead, it was preachy and pretentious.

I'm already into my reading for 2008 and looking forward to great new finds and some classic favorites. Happy reading in 2008!

My 2007 Reading

The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood
Photographing Arts, Crafts and Collectibles - Steve Meltzer
The Feast of Love - Charles Baxter
The Tenant of Wildfell Hall - Ann Bronte
The Brontes at Haworth - Ann Dinsdale
The Man Who Smiled - Henning Mankell
Howard's End - E.M. Forster
Lord Jim - Joseph Conrad
Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
The Mists of Avalon - Marion Zimmer Bradley
The Tattoo Artist - Jill Ciment
Dead Clever - Scarlett Thomas
The Ballad of Frankie Silver - Sharon McCrumb
Lions and Liquorice - Kate Fenton
Special Topics in Calamity Physics - Marisha Pessl
Angelica - Arthur Phillips
Homeland and Other Stories - Barbara Kingsolver
On Chesil Beach - Ian McEwan
Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith - Anne Lamott
Digital Art Studio - Karin Schminke, et al.
In Case We're Separated - Alice Mattison
The Forest Lover - Susan Vreeland
Truth and Beauty - Ann Patchett
How to Read a Novel - John Sutherland
The Orchid Shroud - Michelle Wan
The Golden Compass - Philip Pullman
Same Sweet Girls - Cassandra King
The Art of Fiction - David Lodge
The Amateur Marriage - Anne Tyler
Cry Me a River - T.R. Pearson
Have Mercy on Us All - Fred Vargas
Drinking Coffee Elsewhere - Z.Z. Packer
Polio: An American Story - David Oshinsky
Friends, Lovers, Chocolate - Alexander McCall Smith
Tell Me a Riddle - Tillie Olsen
The Death of Ivan Illych - Leo Tolstoy
London: A History - A.N. Wilson
Balzac and the Little Chinese Princess - Dai Sijie
Awake in the Dark: The Best of Roger Ebert - Roger Ebert
Blue Arabesque - Patricia Hampl
The Piano Tuner - Daniel Mason
My Name is Red - Orhan Pamuk
The Sunday Philosophy Club - Alexander McCall Smith
Eat, Pray, Love - Elizabeth Gilbert
The Mystery Guest - Gregoire Bouillier
All is Vanity - Christina Schwarz
Prague - Arthur Phillips
Creative Collage Techniques - Nita Leland/ Virginia Williams
Reading Like a Writer - Francine Prose
Collage Techniques - Gerald Brommer
Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic - Alison Blechdel
My Antonia - Willa Cather
The Places in Between - Rory Stewart
Lady Into Fox - David Garnett
The Keep - Jennifer Egan

Artist Credit: Woman Reading, by Mary Cassatt, top right

"Women's (Art) Work"

2008-01-06T19:56:00.000-05:00

Lee Kottner has a thought-provoking post today about, among other topics, the devaluation of crafts made by women at home. The entire post is well worth a look. Here's some of what Lee has to say:

"It's easy to dismiss handmade work as trivial or pointless activity in the machine age, especially when it's made by women. Crafts traditionally done by women have been undervalued and dismissed by patriarchal society for centuries. And I have to say it pisses me off to hear Old Guard feminists dissing other women's work this way. Doing so just plays into the false dichotomy men have always built between professional and home production: between the male chef and the woman who cooks equally well in her own home; between a male ceramicist with a commercial studio and a woman potter who makes her own dishes; between a male fashion designer (or even a tailor) and a woman who designs and sews her family's clothing; between male fabric designers and women who batik and silk-screen and weave their own fabric. Whatever men do in a professional setting is traditionally considered more important and harder and more respectable than the same job done by women in their own homes. Bullshit, I say. It was women cooking, weaving, sewing, and potting who started all these so-called arts that men elevated into some lofty category. It's not who does it, it's the quality of the work the matters.

"The article's author quotes Debbie Stoller, Bust's editor and founder of Stitch'n Bitch, as saying that those domestic crafts were casualties of the first wave of feminism. Don't you believe it. Women sewed from both necessity and out of boredom but it was, more than anything, the cheap availability of mass-produced goods that made women's handicrafts unnecessary. Women could not have moved into the workforce without cheap manufactured goods they formerly hand-produced: bedding, clothing, even food (butter churning?). In addition, advertising created a desire for the manufactured rather than the hand-made. But in poor families where mass-produced goods were still unaffordable, women still continue to sew, knit, and crochet. Same hand crafts like tatting and lace making fell by the wayside for cultural reasons unrelated to feminism. Who includes lace-embellished linens in their trousseau anymore? Who even has a trousseau? Mass production put the majority of independent cast ironworkers, glassblowers, and cabinetmakers out of business, too. These are traditionally male handcrafts (like printing), and nobody blames feminism for their demise. Yet they're as scarce as or possibly more scarce than women who sew, crochet, knit, or weave."

BookGirl's 2009 Reading

2008-01-01T11:03:00.018-05:00

This is my work-around to Blogger's unfortunate inability to create separate "pages" (something Wordpress, for example, can do), so don't concern yourself with the date above. So I'm creating this list as a separate post and will link to it from an item on the sidebar of my blog's home page. I'll keep it up to date.

My 2009 Reading

The Raphael Affair - Iain Pears
The Pickwick Papers - Charles Dickens
The Creative Habit - Twyla Tharp
Painted Paper - Alisa Golden
The World to Come - Dara Horn
Mr. Wilson's Cabinet of Wonders - Lawrence Wechsler
13 Ways of Looking at the Novel - Jane Smiley
The Elegance of the Hedgehog - Muriel Barbery
People of the Book - Geraldine Brooks
A Flaw in the Blood - Stephanie Barron
The Private Patient - P.D. James
Fat Chance - Simon Gray
Downtown Owl - Chuck Klosterman
Tender is The Night - F. Scott Fitzgerald
The Dress Lodger - Shari Holman
The Turn of the Screw - Henry James
The Moonstone - Wilkie Collins
The Pleasure of My Company - Steve Martin
Fearless Creating - Eric Maisel
Softspoken - Lucius Shepard
The Comforts of a Muddy Saturday - Alexander McCall Smith
Blink - Malcolm Gladwell
Jim the Boy - Tony Earley
The Book Thief - Markus Zuzak
Ask the Dust - John Fante
Winesburg, Ohio - Sherwood Anderson

My 2008 Reading

The Poetry Handbook - Mary Oliver
The Great Man - Kate Christensen
The Cloister Walk - Kathleen Norris
Absalom, Absalom - William Faulkner
When Will There Be Good News - Kate Atkinson
Astrid & Veronika - Linda Olsson
Print, Pattern & Colour - Ruth Issett
Art & Fear - Bayles and Orland
Three Junes - Julia Glass
The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher - Kate Summerscale
Away - Amy Bloom
The War of Art - Steven Pressfield
Author, Author - David Lodge
Valentines - Ted Kooser
As I Lay Dying - William Faulkner
About Alice - Calvin Trillin
The Accidental Masterpiece - Michael Kimmelman
The Gate of Angels - Penelope Fitzgerald
The Writing Diet - Julia Cameron
We Are Now Beginning our Descent - James Meek
Shakespeare: The Word as a Stage - Bill Bryson
The Girl of His Dreams - Donna Leon
The Bluest Eye - Toni Morrison
The Chessmen of Doom - John Bellairs
Maps & Legends - Michael Chabon
Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
A Long Way Down - Nick Hornby
Child 44 - Tom Rob Smith
The Archivist - Martha Cooley
Interpreter of Maladies - Jhumpa Lahiri
Out Stealing Horses - Per Petterson
Altered Books Workshop - Bev Brazelton
Twilight - William Gay
What the Dead Know - Laura Lippman
The Film Club - David Gilmour
The Society of S: A Novel - Susan Hubbard
The Haunting of Lamb House - Joan Aiken
The Mature Master - Sheldon Novick
The Careful Use of Compliments - Alexander McCall Smith
Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
Pleading Guilty - Scott Turow
'Measure for Measure - William Shakespeare
Daisy Miller - Henry James
The Beast in the Jungle - Henry James
One Good Turn - Kate Atkinson
The Aspern Papers - Henry James
The Spellman Files - Lisa Lutz
Tourist Season - Enid Shomer
What Maisie Knew - Henry James
The Garden of Iden - Kage Baker
The Merchant of Venice - William Shakespeare
Washington Square - Henry James
Fingersmith - Sarah Waters
The Uncommon Reader - Alan Bennett
Will in the World: How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare - Stephen Greenblatt
Midwives - Chris Bohjalian
Trespass - Valerie Martin
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man - James Joyce
Water for Elephants - Sara Gruen
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance - Robert M. Pirsig

My 2007 Reading

Photographing Arts, Crafts and Collectibles - Steve Meltzer
The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood
The Feast of Love - Charles Baxter
The Tenant of Wildfell Hall - Ann Bronte
The Brontes at Haworth - Ann Dinsdale
The Man Who Smiled - Henning Mankell
Howard's End - E.M. Forster
Lord Jim - Joseph Conrad
Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
The Mists of Avalon - Marion Zimmer Bradley
The Tattoo Artist - Jill Ciment
Dead Clever - Scarlett Thomas
The Ballad of Frankie Silver - Sharon McCrumb
Lions and Liquorice - Kate Fenton
Special Topics in Calamity Physics - Marisha Pessl
Angelica - Arthur Phillips
Homeland and Other Stories - Barbara Kingsolver
On Chesil Beach - Ian McEwan
Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith - Anne Lamott
Digital Art Studio - Karin Schminke, et al.
In Case We're Separated - Alice Mattison
The Forest Lover - Susan Vreeland
Truth and Beauty - Ann Patchett
How to Read a Novel - John Sutherland
The Orchid Shroud - Michelle Wan
The Golden Compass - Philip Pullman
Same Sweet Girls - Cassandra King
The Art of Fiction - David Lodge
The Amateur Marriage - Anne Tyler
Cry Me a River - T.R. Pearson
Have Mercy on Us All - Fred Vargas
Drinking Coffee Elsewhere - Z.Z. Packer
Polio: An American Story - David Oshinsky
Friends, Lovers, Chocolate - Alexander McCall Smith
Tell Me a Riddle - Tillie Olsen
The Death of Ivan Illych - Leo Tolstoy
London: A History - A.N. Wilson
Balzac and the Little Chinese Princess - Dai Sijie
Awake in the Dark: The Best of Roger Ebert - Roger Ebert
Blue Arabesque - Patricia Hampl
The Piano Tuner - Daniel Mason
My Name is Red - Orhan Pamuk
The Sunday Philosophy Club - Alexander McCall Smith
Eat, Pray, Love - Elizabeth Gilbert
The Mystery Guest - Gregoire Bouillier
All is Vanity - Christina Schwarz
Prague - Arthur Phillips
Creative Collage Techniques - Nita Leland/ Virginia Williams
Reading Like a Writer - Francine Prose
Collage Techniques - Gerald Brommer
Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic - Alison Blechdel
My Antonia - Willa Cather
The Places in Between - Rory Stewart
Lady Into Fox - David Garnett
The Keep - Jennifer Egan

An Accelerated Christmas Present

2007-12-25T18:54:00.000-05:00

My husband and I have been talking about getting another dog -- more specifically, another shih tzu. But we'd decided (or at least I'd decided) that we'd wait until the spring or summer when my life was a little bit hectic. Puppies take big chunks of time to housetrain and to acclimate to new surroundings -- time that I don't feel I have right now. So much for the best laid plans...

We picked up Coco (short for Coco Chanel, of course) on Dec 22d and she's settled right in. The ambivalent one (besides me, for a while) is her 3-year-old "older brother" -- our other shih tzu, Twiggy (so named because he's never seen a twig or leaf he didn't want to bring into the house). He's been very gentle -- he seems to understand that the puppy's size merits that -- but he's clearly more subdued, and I think he misses the freedom to roam at will without Coco nipping at his heels and being (he must think), generally a pest. Coco, meanwhile, already thinks she owns the place.

Here's some pix of the new addition, and of Twiggy, who for a 15-lb dog, looks gigantic next to tiny 3-lb Coco.

Coco

We used to think of Twiggy as a small dog, but next to 8-week-old Coco, he seems huge!

Twiggy is spending more time up on his window seat these days...

Christmas Lights Gone Wild

2007-12-24T10:35:00.000-05:00

I couldn't resist posting this YouTube video. I kept thinking about the person who programmed this -- either wonderfully dedicated or horribly obssessed. Either way, it's quite an achievement.

To all of you who celebrate Christmas, have a happy one!

Making Paste Paper

2007-12-01T20:55:00.000-05:00

Can it actually be three weeks since I've posted? It surprises me too. I've been working on a marketing project and also very actively involved in a volunteer project. Of the time left over, I've been spending as much of it as I can in my studio, making books to meet some deadlines. This'll be the state of affairs for the new few months, so for the duration I'll be here less often than I used to -- but I'll try not to let it stretch out much longer than a week without a post.

Earlier this fall, a local arts center asked my friend, Carol, to teach a class in making paste paper. She asked me to help her with the class, so she and I have had a couple of paste paper-making sessions over the last couple of months. Carol makes beautiful traditional paste paper, which she uses primarily as end papers for her books. I've never been much interested in making paste paper (although I admire the work of those, like Carol, who do it well), perhaps because the results seem a little too controlled. That's probably why my own paste paper designs are less traditional --less uniform and generally messier. Here are some photos of the results of our most recent session -- unfortunately, my photos include a fair amount of glare and don't do the papers justice. Most of these are Carol's; a few are mine. Enjoy.

Bookmaking Field Day

2007-11-09T21:14:00.000-05:00

To my mind, one of the real joys in life is spending time with people you like engaged in activity all of you enjoy. So I'd been looking forward to getting together with my friends Priscilla and Cheryl to make books. By the time I arrived at Priscilla's she and Cheryl had been experimenting for a while; they love art supplies as much as I do, but are way more prolific than I am.

Priscilla's cats, Chloe and Ginger, kept us company. I was fascinated by Chloe, a very fluffy calico, with a face the spitting image of Garfield's. On her own, she hopped into a bag that Cheryl had placed on the floor and we caught her in the act (below).

I spent most of the time day cutting book board (with an exacto knife, no less -- tedious but meditative) for several books than I plan to make over the next couple of weeks. One of these will be a gatefolk book, like the one in the photo below; the others are straightforward coptic journals. I thoroughly enjoyed dedicating a whole days to book projects. Sharing it with like-minded friends made it all the better.

One of Priscilla's books. Part of the fun is show-and-tell.

Cheryl's card -- using texture paste and a stencil.

Cheryl is making these as gifts -- using the covers of the recipients' favorite childhood books (and a Scrabble board for a Scrabble lover)

Cheryl stitching

A book cover Priscilla made using silver duct tape (!)

A few photos of my gatefold book. The hanging threads are from strips of papers I sewed onto some of the pages.

Chloe feeling snug in Cheryl's bag.

The view from Priscilla's living room -- my photo doesn't do it justice.

Balance

2007-11-04T21:34:00.000-05:00

I can't remember how long it's been since I've posted less often than once a week. Not since I started my blog, I think. But I've taken on a fairly large, time-intensive project -- well, it's not so much the size of the project as it is that I have a tendency to fill up my life, so that when a new project comes along, it's not easy to keep all the balls in the air. That's what's happening now. Something has to give, and sometimes the "something" are things that I enjoy. So I'll likely be blogging less frequently over the next few months. Sigh.

Bookmaking is one of those balls that I'm trying to keep in the air. I'm trying to be as disciplined about making time for book arts as I am about my new project. It's all about balance, right? Unfortunately, balance is something I've never been very good at it. I've decided that it's as good a time as any to practice.

I haven't been so busy, 'though, as to miss the splendor of the changing leaves in our mountains. We've suffered a severe drought this year, along with much of the country, so it seemed a little touch and go as to whether we would see much color this fall. Luckily, although the drought delayed the colors, it didn't stop them. The photos give just a tiny inkling of the wondrous displays on the mountainsides.

This is my favorite time of year here, and the visual display is just one of the many reasons. The beginning of a new season is a good reminder that nature keeps its balance, whatever the challenges that try to interfere. It's a good lesson for to remember right now.

The view from my studio

Looking out beyond our back yard.

Now I know what "sun-dappled" means.

It amazes me that the gerbera daisy plant is still blooming.

A pumpkin sale!

The Bookstore Cafe

2007-10-26T21:16:00.000-04:00

The right coffeehouse is one of my great pleasures. Whenever I want to get in a good long spell of uninterrupted reading I head to a coffeehouse. When I have a writing project that I have to concentrate on, a coffeehouse is usually my first choice. Why a coffeehouse rather than home? Well, at home I tend to feel that there are other things I should be attending to, say, all the weeding I'm always meaning to do but never get around to. And, of course, there's that pleasant feeling of being alone but in good company. I'll talk to people in a coffeehouse that I probaby wouldn't talk to elsewhere. It seems that by virtue of being there, you're part of the same club.

Bookstores with coffeeshops/cafes are particular favorites. My very first was in the late 70s when I was in Washington, DC for a conference: Kramerbooks and Afterwords in Dupont Circle (its web site claims that it was the first bookstore/cafe in the country to feature cappuccino and espresso). When I moved to DC in the mid-90s, Kramerbooks had become a full-scale restaurant, and although its selection of books was still terrific, the food had started to wrestle with the books for attention, and the pace was too hectic for the kind of leisurely exploring that I like most.

It didn't take me long to find another great bookstore cafe hang-out, though. (Did you know that DC has the largest number of bookstores, per capita, of any city in the United States?). The wonderful Politics & Prose was one Metro stop and a nice walk north of my Cleveland Park neighborhood. The coffeehouse was downstairs; the seating, besides the usual table and chairs, consisted of a large, old, plump sofa and a couple of mismatched chairs. I was usually there a couple of Sunday mornings a month. I enjoyed my Sunday Washington Post with a cup of coffee and toasted bagel or big slice of pumpkin bread. I rarely left without buying a book (my post-breakfast browsing), but I never felt that it was part of the bargain for spending time there.

I should say that I'm an equal opportunity bookstore-cum-coffeehouse disciple. Given a choice, I'll opt for an independent, but I'm happy to spend time at Starbucks and Barnes and Noble too. (I'm also an equal opportunity book buyer. I buy at independent bookstores, chains, library book sales, flea markets, and online). I'm lucky now to live in a place that values bookstores and coffeehouses and the role they play in building community. As much as I find myself in them, I suppose I've come to take them for granted.

So it hit home today when I read an article in the UK's Guardian that the Iranian government has closed down the coffeeshops in four bookstores in Tehran this week. One of the coffeehouses is in one of the city's best-known bookstores, which regularly hosted readings by writers and had become a popular meeting place for literary types. The government justified the closures by saying that "the coffeehouses constituted an illegal mixing of trade," but critics believe that the move is aimed at restricting the gathering of intellectuals and educated young people, and that more closings will follow.

Such a small thing, I used to think, being able to enjoy books and coffee whenever and wherever you want, and being with others who want the same.

Andrea Dezso

2007-10-22T18:55:00.000-04:00

How smitten am I with Andrea Dezso? How admiring am I of her talent, her versatility and her range? How fascinating is it that she's from Romania (Transylvania, no less) and that her Romanian culture and immigrant experience figure often in her art? Let's just say "a lot," and leave it at that. I claim her as a book artist, since she works often in the book form, but, in fact, she is not easily classified, since she is a sculptor, a writer, an illustrator, a designer and a muralist (I'm sure I've missed something -- ah, yes, filmmaker).

The wonderful blog of the Rag & Bone Bindery led me to Dezso's work, and I was hooked. I want to show you every single piece that's on her pages at the Parsons New School for Design site, but I'm limiting myself to just a few. I hope that you'll take a much more extensive look at her work on the Parsons site, which includes detailed information about the both Dezso, her work as a whole and the individual pieces. Here's a recent article from the New York Times.

Dezso, who is 39, came to New York ten years ago after receiving a residency at The New York Center for Book Arts. She teaches at Parsons and takes on projects for clients such as McSweeney's, the indie literary publication (so indie it's now mainstream) founded by writer Dave Eggers. For McSweeney's Issue 23 she masterminded a "poster" which, when folded, allowed each short story in the issue its own individually designed front and back cover. Geesh!

Top right: Pioneers Give First Aid To Their Comrades, Andrea Dezso. One-of-a-kind pop-up book. Paper, board, acrylics, colored pencils. 2007 New York city. "This book was inspired by the first aid classes we were required to take as young pioneers in Romania in the eighties. We learned that if someone has a seizure and becomes unconscious we must pull out their tongue and pin it to their pioneer short with a safety pin to prevent suffocation."

The Moon's Party, Andrea Dezso

One-of-a-kind fold out book about the Moon and her animal friends, 1995

City Ornament, Andrea Dezso
Op Art piece appeared in The New York Times Op-Ed page on December 25th 2006

Above and Below: Of My Son, Andrea Dezso
One-of-a-kind book 1994

Illustration for "Pick Your Poison", Andrea Dezso
, published in The New York Times Op-Ed page on Sunday, May 14th 2006

Shadow Books, Andrea Dezso

One-of-a-kind multi-layered, hand-sewn and cut paper theaters illuminated with light emitting diodes (LED). Installation of books and photographs exhibited at Flux Factory's Cartunnel Comix Fluxture show in 2004. Four books in the series, all in private collections. Size of each book: 4X6X4 inches

The Mothsucker, Andrea Dezso
One-of-a-kind artist's book. Coptic binding by the artist. Mixed media on 100% cotton
Fabriano watercolor paper. Size: 5X7 inches. 1998- 2000. Book in private collection This book documents my challenging adjustment process of living in New York City.

Kidney Cold, Andrea Dezso.

Embroidered Drawing from the "My Mother Claimed" 2006 series. Cotton and metallic floss embroidery and glass beads on cotton canvas

She Wishes She Never Married, Andrea Dezso
Embroidered Drawing from the "My Mother Claimed" 2006 series. Cotton and metallic floss embroidery and glass beads on cotton canvas

Mamushka, Andrea Dezso

Picture book, 16 pages, written and illustrated by Andrea Dezsö. Published in Esopus magazine issue #3 in 2004

New York Dreams (Carousel Book), Andrea Dezso
One-of-a-kind artist's pop-up book on Lana 100% cotton watercolor paper. Mixed media.
Sizes: variable. 1997-98. Collection of the artist

Above and Below: Andrea Dezsö: McSweeney's ISSUE 23 book and wrap-around jacket folded out into a poster
Illuminated paper cutouts, embroidery, drawing, painting, collage, calligraphy– I created the art for McSweeney's issue 23 entirely by hand.

From the McSweeney's website: Every story gets its own front and back cover, drawn, collaged, or embroidered by the polymathic Andrea Dezsö. The whole thing is wrapped in a jacket that unfolds into five square feet of double-sided glory--spread it out one way for dozens of very short stories by Dave Eggers, arranged in what we're pretty sure is a volvelle; flip it over and witness all those Dezsö illustrations stitched into one unbroken expanse.

Re-reading Jane Eyre

2007-10-13T21:50:00.000-04:00

I've had little time to post, what with all the reading I've been doing for my two literature classes, and some writing projects I've taken on. In one of my classes, The Brontes, we're reading one book by each of the Bronte sisters: Jane Eyre (Charlotte, right), Wuthering Heights (Emily) and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (Anne). I hadn't read Jane Eyre since high school, I think, and reading it this time around gave me a whole new perspective not just on the book, but on Charlotte Bronte. I now understand why it's become such a magnet for feminists. When you consider that it was written during a period (mid-nineteenth century) when women's roles were immensely limited and proscribed, Jane was definitely not a typical young woman of her times.

For one thing, she's always truthful and extremely direct. I was particularly impressed by the latter, since Jane's contemporaries in literature (and, by extension, Charlotte's) were expected to be circumspect and to avoid unpleasantess of any kind (which included saying anything that was less than pleasant or cheerful).

It surprised me how often Jane speaks of wanting freedom, liberty, adventure. Here she decides to leave Lowood (where she's been a student and for two years, a teacher) and advertise for a position as a governess:

"...now I remembered that the real world was wide, and that a varied field of hopes and fears, of sensations and excitements, awaited those who had courage to go forth into its expanse to seek real knowledge of life amidst its perils."

She's practical enough to recognize the limitations placed on her by the fact of her gender and by her circumstances, and that becoming a governess is simply another form of service, but still she yearns:

"A new servitude! There is something in that...I know there is because it does not sound too sweet; it is not like such words as Liberty, Excitement, Enjoyment: delightful sounds truly; but no more than sounds for me."

And when Jane, now at Thornfield, Mr. Rochester's estate, ruminates about her situation, which is, in fact, much better than that usually accorded the typical governess, she says:

"...the restlessness was in my nature; it agitated me to pain sometimes..." and

"...but women feel just as men feel; they need exercise for their faculties; and a field for their efforts as much as their brothers do; they suffer from too rigid a constraint, too absolute a stagnation, precisely as men would suffer; and it is narrow-minded in their more privileged fellow-creatures to say that they ought to confine themselves to making puddings and knitting stockings, to playing on the piano and embroidering bags. It is thoughtless to condemn them, or laugh at them, if they seek to do more or learn more than custom has pronounced necessary for their sex."

Pretty radical assertions for the times during which Charlotte was writing. It's a wonderful novel for many reasons, most of which I'm sure I missed when I first read it. Now, in a very different way, I'm falling in love with Wuthering Heights and Emily Bronte.

Note: BookGirl is traveling all next week, and will be unable to post. Sigh...
She'll have to content herself late at night reading Wuthering Heights and Howards End (which she's reading for her other class).

Book Collaborations in Cuba

2007-10-06T20:14:00.000-04:00

Last Thursday, BookWorks, our excellent resource center for book arts, hosted a fascinating lecture by Steve Miller, head of the MFA program in Book Arts at the University of Alabama. Steve is on a semester's sabbatical and is teaching a letterpress class at the nearby Penland School of Crafts this fall. The class is being held in the school's new letterpress and print studio, in whose development Steve had considerable input. His presentation was on the trips he and his students from UA have been making to Cuba since 2004 to collaborate with Cuban artists -- printmakers, poets, papermakers and bookbinders -- on handmade book projects.

The first project (2004) was Diseno/Design (see top right and first image below), a bilingual limited edition book of poems by poet and former U.S. poet laureate Billy Collins. After their return to Alabama, Steve and his students finished an expanded edition of the same book. (Note: there's a tilde over the "n" in the word "diseno," which Blogger doesn't have the capacity to insert, but which creates a separate additional consonant in Spanish and alters the sound of the word). In 2005 they followed a similar process with the bilingual Illegal Use of the Soul, with poems by Cuban poet Luis Francisco Diaz Sanchez and linocuts by Julio Cesar Pena Peralta (there's that missing tilde over the "n" again, in "Pena").

Steve shared an interesting difference in the Cubans' approach to printmaking. In marked contrast to the method with which we're familiar, in which the printmaker is in control of the entire process, in Cuba there are separate roles for "printmaker" and "printer": the "printmaker" prepares the plate, then hands it over to the "printer," who works the press.

In all, there have been eight working trips to Cuba under the auspices of UA to work on various collaborative books. From the start, Steve has approached the project as a genuine collaboration, in spite of the fact that the equipment and resources available to his Cuban counterparts are severely limited. To date, at least half (and often more) of the editions have been distributed in Cuba.

Steve brought copies of the editions for us to see. Laurie Corral, BookWorks' director, supplemented these with several books by Cuban artists from the studio's collection. The latter (the last two book images below) were created using paper bags.

On a related note, you'll want to check out the podcasts of interviews that Steve has done, and continues to conduct, with book artists, papermakers, poets, and other "book people. Check out the Podcast link on the UA Book Arts page here.

Design/Diseno, Billy Collins (poetry), Carlos Ayress Moreno (linocuts), translated by Maria Vargas

Uso Ilegal del Alma/Illegal Use of the Soul, Luis Francisco Diaz Sanchez (poetry), Julio Cesar Pena Peralta (illustrations), translated by Maria Vargas

La Caida del Cielo, Cristina Garcia

Ana Mendieta, Nancy Morejon

Steve Miler, right, and book artist Annie Cicale, at BookWorks

C is for Critic

2007-10-03T19:01:00.000-04:00

For me, an arts critic is someone with significant experience in both the critical process and the field that he or she writes about. Sometimes a critic's arguments persuade me to see or read something I might have passed by; occasionally, I've even changed my mind about my initial reaction to a movie or a play or a book when a review I read after-the-fact brought out facets or raised issues I'd overlooked. I enjoy good critics even when I don't agree with them.

Yes, democratization of the media is a good thing, and we're certainly all entitled to our opinion -- this is America, don'tcha know? If I'm considering buying a mini-tripod for my digital camera (as I have been recently), it's useful to learn from four people who bought a certain model that it tilts if it's used with a camera that doesn't have a central tripod attachment. And I'm ready to listen to why you did or didn't like The Bourne Ultimatum (I did). But I don't get my book recommendations from the reader reviews at Amazon.

In an article in the UK's The Guardian, R. McDonald writes that "the critic...as objective judge and expert...has yielded to the critic who shares personal reactions and subjective enthusiasms."

"The bloggers and reading groups often claim that they would rather get recommendations from someone they know, someone with similar tastes. One problem with this is that the public are relying on a reviewing system that confirms and assuages their prejudices rather than challenges them. An able and experienced critic...could once persuade readers to give unfamiliar work a second chance, to see things they did not see at first glance. In that respect, critics can be the harbingers of the new.

"...The conviction that educated taste is an elitist ruse, that one opinion is as good as another, and that we should take our lead for our cultural life solely from people like us might seem like an instance of "people power". Yet...If we only listen to those who already share our proclivities and interests, the supposed critical democracy will lead to a dangerous attenuation of taste and conservatism of judgment. Without critics of authority, the size and variety of contemporary criticism may ultimately serve the cause of cultural banality and uniformity."

This is not to say that anything that isn't written by a "critic" is immediately suspect. I've discovered, for example, that some book bloggers I read regularly have reading tastes similar to mine, so I'll probably enjoy the books they've read. There are others whose intelligent comments make me want to buy that book right now (not that I need to add even one more book to my TBR pile these days!). But I think it's important to distinguish between opinion and criticism, and to appreciate that by challenging our tastes and assumptions -- by making us think -- good criticism can be as "democratizing" as those Amazon reader reviews.

So Many Books, So Little Time

2007-10-02T21:54:00.000-04:00

BookGirl never thought she'd have to admit to having too many books to read. But I'm starting to feel just a bit overwhelmed about my book commitments. A few months ago, I joined a second book club because I wanted more diversity in my book club menu. Last month, I signed up for two Lit classes because I wanted the opportunity to read and re-read some classics. Not to mention that my own personal list of TBRs (to be reads) grows by the day.

This month, one book club is reading Fingersmith by Sarah Waters; the other is reading Pope Joan by Donna Woolfolk Cross. Over the next six weeks, we're covering Lord Jim, Howard's End and A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man in my Early Modern Novel class. And over that same period, we're reading Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall in my class on The Brontes. I'm already nearly a book behind in each.

Right now I'm juggling Fingersmith, Jane Eyre and Lord Jim. I was interested enough in Lord Jim that I opted for my own Conrad mini-fest and just finished Heart of Darkness. And, a page here and a chapter there, I'm reading Charles Baxter's The Feast of Love.

I may have been a titch overambitious when I committed myself to all this. So much for tackling Middlemarch before the end of the year...

Artist Credit: James Tissot, Reading a Book

"Ring bell, hard to tell/If anything is goin' to sell"

2007-09-27T17:58:00.000-04:00

As someone who appreciates good marketing, I can't help but admire the creative team (the British Ten4 Design) behind this promo for Bob Dylan's new album. The irony of using a clip from a classic film (D.A. Pennebaker's Don't Look Back) that portrayed Dylan as an iconoclast who wasn't "gonna work on Maggie's farm no more" is not lost on me. But this is so clever and the toy is so much fun that I can't be cynical about it. (Watch the original "Subterranean Homesick Blues" clip from Don't Look Back here)

The new album, the 3-CD Dylan: His Greatest Songs, will be released October 1st. Letting you know this and linking to the promo is exactly what the record marketing people want me to do, of course. And they know I will. That's why it's such good marketing. Go ahead. Enjoy!

Geesh, I'm such a shill for The Man.

Quick Long-Stitch Journal

2007-09-26T23:45:00.000-04:00

I've carried a notebook/journal with me for as long as I can remember. It's a place to write down a book passage that I want to remember, or jot down the name of a book that a friend recommends, or to list my to-dos. For over a year now I've been making my own. I love the feeling of writing in a handmade book, especially one I've made myself.

I keep these books fairly small, usually no larger than 4" x 6", and the bindings pretty simple. Most of the time I make a double-pamphlet book. This time I used what I call a criss-cross long-stitch binding. I glued together two complementary papers of card-stock weight paper -- the paper has a distressed look. To keep the book closed, I used an elastic band I found in my sewing box. Then I hand-sewed a button on the front cover and voila! (or "viola!" as one of my friends says.)

Caterpillar, Centipede

2007-09-23T20:24:00.000-04:00

My book arts posts seem to be living in a twilight zone that moves much more slowly than real time. This post is about a three-day class I took more than a month ago with book artist Dan Essig at BookWorks. The avowed purpose of the class was to learn the centipede stitch (a/k/a the caterpillar stitch), but the stitch was only the final touch in the thoroughly enjoyable process of creating our books. (That's one of Dan's books at top right.)

We spent the first morning learning the stitch and making a sewing card. We were working with wood, and for the next day-and-a-half we drilled, distressed, painted (with milk paint) and sanded and burnished our mahogany covers. On the final day of class, we sewed our books with a Greek Coptic binding. We finished by drilling our holes for the centipede, and stitching it in. The Greek Coptic binding is one I hadn't done before, and it's quite beautiful, adding real strength and stability to the book.

Dan demonstrated the techniques with both hand tools and small power tools. He's incredibly precise about techniques and measurements in everything he does, and he explains why he's doing what he's doing. I always appreciate this, because understanding the reasons behind the actions helps me decide what I might change to make the book more my own. I gravitated to the hand tools, which I felt gave me greater control. No doubt, with practice, the power tools would feel just as comfortable and prove faster and more efficient, but since I'll be making wooden books only occasionally, I'll opt for the simplicity and lower cost of the hand tools.

This is the third class I've taken with Dan, and I'll be taking another in October -- we'll make a papyrus book in that one. You may have seen some of his work in the The Penland Book of Handmade Books (that's Dan's book on the cover, right), which if you don't have, you must buy immediately. His books are true works of art. In addition to these, he creates sculptural pieces that incorporate books and paper, but as a secondary rather than a primary element. Locally, he exhibits lat Ariel Gallery (check out some of his work at Ariel here).

Drilling holes in the covers

Various hand tools

Painting covers with milk paint -- outside!

Couldn't resist the colors of waxed linen thread

The Greek Coptic binding on my book, almost done

The painted, sanded, burnished, bound book, minus the centipede

Drilling the hole to insert the peg that will be part of the closure

One of my classmates using the electric drill press to fashion a peg for the closure

My finished book. You can see that I've fudged a bit. If you look at Dan's book at the top of the post, you'll notice that his centipede runs across the spine. Because I was short on time, I chose to stop my centipede at the spine after the front cover and resume it on the back cover. I have a set of wooden covers awaiting my next effort.

Another of Dan's books, this one with headbands over and around the covers at the top and bottom

My friend Priscilla with her almost-finished book

"The Case of the Vanishing Book Review"

2007-09-20T22:40:00.001-04:00

There's an amusing report by James Marcus of a recent panel discussion, sponsored by the Columbia Journalism Review, on the state of print-media book reviews. Posting in his blog, House of Mirth, Marcus tweaks all of the participants equally , from Steve Wasserman espousing his views on the "anti-intellectualism" of Americans, to Elizabeth Sifton's (former editor at 3 major publishing houses) death-knell comment that "books [are] no longer central to print culture."

Wasserman, a literary agent and former editor of the Los Angeles Times Book Review, suggested that the spate of commentary on the cut-backs in book review pages has been way too nostalgic: "There was never a Golden Age of Book Reviewing.... It was always a sideshow, even at the newspapers that chose to support it." The CJR, he noted, gave him the opportunity "to natter about this problem at great length" in a recent article, in which he wrote:

"It is through the work of novelists and poets that we understand how we imagine ourselves and contend with the often elusive forces--of which language itself is a foremost factor--that shape us as individuals and families, citizens and communities, and it is through our historians and scientists, journalists and essayists that we wrestle with how we have lived, how the present came to be, and what the future might bring....if you want to reduce crime, teach your children to read. Civilization is built on a foundation of books."

In sharp contrast, here's the close of Marcus's report, in which he describes a portion of the Q&A that followed the panel discussion:

"The climax: a 22-year-old Columbia student declared that nobody in his generation read any books, hence the very idea of reading a book review section was "an absurdity." In fact, he continued, he and his peers didn't even watch television, because every time they turned on the tube there was a story about Iraq. (What about Entourage?) Half the audience must have been wondering whether this guy was a plant: a cautionary figure in tennis shoes, a glimpse into the radiant future. Dude, if you’re reading this, text me right away and let us know you were kidding."

Sigh...

You can learn more about the vanishing book review, and how you can make your views known, at the National Book Critics Circle Campaign to Save Book Reviews.

Tiny Tots

2007-09-17T22:47:00.000-04:00

Jerome Weeks' Book/Daddy blog is one of BookGirl's regular destinations on the Web. Anyone whose blog photo depicts three large clocks, one whose time is set for East Egg and another for West Egg (the third is on Narnia time) is worthy of BookGirl's attention, and not only for the Fitzgerald reference.

It seems that we also share a liking for Edward Gorey's The Gashlycrumb Tinies. Actually, mine is a bit more than a liking. In addition to two copies of the book, one of which is an early edition that was a gift from my husband (such a man is clearly a keeper), I own a large poster of the ill-fated tots. I used to display said poster prominently in the front hall of my apartment, which didn't scare off that same man, who was just getting to know me then. It's a particular delight that one of the unfortunate children bears my name (no, not BookGirl, silly!)

Anyway, Book/Daddy has a post with a video of The GTs from YouTube, one of many interpretations. After watching it, I visited YouTube and found one that I liked better. Here are both of them. The first is my selection; the second is Book/Daddy's.

Architecture's Turn

2007-09-14T10:31:00.000-04:00

If you read this blog from time to time, you know that I've posted about newspapers' cutbacks in book criticism (including here and here and here). Among major metropolitan dailies, the main reason for the cutbacks is the firing (or "buyouts") of the papers' book critics, many of them highly-respected and of long standing. But I've also made it clear that it's not only book coverage that's dwindling; the trend is toward the diminution of arts coverage in general.

Among the recent casualties is the architecture critic at the Minneapolis Star Tribune, Linda Mack. Architecture magazine reports that Avista Capital Partners, a New York investment firm, bought the Star Tribune for $530 million in December "and has been trimming staff ever since."

Although newspapers' architecture critics cover work beyond their own geographic borders, they provide an invaluable perspective on what is essentially a local art form. In the article, Mack celebrates [the Twin Cities'] "unbelievable cultural-arts boom. I got to cover Cesar Pelli's public library here, Jean Nouvel's Guthrie Theater, Herzog & de Meuron's Walker Art Center—I had a great run."

I can't speak to the situation in the Twin Cities, but I've had reason to value good local coverage of architecture in other large cities experiencing major growth. Beth Dunlop, an award-winning architecture writer, was The Miami Herald's architecture critic when I lived in Miami. Her understanding of South Florida's history and cultural climate, combined with her deep knowledge of architecture, gave her a perspective that would have been difficult for any writer from outside the area to match. Not only did The Herald's readers benefit, she also generated necessary and important dialogue about public buildings in the community.

Speaking to Architect magazine, Claude Peck, the Star Tribune's fine arts editor, said that "arts and metro reporters are now covering architecture as best we can." We all know what that means. Mack is now freelancing. Let's hope the Star Tribune at least has the smarts to make use of her services occasionally.

Note: In an interesting trend reversal, Beth Dunlop is again The Miami Herald's architecture critic, after serving in that role from 1979 - 1993. Here's a recent story, about the Orange Bowl stadium.

Beautiful Libraries

2007-09-13T17:53:00.000-04:00

For those of us who love libraries, Curious Expeditions has a treat: a series of photographs of some of the most beautiful libraries in the world. Pictured are more than 50 libraries-to-die-for, from the Trinity College Library in Dublin (above) to the Real Gabinete Portugues De Leitura Rio De Janeiro, Brazil, "possibly the most beautiful library of them all." Enjoy!

(This came to my attention through correspondence on the Book Arts ListServ, an offshoot of the wonderful Book Arts Web.)

Doing and Starting

2007-09-12T16:49:00.000-04:00

I've been working for the last couple of days on a mock-up of a book that I hoped to make by Friday for an upcoming exhibit at BookWorks. I absolutely, positively needed to do a prototype because I wanted to use some new techniques with photos and acrylics that I'd never tried before. I didn't like how my experiment turned out, although now I have a much better idea of what NOT to do and how to get a better result next time. But making the "real" book the right way is going to take considerably longer than the couple of days I'd allocated, so I'm going to turn in a book for the exhibit that I made earlier this summer.

So now there's nothing that I HAVE to do in the studio over the next couple of days. But since I'd left that time open, I thought: "Well, I could start the new book, or finish the one I started last month or try that new structure I've been looking at..." To which I replied: "Ha!"

A little later, I saw a quote on Roben-Marie Smith's blog, Every Life Has a Story:

"We should be taught not to wait for inspiration to start a thing. Action always generates inspiration. Inspiration seldom generates action." -- Frank Tibolt

and stopped to think how often I stay out of my studio because I have no pressing idea for a specific project and no looming deadline. I know that, as Woody Allen said, "80% of success is showing up" (not quite as good as what most people think he said: "90% of life is showing up."), but it's still difficult to get my foot in the (studio) door, so to speak.

My lonely worktable in my empty studio

Now, deadlines -- real deadlines are great, and I'm good at rallying to the cause. But I'm not one of those who can use artificial deadlines as a motivator. "Whom are you kidding?" , I always wonder when someone suggests this to me. You know it's a fake deadline, so why would you take it seriously? (actually, I say "Who are you kidding?," but BookGirl, an English major, always knows when she's speaking ungrammatically.)

A better approach, I think, if you have no actual deadlines in sight, is to get your friends to agree to exchange stuff: handmade books, ATCs, prints -- whatever. And set a deadline. This usually does the trick, since I'm embarrassed to be the one who doesn't hold up her end of the bargain. The larger the number of people participating, the more embarrassing it is opt out. It doesn't work for me to do this with only one other person, since it's too easy to call on that one person's sympathy with sad tale about one's dog (BookPuppy) having eaten one's book.

The other thing you can do is to take a class. Somehow paying good money to have someone assign for homework exactly what I should have been doing on my own in the first place works wonders. Of course, it's depressing to think that I have such little self-discipline (and less money for art supplies after paying for the class), but BookGirl never expects life to be perfect.

Coincidentally, this wasn't the first quote I saw today about "doing" and "starting." Here's the other one:

"In fact, the ability to start out upon your own impulse is fundamental to the gift of keeping going upon your own terms, not to mention the further and more fulfilling gift of getting started all over again -- never resting upon the oars of success or in the doldrums of disappointment...Getting started, keeping going, getting started again -- in art and life, it seems to me this is the essential rhythm." -- Seamus Heaney

I'm beginning to think that someone is trying to tell me something (insert theme from The Twilight Zone here). All in all, this is not a bad thing to be told, and certainly something I need to hear. Often. Maybe I'll go back into the studio tomorrow after all.

Quilts and Creative Community

2007-09-08T12:30:00.000-04:00

My friend Carol kept mentioning a quilt exhibit that she wanted me to see at the community arts center near which she lives. We made a field trip there last Thursday, and I loved what I saw.

Each participating artist in the exhibit was asked to use a different vintage quilt as inspiration and reinterpret it in any way the artist chose -- color, shape, texture, theme, etc. The results are both interesting and beautiful. I've included photos of a few of the quilts here.

Quilting and textile crafts have a rich tradition in Western North Carolina (For example, Penland School of Crafts, which is now a national center for craft education, was founded in 1923 by teacher Lucy Morgan, who organized the Penland Weavers to provide looms and materials to local women and to market their handwoven goods. She invited guest instructors to teach weaving, and when requests for instruction began to come from other parts of the country, Penland School was born.)

One of the exhibiting artists is Caroline Mannheimer, whom I met at BookWorks last year. Both of us are now students in a follow-up to a creative journaling class that each us of has taken there. That's Caroline's lovely piece, Kiss Kiss, top right and directly below). One of my life's joys is regularly crossing paths with other members of this vital creative community, and the support and encouragement that's exchanged along the way.

Detail from Kiss Kiss. I love text in textiles!

Murray Johnston, Torn Loose and Wheeling Free

Detail, Torn Loose and Wheeling Free

Bets Ramsey, Star of Hope in a Time of War

Detail, Star of Hope in a Time of War

Jimmie Benedict, Scarlett O'Hara's Coat

Detail, Scarlett O'Hara's Coat

Susan Webb Lee, Log Cabin Remodel

Detail, Log Cabin Remodel

Friendship Quilt, 1851 (owned by Mary Sauerteig) This is one of the quilts used for inspiration. It was given to Mary Sauerteig's great-grandfather, Daniel Dobler, by students, relatives and friends upon his retirement from teaching in Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania. Mary's grandfather, along with another of Daniel Dobler's sons, each provided one of the squares (see below)

Detail, Friendship Quilt, 1851

The Fiction Gender Gap

2007-09-05T20:17:00.000-04:00

"A couple of years ago, British author Ian McEwan conducted an admittedly unscientific experiment. He and his son waded into the lunch-time crowds at a London park and began handing out free books. Within a few minutes, they had given away 30 novels.

"Nearly all of the takers were women, who were 'eager and grateful' for the freebies while the men 'frowned in suspicion, or distaste.' The inevitable conclusion, wrote McEwan in The Guardian newspaper: 'When women stop reading, the novel will be dead.'"

So begins Eric Weiner's story on NPR: Why Women Read More Than Men. This "fiction gender gap" is no news to booksellers, who point out that women customers head straight for the fiction section, and men to the nonfiction. And surveys conducted in the U.S., Canada and the UK say that men account for only 20% of the fiction market.

Why? One of the more recent theories focuses on "mirror neurons" and cognitive scientists' observations that women are more empathetic than men:

"Located behind the eyebrows, these neurons are activated both when we initiate actions and when we watch those same actions in others. Mirror neurons explain why we recoil when seeing others in pain, or salivate when we see other people eating a gourmet meal. Neuroscientists believe that mirror neurons hold the biological key to empathy."

It turns out that women have more sensitive mirror neurons than men. That might explain why fiction, which requires readers to emphasize with characters, appeals more to women.

"'Reading, requires incredible patience, and the ability to 'feel into' the characters. That is something women are both more interested in and also better at than men,'" says Louann Brizendine, author of The Female Brain."

Any men out there disagree?

Thanks to Book/Daddy for the lead.

My First Exhibit (Yikes!)

2007-09-02T20:02:00.000-04:00

Late last year, I joined our regional Book Salon, a group of artists working in the book form. I learned about it at BookWorks, our terrific local book arts studio and learning center. I'm delighted to be counted among these talented and generous artists who share my passion for book arts.

For the second year, the members of the Book Salon have been invited to participate in an exhibit at The Design Gallery, in the charming town of Burnsville, neighbor to the Penland School of Crafts. Both years, the timing of the exhibit has coincided with Burnsville's annual Carolina Mountains Literary Festival. The festival will be held the weekend of September 14-15; the book exhibit runs through the end of September. The theme for both: "Roots and Wings" ("Good parents give their children Roots and Wings. Roots to know where home is, wings to fly away and exercise what’s been taught them." -- Jonas Salk).

This is the first time I've shown one of my books. To say that I was nervous about exhibiting my work is an understatement. I've been making books for less than 18 months, although my serious interest in the book as an art form started at least a year before that. My love of books in general, of course, is an incurable lifelong condition.

So let's just say that when i walked into the gallery for the opening reception last Friday evening and heard that my book had sold, I was just the teensiest, tiniest bit excited (ha!). Just a titch. I'm still over the moon.

I began the book, Take Wing, with the premise that a journal should be special but not precious. I've seen too many journals (and bought a few myself) that seem too elegant and "important" to write in. For me, art is as much in the personal and the commonplace as in the universal and the extraordinary. So I mixed fine elements, such as handmade cover papers and Italian text paper, with humble materials such as muslin cloth and locally-produced mica. I'm pleased with the result, and glad to think that it pleased the buyer, and that it will serve its purpose.

There are some truly beautiful books in the exhibit, and I've included just a few in this post. I'll be back at the gallery later in the month to take more photos and post those images here. What impressed me most -- and I should be used to this by now -- was the diversity of the offerings. Not one book in the exhibit is like any other there. Each book is as unique as the artist who created it.

Take Wing

The image of the birds is an inkjet transfer onto muslin layered under a piece of mica

In addition to the traditional text block papers, I included graph paper, dictionary pages and "holey" card-stock-weight computer paper

Moe Hoxie's beautiful "kimono" book

A lovely journal, using embroidery on paper, by Annie Fain Liden

Continuity, a wonderfully sculptural "slinky" book by Carol Norby

Arrowmont - Part 2

2007-08-29T19:45:00.000-04:00

My class at Arrowmont with Carol Barton (at right) was on pop-up structures and movable books (the larger category of which pop-ups are a part). We spent a portion of each day on pop-ups; the rest on books. Some in our class seemed to have a natural talent for the former and created some fairly elaborate scenes. I was satisfied to learn the mechanics and spent more time on book structures. I'm reminded of something Dan Essig, in the class I took with him last recently, said about his and his brother's different talents. As kids, his brother (now a historian) did well on tests that involved reading and comprehension; Dan (now a book artist) did well on tests that involved objects revolving in space. Pop-ups, I think, benefit from a mind that's good at visualizing objects revolving in space.

The pop-ups were great fun, and some of them were surprisingly simple. The great talent, of course, is in combining the various techniques to create the type of work that we see in sophisticated commercial pop-up books -- for example, Robert Sabuda's Alice in Wonderland.

As to books, we worked on four book structures during the week: an accordion book, a blizzard book (developed and so named by Hedi Kyle), a carousel book, and a tunnel book. For all but the blizzard book, where the content is pretty much the structure itself, we were expected to develop our own content, and most of us spent our evening work-hours on that.

I've mentioned before that Carol is a very good teacher, and she did a great job of putting the work we were doing in context. Before she presented each of the book structures -- the blizzard book excepted -- we viewed a slide show containing examples of that particular form, created by a variety of artists. Carol has done a good deal of research on early examples of movable books, so the presentations were both inspirational and good history lessons.

Most of us didn't complete the tunnel book, which was our last project, since the carousel book took longer than we expected. But many of us were able to develop a prototype for the book, which helped us work out the issues raised by tunnel book construction. It was a very full week.

Class projects

Pop-up and small accordion book by Sandy C., one of the students in our class

Pop-up by another student. The photo doesn't do a good job of capturing the dimension.

My accordion book, Pattern

A not-particularly-good photo of the same accordion book, which includes a poem by Dorothy Parker.

The cover of the whimsical accordion book by a student, an Arrowmont work-study artist

The same book's contents, depicting the work-study kitchen staff

My carousel book, Nesting

Another view of the book

A detail of one of the 5 panels

Baskets from the paper basketry students

Cloth in the Text & Textiles class

Dyed fabric drying

One of the works in progress

Oh, Dear

2007-08-27T10:21:00.001-04:00

As part of last Friday's Miss Teen USA competition, Miss Teen South Carolina was asked what she thought of a recent poll that showed one-fifth of Americans can't locate the United States on a world map. I couldn't possibly comment on her response any better than she does.

Seeing Through Others' Eyes

2007-08-26T23:10:00.000-04:00

A C.S. Lewis (1898-1963) quote for readers, from Outside of a Dog (a book is a girl's best friend), who got it from Kapachino.

As an only child who lived a fairly sheltered life in a small town, Lewis's words remind me of the many doors that books opened for me: doors to magical new worlds, and because English is my second language, to beautiful new words. Unfortunately, I didn't encounter C.S. Lewis until I was an adult.

"Those of us who have been true readers all our life seldom fully realise the enormous extension of our being which we owe to authors. We realise it best when we talk with an unliterary friend. He may be full of goodness and good sense but he inhabits a tiny world. In it, we should be suffocated. The man who is contented to be only himself, and therefore less a self, is in prison. My own eyes are not enough for me, I will see through those of others. Reality, even seen through the eyes of many, is not enough. I will see what others have invented..."

And two more I liked:

"The safest road to hell is the gradual one - the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts. "

"It's so much easier to pray for a bore than to go and see one. "