More on Timbuktu

For those interested in the fate of the books of Timbuktu and African manuscripts, here is an excellent site: http://www.tombouctoumanuscripts.org/

Thanks to Jill Trescott for sharing this on the Book Arts List.

Thoughtful Thursday-Allen Say

With gentleness and depth, Caldecott Medal Winner Allen Say traces his beginnings as an artist in Drawing from Memory. It begins:

I was born in 1937 by the seashore of Yokohama, Japan. Our house stood near a fishing village. My parents were the children of fishermen. Mother constantly worried I might drown in the sea. She tried to keep me home.

Say apprenticed to a cartoonist, Noro Shinpei, at age thirteen when he was living in Tokyo in his own apartment(!) and going to school. The book ends when he leaves for America. I love this exchange with his Sensei:

"But I can't draw hands, Sensei. How long do I have to practice?"

"Bad word, Kiyoi. Drawing is never a practice. To draw is to see and discover. Every time you draw, you discover something new. Remember that."

Book Arts Tuesday-Timbuktu Tragedy

I suppose someone not in love with books might think tragedy too strong a word for the destruction of inanimate objects, but those of us who know that books have souls understand. I remember the rejoicing when the many of the medieval books in Timbuktu made their way from family libraries into the new national buildings, especially the new state of the art library of the Ahmed Baba Institute, in 2009. Now we learn of the burning of two libraries, one of them the Institute, by fleeing Islamist insurgents in the flighting in Mali.

A National Geographic article, The Telltale Scribes of Timbuktu, by Peter Gwin from January 2011 is well worth reading for its evocation of place and explanation of the importance of books in the city. There is also an excellent photo gallery. Here is an excerpt. Haidara is one of Timbuktu's preeminent historians.

Haidara is a man obsessed with the written word. Books, he said, are ingrained in his soul, and books, he is convinced, will save Timbuktu. Words form the sinew and muscle that hold societies upright, he argued. Consider the Koran, the Bible, the American Constitution, but also letters from fathers to sons, last wills, blessings, curses. Thousands upon thousands of words infused with the full spectrum of emotions fill in the nooks and corners of human life. "Some of those words," he said triumphantly, "can only be found here in Timbuktu."

It is a practiced soliloquy but a logical point of view for a man whose family controls Timbuktu's largest private library, with some 22,000 manuscripts dating back to the 11th century and volumes of every description, some lavishly illuminated in gold and decorated with colorful marginalia. There are diaries filled with subterfuges and plots, as well as correspondence between sovereigns and their satraps, and myriad pages filled with Islamic theology, legal treatises, scientific notations, astrological readings, medicinal cures, Arabic grammar, poetry, proverbs, and magic spells. Among them are also the little scraps of paper that track the mundanities of commerce: receipts for goods, a trader's census of his camel herd, inventories of caravans. Most are written in Arabic, but some are in Haidara's native Son­ghai. Others are written in Tamashek, the Tuareg language. He can spend hours sitting among the piles, dipping into one tome after another, each a miniature telescope allowing him to peer backward in time.

The mosaic of Timbuktu that emerges from his and the city's other manuscripts depicts an entrepôt made immensely wealthy by its posi­tion at the intersection of two critical trade arteries—the Saharan caravan routes and the Niger River. Merchants brought cloth, spices, and salt from places as far afield as Granada, Cairo, and Mecca to trade for gold, ivory, and slaves from the African interior. As its wealth grew, the city erected grand mosques, attracting scholars who, in turn, formed academies and imported books from throughout the Islamic world. As a result, fragments of the Arabian Nights, Moorish love poetry, and Koranic commentaries from Mecca mingled with narratives of court intrigues and military adventures of mighty African kingdoms.

As new books arrived, armies of scribes copied elaborate facsimiles for the private libraries of local teachers and their wealthy patrons. "You see?" said Haidara, twirling his hand with a flourish. "Books gave birth to new books."

And here: a 2009 Time magazine article about the Ahmed Baba Institute by Vivienne Walt.

For information about the current situation:

Timbuktu mayor: Mali rebels torched library of historic manuscripts from the Guardian by Luke Harding

Timbuktu Locals Saved Some of City’s Ancient Manuscripts from Islamists by Vivienne Walt

I have not been able to find the photographer for the top image but the other two were by Brent Stirton.

Studio Sunday-Making a Eulogy Book

I'm just back from my aunt's funeral in Florida where I delivered the eulogy. It was as much a celebration of her life as a mourning of her passing. She was ninety-five and content when she passed.

"An expression of hers lives on in our house: "Well I'll tell ya." If you had visited Trudy any time in the last ten or fifteen years, the one thing she would have been sure to tell you is what a good life she had had."

Today I spent time in the studio putting into a book. For the text, I used US Letter size paper that was folded into fourths. Using what is called a French fold (paper folded in half like a hamburger—as opposed to long and skinny like a hot dog—and then in half again) meant that the paper only needed to be printed on one side.

The book used two sheets of paper. To start, I French folded 2 sheets of paper, wrote out the numerical order, and then opened the papers. It looked like this.

I used the information to lay out the pages in indesign, where I also laid out the cover. I got two covers from each sheet of Epson Ultra Premium Presentation Paper. The flower is a camellia that I had photographed in my aunt's garden. If you don't do a lot of printing, be aware that the quality of the paper has a big effect on the quality of the image. I trimmed the folded and assembled pages on the right side and bottom to make so that they would be a little smaller than the cover.

Then I was ready to assemble the book: pages, cover, a piece of paper marked with pencil to mark where the holes should be, clips to hold the book together, ribbon, and a needle. Traditionally, the holes are made with an awl and the stitching done with a blunt needle, but I was into speed for this project. I still did keep with practice making the holes first and stitching after.

Making the holes:

Starting the stitching (on the outside of the book because I wanted to tie a bow on the outside.):

Ending the stitching:

I share this with the message that is the doing and sharing that is important. My first impulse was to plan a more complicated book that I might never find the time to do. Instead, I chose something simple that can go out in the mail tomorrow.

Thoughtful Thursday-Robert Henri

Reading through The Art Spirit by Robert Henri always yields treasures.

Book Arts Tuesday-The Pop-up Lady

Thank you to Lee Kirk for sharing this wonderful discovery on the Book Arts List. The Pop Up Lady introduces herself and her blog:

Welcome to the World of Pop-up and Movable Books!

The Popuplady is a writer, collector, curator, lecturer, and lover of the genre known as Pop-up and Movable Books. She invites you to explore her website to discover and experience the world of movable books and movable ephemera.

In this newly up-dated website, The Popuplady will do her best to bring you solidly, researched information as well as Trivia and Jokes [About Pop-ups].
If you are a return visitor, and I hope you will be, look for for up-dated information.

Did you know that

movable books date back to the 13th century
every movable book is hand-made, even today
movable books were originally made for adults and still are
the artists who animate the illustrations are called “Paper Engineers”
there is a Society for movable booklovers like the Popuplady?

If you're interested in pop ups, you'll find a wealth of information in many formats and news of events, exhibits, and new books. The image above is a pop up stamp from the Netherlands, one of the many links I followed.

Thoughtful Thursday-The Round

Here's a doodle that accompanied my notebook copyings from a Christmas gift, The Wild Braid: A Poet Reflects on a Century in the Garden by Stanley Kunitz. My last entry was the last lines from his poem The Round:

I can scarcely wait till tomorrow
when a new life begins for me,
as it does each day,
as it does each day.

You can read the entire poem and hear him read it at Atlantic Online.

Book Arts Tuesday-Calls for Submission

I've come across several calls for submission for book arts exhibitions and thought I'd share them.

FEAST! at 23 Sandy Gallery in Portland, OR
23 Sandy Gallery, a book arts gallery in Portland, Oregon, is pleased to announce our first 2013 biannual juried exhibition: FEAST! The book arts offer a banquet of materials, mediums and structures. Food offers a smorgasbord of ideas for the artist. Mix up generous servings of food and art and you have a sumptuous feast called artist books. For this exhibition we are seeking food-related unique and limited edition artist books. Food can play many roles in the book arts: stories and memories of food and family, books about food issues such as hunger, sustainability or tales of the locavore, cook books, of course, and even books made of food. Go forth and feast on this big wide world of food and book arts.


Hidden Agendas at Atelier 6 in Bend, OR

A national juried show of handmade artist books–editions or one-of-a-kind–sculptural, traditionally bound, book objects, altered books and broadsides are encouraged.  This show is open to a wide interpretation of the theme – tell a story or expose hidden layers; reveal emotions or make us laugh – truth or fiction.  You choose!


Artists Book Cornucopia IV at Abecedarian Gallery in Denver, CO

Exhibition details regarding Artists Book Cornucopia IV Abecedarian Gallery’s annual juried artists’ book exhibition are now available.Deadline to submit is extended to February 23, 2012. Accepted bookworks will be on exhibit from April 19 - June 2, 2013.  Eligible are any artists’ bookworks with the exception of Self Published on Demand books. There are no restrictions regarding when the work was completed or whether it has been exhibited previously. Entries will be juried by Mary Marsh, Visual Resources Librarian at SCAD Atlanta. Up to $1500 in exhibition and purchase awards. All accepted works will be included in both an online and print exhibition catalog. An opening reception will be held on April 19, 2013, 6-8pm.Entry fee $18 for the first work, $12 for each additional.


Bound and Unbound II: Altered Book Exhibition at UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES, UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH DAKOTA

A subset of the artist’s book is the altered book, in which the starting material is an already published book. Any book, old or new, can become an altered book. The transformation can involve any number of interventions—from adding materials to erasing and cutting out bits of the original. Thin pages can be glued together to create
supports for collages, painting, and other materials; bindings can be snipped, pages cut and burned, folded, and subjected to all manner of treatments. Books can be subjected to the elements, left to rot in the rain or to disintegrate in the ocean. The degree of alteration can be minimal, even delicate, creating a kind of palimpsest through which the original can be glimpsed. Or the transformation can be a total
obliteration of what was there. Medieval Italian monks scraped clean the pages of
old manuscripts and wrote new texts on the valuable parchment. William Burroughs’s method of writing involved a disruptive violence toward the printed work on the pages of books; he cut pages into pieces and rearranged them so that the text came together in new ways.

If you are feeling that your photographs need improvement, see 23 Sandy Gallery's excellent blog posts on Photographing Your Artist Books.

Studio Sunday-Wen Redmond

For today's Studio Sunday, I am sharing fiber artist Wen Redmond's post about her new studio. It's an inspiring photo but best of all she shares the hows and whys of the set up in the post. And learn more by reading her post her design wall.

Thoughtful Thursday-Wisdom from Thoreau

I spent part of today working on a proposal that I eventually decided not to continue with. As the new year begins, I continue to struggle with my birthday resolution to think before I get involved. I gave myself a rule that anything I undertake had to do one of the following: help my work to grow and develop, advance my career, make money, or bring me joy. I'm now adding that I have to feel completely enthusiastic—not sort of make me happy, but bring me joy, not learn something new or improve on a skill but really move my work forward in a direction I want it to go. I am happy to have this quote from Thoreau (Journal, 5 August 1851) to remind me of the importance of seeing, of really giving attention to the world around me.

Book Arts Tuesday-Al-Mutanabbi Street Starts Here

Laurie Alpert just sent me news of this project, Al-Mutanabbi Street Starts Here: A Response to the Violence in Iraq from the Letterpress and Book Arts Community, and exhibition at the Cambridge Arts Council, Cambridge, Massachusetts from January to June 2013. The project was created by Beau Beausoleil to respond to a car bombing in March 2007 Al-Mutanabbi Street, a mixed Sunni Shia area and the historic center of book selling in Iraq.

This original call for work explains the project well:

On March 5th 2007, a car bomb was exploded on al-Mutanabbi Street in Baghdad. Al-Mutanabbi Street is in a mixed Shia-Sunni area. More than 30 people were killed and more than 100 were wounded. Al-Mutanabbi Street, the historic centre of Baghdad bookselling, holds bookstores and outdoor bookstalls, cafes, stationery shops, and even tea and tobacco shops. It has been the heart and soul of the Baghdad literary and intellectual community. The Al-Mutanabbi Street Coalition is issuing a call to book artists to work on a project to “re-assemble” some of the “inventory” of the reading material that was lost in the car bombing of al-Mutanabbi Street. The coalition asks each Book Artist who joins the project to complete and donate three books (or other paper material) in the course of a year, books that reflect both the strength and fragility of books, but also show the endurance of the ideas within them.

As in our broadside project, we will be donating one complete set of 130 to the Iraq National Library. The other two sets will be used in conjunction with shows of the broadsides as well as in shows of their own to raise funds for Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF). Each book artist will have one year from the date they join the project to complete their three books.

The inventory of al-Mutanabbi Street was as diverse as the Iraqi population, including literature of both Iraq and the Middle East, history, political theory, popular novels, scholarly works, religious tracts, technical books, poetry, mysteries; even stationery and blank school notebooks could be purchased on this street, as well as comics, and magazines. Arabic was of course the predominate language but books in Farsi, French, German, Spanish and English were also represented. I imagine there were a few books in Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Dutch, or Italian, as well as classic Greek and Latin, Hindi, or even Russian. Your own text for this project can reflect the multiplicity of this linguistic crossroads.

This project is both a lament and a commemoration of the singular power of words. We ask that the work move within these parameters. We hope the books created will use
al-Mutanabbi and its printers, writers, booksellers, and readers, as a touchstone.

You can read articles, view books, and watch videos at Al-Mutanabbi Street Starts Here.

Studio Sunday-The Last of the Season

I'm celebrating Twelfth Night and the last of the season. Tomorrow the white board goes back to tasks, but the sun will stay on my shower caddy holder for markers.

Twelfth Day of Christmas-Cut Paper

Cut paper of a primitive sort (directions for making the trees here) and the sophisticated work of Su Blackwell illustrating a collection of fairy tales retold by Wendy Jones.

Eleventh Day of Christmas-Cards

Handmade cards always get a place of honor on the bookshelves. This year's collection includes cards from Mo Orkiszewski, Norma McKenzie, Nancy Hajeski, Cathy and Brian (photo of their Corgi by me), Ann McCrea, Marcia Ciro Judy Fraser, me, Kevin Harkins, Janet Lambert-Moore, Tom Costello, Chris Bobek, Paul Marion & Rosemary Noon, Brendan Gaylord, Betsey Bolton, Jean Norman-Clancy, Lisa Scala-Cameron, & Deb Delmore & Douglas Shane, along with letter S paperweight by Rosemary S. Buszek which was a gift from Norma--all a true gathering of the season.

And as a note, I will be thrilled when my self-imposed computer posting exile expires after tomorrow. The lesson--keep iPhone postings short and sweet.

Tenth Day of Christmas-the Mantle

Japanese Holly and Chinese Lanterns on the mantle.

Ninth Day of Christmas-Tin Angel

This gift angel from my friend Trudy makes me think of the Joni Mitchell song.

Varnished weeds in window jars
Tarnished beads on tapestries
Kept in satin boxes are
Reflections of love's memories
Letters from across the seas
Roses dipped in sealing wax
Valentines and maple leaves
Tucked into a paperback
Guess I'll throw them all away
I found someone to love today
Dark with darker moods is he
Not a golden Prince who's come
Through columbines and wizardry
To talk of castles in the sun
Still I'll take a chance and see
I found someone to love today
There's a sorrow in his eyes
Like the angel made of tin
What will happen if I try
To place another heart in him
In a Bleeker Street cafe
I found someone to love today
I found someone to love today

Eighth Day of Christmas-Recycled Ornament

Ornament made from forte tea box. Thanks to Cathy for sharing the teas.

Seventh Day of Christmas-New Year

Sending out the old—

And welcoming in the new—