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Museum at Texas Tech

2012-02-10T10:12:00.000-05:00

Last week I gave a talk about my work and a bookmaking workshop at the Museum of Texas Tech University in Lubbock, Texas in connection with an exhibit called Speaking Volumes: Books and Ideas from 1250-1862 with books on loan from the Remnant Trust, a fascinating organization that lends out books for exhibits and allows them to be handled by classes and special groups.

Dr. Hoffman and one of the grad students, Melissa, were so gracious and did everything they could to make my stay as pleasant as possible. Larry was so helpful with the audio-visual for my talk. It was a great experience.

On Friday evening, I gave a talk, A Life in the Book Arts.

I began with my first bookwork

and then talked about growing up in a house filled with making and the creative spirit of my mother. Although I had no natural ability to draw and never thought about being artist, I know I was deeply influenced by my environment. I showed the two things I had dabbled in—calligraphy and embroidery—before my complete immersion in calligraphy at age 27.

I talked about my passion for calligraphy and its waning as I sought a way to move away from being what my mentor Jenny Hunter Groat calls "an interpretive artist" and toward being "an originating artist," the creation of Childbirth Journey and its leading me to the book,

the development of the Spirit Book Series,

my current two-dimensional digital work,

my teaching,

and my current frame of mind where I no longer have a sense of a defined path I should be taking as an artist and am embracing all opportunities that come my way—from community art installations to book design projects to lettering the walls of Hawthorne's Birthplace.

Dr. Hoffman asked me after the talk if the fact that I did not have an art degree had made things more difficult for me. My answer was that I wasn't sure if it did in fact but for a long time it did in my own head and that it's probably only been in the last five or so years that I am completely comfortable with how I got to be who and where I am. As he was leaving an art professor from the university came up and told me I should consider my not having a degree a badge of honor. I liked that.

Saturday was the workshop—Bookmaking with Recycled Materials. We had a wonderful group of college students, parents and children, two women looking for projects for a writer's table at an art fair, a grad student in the occupational therapy program, and assorted others. It was a self-directed session with materials and instructions for three simple books and another long table for adding drawings, text, and collage. Everyone was motivated and enthusiastic and I was able to work with smaller groups and individuals on other book forms as well. It was lively and fun.

In addition to the museum activities, I had a little time to explore and an accommodating host who made sure I saw what I wanted to. Although I was tempted by the Buddy Holly Museum, I decided that what I wanted to see most was the landscape so Jill drove me outside of the city where I saw the wide horizon of the High Plains,

cotton fields (and picked a bouquet of cotton stems for my hotel room),

oil wells in the midst of the cotton fields, and windmills.

The photos of me at the talk and the workshop were taken by Bill Mueller and are used here courtesy of the Museum of Texas Tech University and Photographer Bill Mueller. Thank you so much!

Book Arts Tuesday-Donna Meyer's Book A Day

2012-02-07T09:38:00.000-05:00

Kudos to Donna Meyer. She made 365 books in just slightly over 365 days. As someone who couldn't even complete her Word-a-Day Journal, I am in awe.

Here's how she describes the project:

Hi, and welcome to this year-long project. So what's this all about and how did it happen, you might ask. In mid 2007, artist Noah Scalin decided to make a skull out of anything he could find, every day for a year. It stretched him in ways he never imagined, as an artist, a writer and a person. His experience turned into a blog that went viral, and then a book.

Others have picked up on the idea: 365 Hearts, 365 Masks, 365 Bears drawn on a cellphone, 365 paper napkin mustaches.
I wanted to play, too, and I chose books. I love books, I know a bit about making books (thanks to my talented book-maker sister, Marilyn Worrix), and they're broad enough in definition to give me a lot of creative leeway.

The whole point is not really the books. The idea is to stretch myself in many ways as an artist and a person, to set up a discipline, stick with it and see what that teaches me.

I hope you'll join with me and follow along on the journey chronicled here, and let me know what you think.

Donna has made a lot of different kinds of books. Many are upcycled journals using a variety of materials. You know how I love using recycled materials. I especially like this one from a Chinese takeout container.

I love that she shares her process and her thoughts. Here's an entry from early in the project:

Day 6, January 29th - Wired on Jazz
Today's book is really more of a prototype. The craft is pretty sloppy, but I just wanted to see if the idea would work, and I think it does. It will be fun to make this again at some point down the road but taking more time and care and using better material.

The germ of this idea came today when I was in the kitchen and looked over to see a package of cupcake papers on the counter. Of course, my first thought was... "What could I do with those?" I started playing around with them, folded some, flattened some out. The flattened ones had waves from the rippled edges. Hmmm. Water, the sea, sand dunes? No, too mundane. But definitely a sense of movement. Like music. Like ripples of music. Like a John Coltrane riff.

I remembered I had a whole collection of quotations about Jazz. So without thinking too much about how it was going to come out, I picked up a black marking pen and starting writing the quotations onto the flattened papers, writing them in spirals around the edge. The spirals suggested a spiral binding of some sort. But they were round. How could that work?

Put the spiral wire up the middle. Bend and wind part of the wire into a base, then into a top. Thread the papers on and let them flutter, so every time the thing is moved--or hit by a breeze or even touched--the leaves of jazz will flutter... like music.

And so, here is "Wired on Jazz." I'm quite happy with this idea. Can't wait to take it further.

The whole thing stands about 8" high from the coiled wire base to the top of the silver "fan." The section of 14 "pages" is about 4 1/2" high.

Here, we are looking directly down onto the top page. Perhaps you can read the first quotation. "Forgive me if I don't have the words. Maybe I can sing it and you'll understand." -- Ella Fitzgerald

You can read each of the quotations by lifting the pages above each one and turning the entire book.

Spend some time at 365: Make a Book a Day and be impressed and inspired.

Bookmaking Project-Where I Live Book

2012-02-01T08:33:00.000-05:00

I just did a workshop at Children's Hospital and this was a favorite form for the artists and educators there. Since each successive page is larger than the one before, it's great for helping young children understand their place in the world from their school or street address through their town, state, country, and finally planet.

Use three sheets of paper and follow the instructions for the step book. I wanted to use recycled paper so I glued the sides with writing of two pieces of paper together to make each sheet. I used strips cut from a plastic bag for the ties but yarn also works well.

You can find written directions in English and Spanish and a pdf to print and share at makingbooks.com.

Celtic Spring 2012

2012-02-01T08:32:00.000-05:00

February first, the first day of Celtic spring,
Buds for the coming season, seed pods from the last,
The light is growing as we await the warmth.

Azalea, Ilex glabra, and seed pods from Rose of Sharon

Book Arts Tuesday-World Encyclopedia of Calligraphy

2012-01-31T13:27:00.000-05:00

The World Encyclopedia of Calligraphy, edited by Christopher Calderhead and Holly Cohen, was a Christmas gift. Christopher Calderhead is the editor and designer of the Letter Arts Review. I am grateful to him for requesting I write an article about teaching bookmaking to children for the magazine and deeply impressed by his design vision. Being familiar with his work on the Review, I had high expectations for the World Encyclopedia and they were surpassed. It's a wonderful book, designed for clarity, ease of use, and the beauty of the printed page. It's full of great information as well as exemplars and guides for lettering. I'd recommend it as a book to read as well as a book to study calligraphic hands from.

Here's how Christopher described the book on his website:

It’s a compendium of calligraphy from all around the globe. The book is intended as a guide to actually writing the major world scripts, so the heart of the book is a series of exemplars by experts in each script. We cover Roman scripts, Greek and Cyrillic, Hebrew, Arabic, Indic scripts, Chinese, Japanese, and Korean, just to name some of the most important samples. The book also explains the use of quills, brushes, reeds, and metal pens, and gives some historical background to each of the traditions described.

Christopher's Studio Notes about the book

Building the World Encyclopedia of Calligraphy at Calligraphy on Etsy

Buy the book from John Neal Bookseller

Studio Sunday-Edward A. Karr

2012-01-29T13:16:00.000-05:00

I was thinking about Ed Karr today who was a calligrapher in Boston for many years. Maybe Brian McGrory's piece on Mayor Kevin White and the "New Boston" he created made me think of Ed who was very much a part of old Boston as well as new. Visiting Ed in his studio on Boylston Street and hearing his stories and seeing his work was always an inspiration. I often think of his response when people asked him how long something took—my whole life up until now.

Today I took a close look at this piece of original calligraphy by Ed. There isn't much online about him but I did find this—We Sing of Life hand-lettered from front to back by Ed and published in 1955 and available online with permission from The American Ethical Union.

A Life in the Book Arts

2012-01-26T09:30:00.000-05:00

Susan is a reader, writer, maker, designer, collector, and teacher of the book. Starting with a love of reading as a child, she studied English Literature in college. Her early fascination with words led her to the study of their component parts (letters) in calligraphy and then their containers (books). She has made books with words and books without, created community installations, led workshops for children in schools and libraries, and shared her knowledge and experience globally through her website (makingbooks.com) and blog. In A Life in the Book Arts, Susan shares her work in the book arts and her growth and development as an artist.

Friday, February 3, 7 P.M.
Helen DeVitt Jones Auditorium, Museum of Texas Tech University, Lubbock, TX

Saturday, February 4, 1-4 P.M.

Free public events in conjunction with the exhibition Speaking Volumes—Books and Ideas from 1250-1862.

Book Arts Tuesday- Charlotte Brontë Book

2012-01-24T11:22:00.002-05:00

I heard about these amazing miniature books in December when they were being auctioned at Sotheby’s in London. The Brontë Parsonage Museum in Haworth, West Yorkshire was working to raise money to purchase the books.

Here is what Director Andrew McCarthy wrote on the parsonage blog on November 15, 2011:

The manuscript, previously untraced and unpublished, is expected to fetch between £200,000 - £300,000 and contains three works by the young Charlotte Brontë, produced in September 1830 when she was 14 years old. It is part of a series of manuscripts known as ‘The Young Men’s Magazines’ which were inspired by a box of toy soldiers bought for Branwell Brontë by his father in 1826.

The soldiers sparked a remarkable burst of creativity from the young Brontës who began creating stories which were handwritten into tiny books intended for the toy soldiers to ‘read’. Their minute scale and miniature details, such as title pages and advertisements, were modelled on a popular publication of the time, Blackwood’s Magazine. The Brontë Museum has the largest collection of these little manuscript books in the world and they are amongst the most popular exhibits with visitors and have also been the subject of much scholarly research in recent years.

The little books chart Charlotte Brontë’s development as a writer and reveal how many of her early themes carry over into her published novels. The first piece in the manuscript to be sold at Sotheby’s recounts how a murderer is driven to madness after being haunted by his victims, and how ‘an immense fire’ burning in his head causes his bed curtains to set alight, prefiguring the well-known scene in Charlotte’s novel, Jane Eyre, in which Rochester’s insane wife sets light to his bed curtains.

This manuscript is currently in a private collection and has never previously been published. It’s certainly the most significant Brontë manuscript to come to light in decades, but we should also see this as a national treasure with significance to our broader literary heritage. It would be very sad indeed if this wonderful manuscript were not repatriated or was again lost to a private collection. We feel very strongly that it belongs here in Haworth and we’re appealing for people to get in touch if they can help us raise the funds to make sure it does return, so that visitors can enjoy it, either here at the museum or through our on-line resources.

The books did in fact go to another buyer—La Musée des Lettres et Manuscrits in Paris. The museum intends to put the book on display.

View images of the book at the Houghton Library website.

Zut alors! Here's the Daily Mail's take on a British national treasure going to France.

Reading about this reminded me of a children's book I had read in high school when I became fascinated by the Brontë clan—Return of the Twelves (first published in England as The Twelve and the Genii) by Pauline Clarke. After moving into a house in Yorkshire where the Brontës had lived, eight-year-old Max finds toy soldiers who come to life. He discovers they are in fact Branwell's and the plot involves word getting out a buyer wanting to take them to the United States. The little books are mentioned in the story. I reread it and found it delightful yet again.

Studio Sunday-Cartridge Pens

2012-01-22T17:34:00.001-05:00

Recently I've been having the urge to play around with edged pens after years of working only with my Pentel brush and color brushes. I'm basically pretty lazy and don't want to have to clean pens or brushes. I collected a few markers but wanted the metal edge of a pen. I purchased a Lamy Joy cartridge pen set on our pre-Christmas trip to Montreal, ordered a replacement pen from John Neal when I thought I lost it, and included the Pilot Plumix in the order. I love them both. I'm using the Pilot Plumix as my carry-around pen (the long shaft of the Lamy makes it easy to tumble from a bag) and the Lamy Joy here in the studio. John Neal sells both and although I prefer to get my supplies from him, I wanted to feel connected to the romance of Montreal and purchased it there. I was experimenting with the title page of the Bhutanese-Nepali folktale project, The Story of a Pumpkin.

Lettering the Walls of Hawthorne's Birthplace

2012-01-19T15:39:00.001-05:00

These days unexpected opportunities usually come by email but this one started with a phone call from Alan Collachicco, the Deputy Director and Curator of The House of the Seven Gables in Salem, MA. He was looking for someone to letter quotes by Nathaniel Hawthorne on the walls of writer's birthplace and had been given my name by Vicki Hendrickson, Director of Newburyport Adult and Community Education and founder and co-chair of the Newburyport Literary Festival.

Four rooms in the house are being transformed from period rooms to galleries about the life of Hawthorne containing the desk he wrote The House of the Seven Gables, his couch, a painting by his wife Sophia, and display cases of smaller items. My task would be to write five quotes, each a sentence long. Although I hadn't done a calligraphic commission in many years, I jumped at the opportunity. As I told Alan, I had been wanting to write on a wall for some time.

The plan was to do the lettering the following week. I paid a visit to the house to see the space, meet Alan, and get the quotes which were a bit of a surprise. With his liberal use semi-colons, commas, and dashes, Hawthorne wrote some pretty long sentences. It was helpful to get a feel for the spaces and to see the walls where the quotes would go.

The next step was to find the appropriate paint. I decided on Golden Fluid Acrylic thinned with a little bit of Acrylic Flow Release. I knew I would use my Windsor & Newton Sceptre Gold brushes, but it took me some experimentation to settle on the 1/4" one. I knew I was taking on a challenge as most of the lettering I have done lately has been done with brush pens or markers and scanned into the computer where I can make adjustments in photoshop. I also knew that the setting required a more formal look than my recent work and that I would have to make guidelines.

I can blithely commit to all kinds of things that require work and thinking beyond the art process because I know my husband Charlie will take care of the logistics. We knew we would need a level as the walls in the old house were not straight. We ended up using a 4' level. It took two of us holding it, Charlie with a flashlight to see the bubble clearly and me with a pencil for making the lines. I tested making pencil marks on our wall and they erased easily. I couldn't do my practicing on the walls of our house so I used rolls of brown kraft paper taped to the wall. My big studio wall had been taken over by my new giant get-organized white board so the only available space was in the house at the base of the stairs.

After some experimentation I decided that a centered layout was best. I knew I wasn't confident enough to write directly on the wall with paint so I planned to write first with two pencils held together with an elastic and use them as a guide when I used brush and paint. Writing the letters first in pencil enabled me to know the line lengths. After writing a few of the quotes out completely, I started writing one line on top of the next so we didn't have to make as many lines in the practice phase.

We then ruled out each brown paper piece and I did the letters first in pencil and then with brush and paint.

After I left out a word in the practice version of one of the quotes, we came up with a strict policy of multiple proofreads of the pencil version. Here's a picture Charlie took of me reenacting my discovery of the missing word. I'm not sure you can tell what word I was saying but it wasn't a nice one.

The following day we loaded the car and began our trip to Hawthorne's House. When we arrived, we met with Alan and used our brown paper versions to decide on the placement.

We had planned ahead to do the work in phases and it worked beautifully. First we went through each room and put the lines on the walls. We had a center vertical line and two lines 1 3/4" apart for the letters with 3" in between. Then we went through and I wrote the quotes on the walls with my two-part pencil.

After a short walk, some water and some seltzer, some deep breaths, and tuning in Mozart on my iphone, I started on the lettering with paint. I was surprised at how calm I was. I felt peaceful as I worked with Charlie's lights counteracting the fading light of the day.

In the last room, I kept thinking Charlie was behind me but it was in fact an image of Nathaniel Hawthorne himself keeping me company.

With two things left to do, lettering on the attributions (already lined and sketched in) and erasing the lines, we left for the evening. We returned the following day and started by erasing the lines. The pencil that seemed to come off so easily on the wall at home took a lot of elbow grease to remove here. After both of us working for four and a half hours, we finally finished the task. A different soundtrack was in order and we chose the Beatles.

The last step was to add the attributions. I had written them on brown paper and tried them in different places. I think this is one of the hardest parts. That last bit of information—the source of the quote— is often not part of the overall design process and it is so easy to place it poorly and throw the whole thing off at the end. I made them quite small and placed them six inches below the last line and to the right and was pleased with the arrangement.

As I look at the finished work, I see lots of flaws—letters that could be better formed and spacing that could be tighter or not so tight—but overall I am pleased. After years of pointing out exactly what is wrong with my work, I have taken Julia Child's advice of never apologizing. From My Life in France:

“We ate the lunch with painful politeness and avoided discussing its taste. I made sure not to apologize for it. This was a rule of mine.

I don’t believe in twisting yourself into knots of excuses and explanations over the food you make. When one’s hostess starts in with self-deprecations such as, “Oh, I don’t know how to cook…” or “Poor little me…” or “This may taste awful…” it is so dreadful to have to reassure her that everything is delicious and fine, whether it is or not. Besides, such admissions only draw attentions to one’s shortcomings (or self-perceived shortcomings), and make the other person think, ‘Yes, you’re right, this really is an awful meal!”

It was a gratifying project to do. I love the way it put me back in touch with calligraphy and gave me a chance to write on a wall. And it taught me something about myself. My experience in teaching large groups, giving talks, doing installations, and generally throwing myself into unknown territory on a fairly frequent basis has made me a much more flexible and confident person than I used to be. While I was much more practiced in the art of calligraphy twenty-five years ago, I would have been a quivering bundle of nerves. Thanks to Alan and Vicki for this opportunity to grow.

from The Letters 1843-1853, letter to Sophia Hawthorne, July 13, 1847

from the Blithedale Romance 1852

from the Marble Faun 1860

from The Letters 1843-1853, letter from Sophia and Nathaniel Hawthorne to Horatio Bridge

from The Marble Faun 1860

Book Arts Tuesday-Bonefolder

2012-01-17T10:04:00.000-05:00

Today's post celebrates the last issue of Bonefolder: an e-journal for the bookbinder and book artist. Bonefolder is yet another accomplishment and contribution of Peter Verheyen who founded and maintains the Book-Arts List that does so much to keep the book arts community together. He has said what a difficult decision it was. Here is what Peter wrote on the Book-Arts L:

On January 13, 2012, Volume 8, the largest (and regrettably last) issue of The Bonefolder was published online. What started as an experiment in open-access online-only publishing “way back” in 2004 grew into perhaps the most widely read publication in the book arts with over a quarter million downloads for all issues combined since we began with a global readership. Listing of the The Bonefolder in the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) placed us in just about every research library’s online catalog, and participation in LOCKSS will ensure long-term access to all issues (as do Syracuse University Library’s and the Internet Archive’s servers). This growth, however, also brought with it ever increasing workloads for the small and incredibly dedicated editorial staff who solicited articles, worked with authors, and much more. With the 2011 issue we switched to an annual format (something catalogers curse publishers for) in the hopes that it would allow us to streamline processes and spread the work out as it came in. Alas, that did not happen in the way we had hoped and the process became unsustainable… When we began we knew it would be a challenge, albeit a fun one inspired by other independent publications such as Fine Print and Bookways, but also membership publications such as The New Bookbinder and The Guild of Book Workers Journal. Since we started other publications in the book arts other sprung up but ours remains the only freely accessible journal in the field.

Looking back, I think we more than surpassed our initial goals, and while I have deep regrets about “closing the book” I feel it is far better to leave the field at the zenith when we all still have energy for other pursuits (that we all know will come) rather than forcing ourselves to continue. So, it is with an intense sense of pride that I thank all those who have worked to make this publication the success it became – Donia Conn who encouraged me to start things in 2004, Pamela Barrios, Chela Metzger and Don Rash who formed the original core, Karen Hanmer who soon joined the team, and finally Ann Carroll Kearney who was a very welcome addition with this issue. To Samantha Quell, a long-time student of mine, our thanks for indexing our 14 issues thereby enhancing access. All of you contributed greatly to our success. Finally though, we would have not been able to exist at all if not for our authors, some established, some new, who filled our issues with articles that covered the full spectrum of the book arts.

Here is the Table of Contents from Issue 8:

Publisher’s Note
Evolution of an Artist’s Book – Sarah Bryant
John DePol Digital Archive at The University of Alabama – Amanda Haldy, Sara Parkel, & Dan Albertson
Reinventing the Flag Book – Jeff Tong
Bookbinding in Estonia – Illu Erma, translated by Silja Oja
Modern Portuguese Bookbindings – Sam Ellenport
A Tale of Two Boards: A Study of A Bookbinding – Sidney F. Huttner
Book Conservation at West Dean College – Abigail Uhteg
“How Do I Make It Stick?” Adhesives For Use In Conservation and Book Arts – Tish Brewer
A Bookbinder’s Gamble – Gavin Dovey
Reliquary for a Book – Florian Wolper
Towards practice: The Art of Bookbinding Used to Instill Craft in Graphic Design – Law Alsobrook
Durante and Wallace-Crabbe: LIMES – Perle Besserman
Of the Bookbinder (London, 1761)
Bind-O-Rama 2011– Artistically Reversible: Where Conservation and Art Meet
Book Reviews
Abbott, Kathy. Bookbinding: A Step by Step Guide. Review by Anna Embree
Banik, Gerhard and Brückle, Irene. Paper and Water: A Guide for Conservators.  Review by Abigail Uhteg
Marks, PJM. Beautiful Bookbindings, A Thousand Years of the Bookbinder’s Art. Review by Beth Doyle.
Miller, Julia. Books Will Speak Plain: A Handbook for Identifying and Describing Historical Bindings. Review by Chela Metzger
Minsky, Richard. The Book Art of Richard Minsky. Review by Miriam Schaer
Starling, Belinda. The Journal of Dora Damage. Review by John Nove
Wallace, Eileen. Masters: Book Arts. Review by Jules Siegel

What a rich treasure of material! Thank you Peter.

Download your copy of Bonefolder 8.

Studio Sunday-Organizing the New Year + Giveaway

2012-01-15T17:44:00.001-05:00

I am no longer teaching workshops in schools and I had always thought that when I stopped, I would focus completely on my own artwork. It turns out that teaching and sharing are in my bones. The time I am not spending in schools has given me the opportunity to get involved in interesting community-building projects like Lowell Women's Week Public Art Project and the NH Humanities Council Bhutanese-Nepali Book Project. Instead of this one wall free of shelves being used for display of my work, it is the place where I will try to keep myself together and on track.

As I find myself doing a wider range of projects, I have been having trouble with two things: keeping the details straight and committing to multiple things that take place pretty much at the same time. I had been using the google calendar which I like because I could keep track of other family members' schedules easily. However I have decided to go back to tried and true paper for keeping track of things—a big wall calendar and a pad and pen in my purse instead of notes on the iphone.

I did keep a running log of tasks to do in a binder on my desk but felt that I needed something bigger and bolder and constantly in my face so I can always see what I need to do both long and short term. I am trying a big white board on the wall behind my computer. When I am sending an email or talking on the phone, I can turn around and look at it and hopefully not agree to that one more thing that just might put me over the edge. Of course, it's an exciting opportunity I can always take it on but at least I'll have a clearer sense of what I am getting into. We'll see how it works.

Giveaway!
Leave a comment sharing one of your techniques for organizing your time and be entered into a random drawing for a copy of Art & Fear: Observations on the Perils (and Rewards) of Artmaking by David Bayles and Ted Orland, one of the books on my Artist's Journey Reading List. I do need your email address to let you know if you've won, so please include it. To avoid having it picked up by spammers. you can use (at) instead of the symbol. The Giveaway closes Wednesday, January 18 at midnight.

Book Arts Tuesday-Born from Books

2012-01-10T23:08:00.000-05:00

Courtney Lee Weida has published an article, "Born from Books: Digital Spaces of Adolescent Art and Echoes of Artists’ Books" in Media: Culture: Pedagogy. I learned of it when she asked permission to use an image of mine. She kindly mentions the web presence of makingbooks.com.

Here is the abstract:

Many adolescents interact with text in a digital fashion via Kindle, the Gutenberg Project, and/or Google Books with greater frequency than traditional books. This article explores artists' books and bookwork as structural and conceptual metaphors for digital spaces of art created and/or utilized by teenagers. Artists’ books can be categorized as art and artifact—as materials of historical record, commentary, and personal expression. While book arts often engage in self-conscious reconceptualizations of text and image, digital media such as wikis, blogs, and online social networks dovetail, extend and/or reflect/are reflected by questionings of the book format as well. This article examines digital spaces (places?) of youth culture and artistic expression such as Myspace, Facebook, deviantART, and others. Artists' books often challenge traditional forms of publishing and codex, addressing questions of media and message parallel to ongoing issues of technology in our digital age. Digital spaces of art utilized by adolescents take on a similar autonomy, marginality, and liminality to limited edition and/or self-published artists' books. At the same time, both artists’ books and young artists’ websites contain a certain element of awareness of the viewer/spectator within narratives and documentary structures, serving as uniquely interactively engaging contexts of art education.

So we made our own computer
Out of macaroni pieces
And it did our thinking
While we lived our lives
—Musician Regina Spektor, in “The Calculation”

You can read the article online: Born from Books

Gathering of Gifts Workshop-Diamond Fold Books

2012-01-09T20:11:00.000-05:00

The second Gathering of Gifts workshop at the Center for Creative Wholeness in Newbury, MA will be taking place on Saturday, February 11 from 10 AM to 12:30 PM.

We'll be making diamond fold books which are a special treat. They look complex but are easy to make. Once you learn how to make the folded sections, you can combine them to make accordions, stars, and necklace books.

The fee for the workshop is $30. There is more information about the workshop in this pdf.

A Summary of the 12 Days

2012-01-07T10:55:00.000-05:00

Here's a photo to close this year's Twelve days of Christmas posts. I so enjoyed making the quick drawings and writings. I'll look at them for a few more days and then save them for a bookmaking project.

Twelfth Day of Christmas-Narcissus

2012-01-06T18:01:00.002-05:00

Twelfth Night—Epiphany—Little Christmas—a celebration of flowering and light in the kitchen window—

I wish to shine out bright,
Multifaceted,
Like the white narcissus’s
Largesse of clustered florets

The lines above are from a poem by C. Richard Miles from poemhunter.com

Narcissus

And there it is, a misfit,
In the precisely planted bed
Of daffodil dragoons,
Stark white,
An interloper
In the regimented yellow
A shock of difference
Amongst the gold.

Of course, the gardener
Had had no way
Of discriminating
When they were bulbs,

For didn’t all bulbs
Look just the same
In the garish orange netting
Of the bag
Before he planted them?

There was no way of knowing
How things would turn out
And it was only in the spring
After submission
In the cloying soil of winter
That the blooms emerged
To show
Their true colours.

And so it is with me,
Like that narcissus:
I am no single, jaundiced bud,
Not just another
Member of the common crowd
Content to bloom
In strict concordance with
The norms of commonplace.

I wish to shine out bright,
Multifaceted,
Like the white narcissus’s
Largesse of clustered florets

I do not mind if
I stand out
Conspicuous from the humdrum herd
Of massed humanity.

Why should I care if I
Outshine the rest?
But then, again, perhaps
It is more simple
Cowardly, cowedly
To conform.

And then I think
Of the long-remembered
Greek Narcissus myth,
Concerned if I look inward
For too long
And only see myself
And not consider others, too
Then…

Then…
Individuality might just
Imprison me as tight
As confines of conformity
And if the calling world
Receded like the plaintive call
Of the fair nymph, Echo,
To a whispered breath
Might I just lose myself
And disappear
Into mere nothingness?

So, brave Narcissus,
I must feel for you
Condemned to be an outcast,
Pale amongst the gold

But you and I
Will make our marks
If idiosyncratically
Upon the dull depressing
Cold conventionality
Of this lost world.

It's always interesting to discover poems online by unfamiliar poets. Here is his biography from poemhunter:

Brought up in the rustic backwoods of the Yorkshire Dales, I have been exiled, through self-infliction, in the metropolis of London for over half my life, living near the notorious Murder Mile.

I started writing poetry at the somewhat advanced age of 46 (Jan 2008 - to be precise) but have caught the bug, the above locations providing some inspiration for some of my poems, which number over 1200 at the last count, not all of which are posted here (or indeed are suitable!)

There seem to be at least five or six different poets working inside me, so don't expect to see the same style or theme every time - My poems range from the traditionalist sonnets and strict metrical forms, through the rural, bucolic scenes of the Northern Countryside, past the reflective, nostalgic memories of childhood, to sardonic comment on today's modern lifestyle, slightly humorous nonsense verse and, finally, attempts at more contemporary poetry. Much of my early poetry is of the old-fashioned, rhyming variety, however - I'm a curmudgeonly stick-in the mud although there have been attempts to jazz up my style a little more recently.

Since summer 2008 I have been bold enough (foolish enough? arrogant enough?) to foist myself on the fringes of the London Performance poetry scene. This has had an effect on my poetry and new styles are creeping in - I seem to have acquired a liking for scattergun rants or mock-Gilbertian patter-song rollercoasters of poems.

Less than recent visitors to my poems may notice I have added my first initial to my name - there appear to be at least two established poets with whom I share my name; I would not wish on them the embarrassment of misattribution of one of my petty scribbles!

Eleventh Day of Christmas-Bell

2012-01-05T18:31:00.000-05:00

Till ringing, singing on its way,
The world revolved from night to day,
A voice, a chime,
A chant sublime
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

The verse above is part of the poem Christmas Bells written by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow during the Civil War. Here is the complete poem:

I HEARD the bells on Christmas Day
Their old, familiar carols play,
And wild and sweet
The words repeat
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

And thought how, as the day had come,
The belfries of all Christendom
Had rolled along
The unbroken song
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

Till ringing, singing on its way,
The world revolved from night to day,
A voice, a chime,
A chant sublime
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

Then from each black, accursed mouth
The cannon thundered in the South,
And with the sound
The carols drowned
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

It was as if an earthquake rent
The hearth-stones of a continent,
And made forlorn
The households born
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

And in despair I bowed my head;
"There is no peace on earth," I said;
"For hate is strong,
And mocks the song
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!"

Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:
"God is not dead, nor doth He sleep;
The Wrong shall fail,
The Right prevail,
With peace on earth, good-will to men."

Tenth Day of Christmas-Ornaments

2012-01-04T16:18:00.000-05:00

There are so many memories in the ornaments on the tree. These two form a kind of matched set—ones made by mothers and daughters together. The first is a toy soldier head that my mother and I made together back in the 1950s. When my daughter was young, she thought it was the creepiest thing with the bleeding rubber cement on its face. Each year I stood firm as she begged me to get rid of it. In addition to its sentimental role as a symbol of my childhood, I found it rather charming. Now that Kendra prefers housed with peeling paint and worn furniture, she agrees.

Skip ahead to a new century and memories of a quiet afternoon making clothespin angels together. The chain of mother and daughters making things together continues.

Ninth Day of Christmas

2012-01-03T12:28:00.002-05:00

Here's a book with a great message from my Qi Gong teacher Rose Dubosz to carry through 2012. In the spirit of sharing, I've made pdfs with four books for you to make on each—one for you and three to share. I made the color ones first and printed them on epson matte presentation paper. You might be just as happy (or happier depending on the quality of your printer and paper) printing the black and white version on colored or white paper.

PRINT the Smile at your heart PDF in black and white

PRINT the Smile at your heart PDF in color

For directions on how to make the book, go to today's Book Arts Tuesday post.

New Year Books To Make and Share

2012-01-03T10:31:00.002-05:00

At least once during every class my Qi Gong teacher Rose says: "Smile at your heart." I think it's a great message to start the year of 2012. In the spirit of sharing, I've made pdfs with four books for you to make on each—one for you and three to share. I made the color ones first and printed them on epson matte presentation paper. You might be just as happy (or happier depending on the quality of your printer and paper) printing the black and white version on colored or white paper.

PRINT the Smile at your heart PDF in black and white

PRINT the Smile at your heart PDF in color

Start by cutting out a book and folding it in half the long way (like a hot dog) with the writing on the outside.

1. Fold the folded paper in half with Smile on the outside.

2. Bring the edge of one layer back to meet the fold and crease.

3. Turn the paper over so the long side is on top.

4. Bring the edge back to meet the fold and crease.

Your accordion is made. You can stop here or continue on to add a ribbon tie. You will need:

Scissors
Glue stick
Scrap Paper
Ribbon, twice the length of the book

5. Open the paper. You should be looking at plain paper with Smile at your heart upside down on the top half of the back. Fold the last fourth of the book over. You should be looking at Words: Rose, etc.

6. Trim a very small bit off the edge of the fold in the middle of the Words: Rose page. This will make a slit for you to insert the ribbon.

7. Insert the ribbon into the slit.

8. Adjust the ribbon so there is an equal amount on either side of the page.

9. Open the book and place it print side down on a piece of scrap paper.

10. Cover the bottom half with glue.

11. Close the book and smooth to help the glue adhere.

12. Fold up the book and tie the ribbon in the front.

Eighth Day of Christmas-Hydrangea and Winterberry

2012-01-02T17:00:00.001-05:00

The unusually warm weather this fall and early winter has changed my holiday decorating. Usually it's lots of holly and greens but they seemed less necessary this year. This arrangement has hydrangea (a birthday gift that dried slowly from September to December) and winterberry.

Seventh Day of Christmas-New Year!

2012-01-01T09:42:00.000-05:00

Wishing you light, joy, and creativity in 2012.

This image was created from a photo I took during our December trip to Montreal of lights on a tree in front of our hotel with an easy name to remember—L'Hotel. I originally planned on just placing the writing over the photograph but it didn't work as planned. Hence the manipulation and this result.

Coming on Tuesday on Book Arts Tuesday—a New Year gift of a little book to download, print, and share.

Sixth Day of Christmas-Exchanging Greetings

2011-12-31T13:35:00.001-05:00

Year's end brings Old Lang Syne to the radio and thoughts of friends old and new, near and far.

And there’s a hand my trusty friend !
And give us a hand o’ thine !

And in Burns's Scots versions:
And there’s a hand, my trusty fiere !
and gie's a hand o’ thine !

I am spending some time today with the handmade cards on display in our "library."

from Nancy Hajeski who writes as Nancy Butler and a beautiful tribute to her father who passed away recently.

from Norma McKenzie, quote by Dale Evans

card tucked in the back—"I wish I were in Marrakesh" from Catherine Whiteman with a beautiful quote inside by Marcus Aurelius:
When you arise in the morning, think of what a precious privilege it is to be alive—to breathe, to think, to enjoy, to love.

from Jean Norman Clancy

made by Anne Mulvey. I love that it was inspired by The Gathering of Gifts workshop in early December at the Center for Creative Wholeness.

from Karen Hanmer. Bob and Karen visit Mies van der Rohe's Farnsworth House in Plano IL.

Janet Lambert Moore's card was the winner of the State House Holiday Card Contest.

from Tom Costello, quote from Joseph Campbell

Peace on Earth from Jenny Groat

from Betsey Bolton

from the Book Arts Program at the University of Utah

from Cathy and Brian, a card I made with a photo I took of their new dog Mimie. Isn't she a beauty?

Tucked in the back, a card with three poems of Valerie Wohlfeld published in Arion.

from Deb Delmore and Doug Shane

Fifth Day of Christmas-Solargraphs

2011-12-30T15:45:00.002-05:00

Jan Koeman of the Netherlands takes half a year long pinhole photographs with beer cans. He describes his process:

Catching the Sun in an empty beercan. This is how a photo with an exposuretime of nearly 6 months looks like. Tonight is the Winter Solstice, so I had to remove the photographic paper from my empty beercans that I used as a pinhole camera to catch the sunlight. This is called a Solargraph.

View more of his solargraphs at spaceweather.com and Picasa.

Visit Jan Koeman's blog.

Thanks to my son Brendan for sharing this.

Fourth Day of Christmas-Paper Tree

2011-12-29T16:52:00.000-05:00

Last week I posted a link to a post about Christmas trees made from books at The Mary Sue. I was inspired by the ones made of folded pages. I used a design catalog that was given out at the Custom House Holiday House Tour in Newburyport. I experimented with trimming the tree with a small strand of battery-powered LED lights but decided it looked best ornamented only by a jingle bell on the top.

Third Day of Christmas-Angels

2011-12-28T13:46:00.000-05:00

Some years this angel makes it to the top the tree. Some years, like this one, our tree is too tall. It's displayed here with a Christmas star on the cake plate my daughter gave me for my birthday.

The angel led me to this poem by Csezlaw Milosz. I took the time to write it out casually, something I hope to make a weekly resolution for the new year—setting aside a short bit of time each week to write out a poem. It's a way of slowly down and gaining an enhanced appreciation of the words. My days of careful calligraphy are behind me but I still enjoy putting pen to paper.

Here is the poem again, in an easier to read form, in case you too want to write it out.

On Angels
by Czeslaw Milosz

All was taken away from you: white dresses,
wings, even existence.
Yet I believe in you,
messengers.

There, where the world is turned inside out,
a heavy fabric embroidered with stars and beasts,
you stroll, inspecting the trustworthy seams.

Short is your stay here:
now and then at a matinal hour, if the sky is clear,
in a melody repeated by a bird,
or in the smell of apples at close of day
when the light makes the orchards magic.

They say somebody has invented you
but to me this does not sound convincing
for the humans invented themselves as well.

The voice — no doubt it is a valid proof,
as it can belong only to radiant creatures,
weightless and winged (after all, why not?),
girdled with the lightening.

I have heard that voice many a time when asleep
and, what is strange, I understood more or less
an order or an appeal in an unearthly tongue:

day draw near
another one
do what you can.

I found the poem on the Poetry Chaikhana Blog: Sacred Poetry from Around the World.

Book Arts Tuesday-PBS Arts

2011-12-27T18:06:00.001-05:00

Books are in a conflicted state. Should they still exist in a digital era? Will they all be replaced by Kindles and Nooks? These questions dominate the discussion of books in our time. A select group of artists, who use books as their medium, engage this discussion from another angle. From pop culture pop-ups, to surreal sculptural stories, to reformations of antique sacred texts, these creators re-envision what the experience of a book can be. At times playful, and other times profound, this episode explores the boundaries of one of the most important human creations.

Featuring:

Matthew Reinhart, Paper Engineer
Andrea Dezso, Book Artist
Carole Kunstadt, Book Artist

View on youtube

Second Day of Christmas-Lights

2011-12-27T17:56:00.000-05:00

We purchased some battery-operated LED lights at IKEA. I liked their icy white glow in a jar on the stove

but felt it was too harsh for above the dining room mirror so I made little shades from Resho paper from Bhutan.

I used torn squares of paper, a hole punch (you could also poke a hole with the end of scissors or a pen or pencil), and wire.

Here are the steps:

First Day of Christmas-Pears

2011-12-26T17:12:00.000-05:00

On the first day of Christmas my true love gave to me a partridge in a pear tree

A friend kindly shared the gift of Harry & David's pears that arrived on her doorstep for the holidays. I made a pear and carrot soup (recipe on sweet pea food blog) that was delicious—an amazing blend of flavors in fact—

and a salad with butter lettuce, sliced pears, candied walnuts, and Delice de Bourgogne cheese with a dressing of balsamic vinegar, vinegar, olive oil, and honey from my mother-in-law's hives.

Today I stopped at Artist and Craftsman during her trip back to Boston and got the Staedler Calligraph Duo 3002 marker that I used for the pear drawing and word.

Solstice Greetings

2011-12-22T09:45:00.000-05:00

Let us make space for the stillness
and warm our hearts in the quiet.

The Magic Maker of the Revels

2011-12-21T15:06:00.000-05:00

Reading the Magic Maker, a book about John Langstaff by Susan Cooper (author of the wonderful Dark is Rising Series as well as many other books), was an excellent way to prepare for our annual journey to the Revels in Cambridge on Friday.

When John Langstaff died in 2005, he and Susan Cooper were working on a book about his life to be called Choirboy. It became The Magic Maker: A Portrait of John Langstaff Creator of The Christmas Revels. She writes:

I joined the Revels family in 1975, after being recruited by Jack (nobody ever called him "John" for more than five minutes) backstage at the previous year's Christmas production. For the next twenty years I wrote verse, short plays, stories, lyrics, program notes, record notes, and any other words Jack felt he needed. We became working partners, linked by respect, understanding, and the pleasure of the job we were doing; we grew to know most of each other's strengths, failings, and foibles, and when he died in 2005 I lost one of my three closest friends.

The Magic Maker is beautifully written and tells the fascinating story of a young boy sent off to board at choir school at age seven, a young man serving on the Pacific front in World War II with harrowing experiences and a serious injury, a performing life, a teaching life, and then…the Revels.

The words in the book that speak most personally to me are: "a musician who found his greatest delight in making audiences not listen but sing." For many years, when I was in the midst of children and a heavy schedule of teaching in the schools, I felt pulled away from my own artwork. Now that I have more time to devote to it, it doesn't have the same attraction. While I still love doing the work, I truly mean it when I say: I would rather teach a person to make something of her own than sell her a piece of my work. I want my audience not to look, but to do.

The Magic Maker can be purchased at the Revels website.

Havel and Hope

2011-12-20T10:54:00.002-05:00

I was saddened to hear of the passing of Vaclav Havel—writer, dissident, President of Czechoslovakia and the Czech Republic. He was a leader of the Velvet Revolution in 1989. In the NY Times obituary, the Czech expatriate novelist Milan Kundera is quoted: "Vaclav Havel's most important work is his own life."

I have a tiny thread of connection to Vaclav Havel. In 1991, I made a book using a quote from Disturbing the Peace: A Conversation with Karel Hvizdala about hope. I was so moved by Havel's story, his compassion, his ideas, and his humanity.

Here's how I described the book in written material to accompany Bookworks, an exhibit at Rivier College:

Here is the quotation:

Hope, in this deep and powerful sense, is not the same as joy that things are going well, or willingness to invest in enterprises that are obviously headed for early success, but, rather, an ability to work for something because it is good, not just because it has a chance to succeed. The more unpropitious the situation in which we demonstrate hope, the deeper that hope is. Hope is definitely not the same thing as optimism. It is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out. In short, I think the deepest and most important form of hope, the only one that can keep us above water and urge us to do good works, and the only true source of the breathtaking dimension of the human spirit and its efforts, is something we get, as it were, from "elsewhere." It is also this hope, above all, which gives us the strength to live and continually try new things, even in conditions that seem hopeless as ours do, here and now.

I sometimes look back at things I have done with amazement. I have always been a combination of insecure thoughts about my work and occasional bold moves. I put into the bold move category sending the book to Vaclav Havel via his US publisher Alfred A. Knopf. I received this letter in return:

Vaclav Havel's website with many links to his writing and speeches

NY Times obituary

PRI's The World interview with his translator Paul Wilson

Madeleine Albright taking about Havel on the PBS News Hour

JUDY WOODRUFF: What was he like? I mean, he clearly was not the typical -- anything but the typical politician.

MADELEINE ALBRIGHT: He was the most amazing man in terms of being the combination of somebody with massive moral authority, great courage for having espoused the concepts of democracy, freedom throughout a very difficult communist period, a very modest man, and somebody with a fabulous sense of humor and the idea of being able to see the absurd in situations.

So, he was a combination of many different aspects and tremendously interesting to be with.

...

JUDY WOODRUFF: You were saying that he signed all his letters with a little heart?

MADELEINE ALBRIGHT: He still does.

He signed it with a red pen for the heart and a green pen for his signature. And he had this great sense of humor. And you kind of felt that he was making a little bit fun of everything at the same time.

Book Arts Tuesday-Christmas Trees Made from Books

2011-12-20T09:34:00.002-05:00

Images of people making Christmas trees from books have been making their way around facebook and the internet. There is a great collection at The Mary Sue: A Girl Guide to Geek Culture.

Studio Sunday-on vacation

2011-12-18T17:28:00.002-05:00

Studio Sunday is on vacation until January 15th. Other posts will continue through the holiday season.

Book Arts Tuesday-CBBAG and GBW

2011-12-13T08:43:00.000-05:00

Two organizations that are well worth joining (both have regional chapters) and are generous with their online offerings:

Canadian Bookbinders and Book Artists Guild

Since 1983 the Canadian Bookbinders and Book Artists Guild has worked to support the development of the book arts. This web site is dedicated to that effort. The book arts include bookbinding, artists' books, papermaking, calligraphy, letterpress printing & typography, wood engraving, paper decorating, restoration, and conservation.

Check out the Book Arts section and the online galleries.

Guild of Bookworkers

The Guild of Book Workers was founded in 1906 "... to establish and maintain a feeling of kinship and mutual interest among workers in the several hand book crafts." Among its early members are well-known artist-craft workers such as bookbinder Edith Diehl and printers and typographers W.A. Dwiggins and Frederic W. Goudy.

The Guild still believes, as did its founders, that there is a responsibility among civilized people to sustain the crafts involved with the production of fine books. Its members hope to broaden public awareness of the hand book arts, to stimulate commissions of fine bindings, and to stress the need for sound book conservation and restoration.

I like the blog, the online exhibits, and the handouts and resources from Standards Seminars.

The top photo is Phase I by Erin Ciulla from the CBBAG website.

Some Great Quotations

2011-12-12T15:05:00.000-05:00

Thanks to all who shared their favorite quotes in the comment section of the Gathering of Gifts post and giveaway. Some serious, some humorous—lots of food for thought. Here they are:

"And now here is my secret, a very simple secret; it is only with the heart that one can see rightly - what is essential is invisible to the eye." -Antoine de Saint-Exupery

The woods are lovely, dark and deep
Robert Frost

Cauliflower is nothing but cabbage with a college education. 
Mark Twain

Cleaning your house while your kids are still growing up is like shoveling the walk before it stops snowing.
  Phyllis Diller

"she is too fond of books, and it has turned her brain."
in some sources it reads "addled her brain."
Louisa May Alcott

Without ice cream, there would be darkness and chaos
Don Kardong  

She could not have gazed at him with a more rapturous intensity if she had been a small child and he a saucer of ice cream
P.G.Wodehouse

If you obey all the rules, you miss all the fun.
Katherine Hepburn

"Enjoy your ice cream while it's on your plate. That's my philosophy."   
Thorton Wilder

To be or not to be, that is the question...
Shakespeare (macbeth)

"The essential thing is to be moved; to love, to hope, to tremble, to live."  
Author unknown; I found this on an 1800's sampler made by a young girl. Have stitched it up myself several times.  - Rosann

“What is REAL?" asked the Velveteen Rabbit one day... "Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?"   

"Real isn't how you are made," said the Skin Horse. "It's a thing that happens to you. When [someone] loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real."

  "Does it hurt?" asked the Rabbit.   

"Sometimes," said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. "When you are Real you don't mind being hurt."

  "Does it happen all at once, like being wound up," he asked, "or bit by bit?"   

"It doesn't happen all at once," said the Skin Horse. "You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't often happen to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept.   

"Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand... once you are Real you can't become unreal again. It lasts for always.”  
Margery Williams Bianco, The Velveteen Rabbit or How Toys Become Real

"I have always imagined that paradise will be a kind of library."
Jorge Luis Borges

A'ohe hana nui ka alu'ia.  
Translation: No task is too big when done together.  
Explanation: United we stand, divided we fall.
from the Hawaiian Librarian

A thankful heart is not only the greatest virtue, but the parent of all the other virtues.
Cicero

"Books are a uniquely portable magic."
Stephen King

   "Let the beauty of what you love be what you do."
Jalal ad-Din Rumi

"It should be clear by now that I'm more inclined to complicate matters than to get to the bottom of things."
Michael Adams, in "Slang: The People's Poetry"

I do not at all understand the mystery of grace - only that it meets us where we are but does not leave us where it found us.” 
Anne Lamott

You must do the thing you think you cannot do.
Eleanor Roosevelt

"We need time to dream, time to remember, time to reach for the infinite. Time to be."
Gladys Taber

“There is no doubt that creativity is the most important human resource of all. Without creativity, there would be no progress, and we would be forever repeating the same patterns.”
Edward de Bono.

The true Light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, yet the world did not know Him. He came to His own, and His own people did not receive Him. But to all who did receive Him, who believed in His name, He gave the right to become children of God.
{John 1:9-12}

"Everything yields to diligence."
Calvin Coolidge

Studio Sunday-Little Drawers

2011-12-11T16:37:00.000-05:00

I have two sets of small drawers for storage.The star on the drawer in the top photo is a remnant from a system I had when the kids were young and in the studio a lot. They could use anything in a drawer with star on it. The idea was to help in two ways: one, to keep them from using things I wanted to save for my own work and two, to enable them to use what they could without having to ask. I don't think it worked very well but it was a good try.

Gingerbread Accordion Books

2011-12-09T08:55:00.000-05:00

Pepperwolf, a librarian and fifth grade teacher in South Saint Paul, MN kindly shared these photos of gingerbread accordion books she made with first readers. She wrote: "The kids loved this project and were very creative in their stories that went with it. All made up of course! "

Here is a video with directions for making a Gingerbread Accordion Book of your own and here are patterns for the gingerbread men and the candy.

Scottish Mystery Concluded

2011-12-08T09:55:00.002-05:00

In the November 15 Book Arts Tuesday, I wrote about the exquisite paper sculptures that were appearing in libraries around Edinburgh, a story that had been circulating around the internet. The identity was believed to be an artist who worked with paper and books. When the Edinburgh Evening News polled its readers, they said they would prefer not to know who the creator was. The Evening News readers have their wish and the surprising series has drawn to a close at ten. The last sculpture was left at the Scottish Poetry Library, the location of the first with a note—

So, here, she will end this story, in a special place…A Poetry Library…where they are well used to 'anon.'

You can read more of the story on Robert Krulwich's blog at NPR

and a longer story at Central Station

and see Chris Scott's beautiful photographs of all ten on flickr.

Gifts Tutorial & Giveaway

2011-12-07T10:07:00.001-05:00

As I mentioned yesterday, I created a tutorial in pdf form for the Gathering of Gifts: Accordion Book workshop. It has 14 pages of step-by-step instructions and two pages of quotes to use in the books you make. I am offering it on lulu.com for $5.00. I particularly like lulu for downloadable digital files because the buyer has an account where the pdf is always stored. Should it get lost on your computer, you can always have access to it online.

Giveaway!
I am giving away two copies of the tutorial to two randomly selected people who share a favorite quote in their comments. I will compile the quotes in a later post. Please make sure your email address is included so I can contact you if you are chosen. The comments will close at midnight on Friday December 9.

A Gathering of Gifts Accordion Book Tutorial can be purchased at lulu.com.

Book Arts Tuesday-A Gathering of Gifts

2011-12-06T17:32:00.000-05:00

This past Saturday we had the first of what I hope will be many Gathering of Gifts workshops at the Center for Creative Wholeness in Newbury, MA. Cameron's space is so right for creative activity. I felt its welcoming openness as we set up in the morning.

We made two small accordion books from recycled materials together and then it was time for play. Some people filled the books we made together, others made more books to help them remember the steps. And some did both. The room was full of great energy and intention. It was a beautiful morning and a beautiful way to start the month of December.

There is another Gathering of Gifts workshop scheduled at the Center on Saturday, February 11 from 10 A.M. to 12:30 P.M.

Coming tomorrow—Giveaway!
A detailed tutorial illustrated with photographs I made for the workshop—14 pages of step-by-step instructions and two pages of quotes to use in the books you make. It will also be available at lulu.com for $5.00.

Studio Sunday-Geranium and Rosemary

2011-12-04T13:28:00.002-05:00

Sometime way later in the season than I should I bring a few plants from outside in for the winter. This year it is two geraniums and two rosemaries. I usually prefer geraniums (well technically pelargoniums ) in colors other than red but when I found these toward the end of the season at KMart for $5.00 each, I decided that red was quite a nice color. And now I'm really loving it here in the studio.

As for the rosemary, I have only once had plants I brought in last through the winter. I'd appreciate any suggestions for keeping them alive for next spring bearing in mind that they were brought in late and abruptly. I'm hoping that the warm fall we are having will make the transition a little easier for them.

Christmas Card Flag Book

2011-12-01T14:23:00.001-05:00

I do love getting cards at the holidays. I make a special display with handmade ones and and hang the rest from ribbons. But there is always the question at the end of the season—what to do with the cards? Here's one solution. If you save cards, you can make this now. If not, it will be a great after the holidays project.

This style of book is called a Flag Book and was developed by Hedi Kyle. The Guild of Bookworkers describes it as "the single most influential structure in the world of contemporary bookmaking." The accordion is the spine or frame of the book and the flags act like pages.

I've made mine very simple with no covers. I used two cards the same size (you can also cut them to match if you don't have two the same size) to make the accordion and the front of five cards for the flags. I exhausted my supply of saved cards so the directions use half of the front panel of a grocery bag for the accordion and pieces cut from the side panel of a cracker box for the flags.

Make an 8 page accordion:
1. Fold the paper in half. If your paper has writing on one side and you don't want it to show (the grocery bag here), the writing should be on the inside when you fold it. If you want the writing to show (the Christmas card book), it should be on the outside.

2. Open the paper, fold the right edge in to meet the middle, and crease.

3. Fold the left edge in to meet the middle and crease.

4. Open the paper and turn it over. You now have an accordion with four pages. You will be folding each of these in half again to make eight.

5. Fold the right edge to meet the fold and crease.

6. Tuck the folded section under the rest of the book.

7. Fold the right edge to meet the fold and crease.

8. Tuck the folded section under.

9. You can finish the folding in one of two ways: One, continue folding from right to left. Two, start at the left side and fold to the middle. I think this way is a little neater but either is fine.

Attach the flags:
The accordion has three mountains in the center. This is where you will be gluing the flags. I used five on each mountain but you can use more or less depending on the width of the flags. I plan the layout on the first mountain and then glue that before I go on the next one. Each mountain will have the same pattern of flags.

1. Place the flags on one mountain. Note that they are on alternate sides of the mountain.

2. To make sure you put the glue in the correct place, draw a pencil line on the back of each flag the width of the accordion. This is optional. You can also just do it by eye.

3. Cover that section of the back of the flag with glue.

4. Place the flag on the mountain and smooth to adhere. Continue until all the flags are glued onto the mountains.

Make a longer accordion:
If you want to make a longer accordion, the easiest way is to make two and then attach them together. This is what I did for the Christmas card accordion.

1. Turn one accordion over and place it on a piece of scrap paper. Use glue stick to completely cover the back side of the first two accordion pages on the right side.

2. Place the back of the two glued accordion pages on top of the two far right pages of the other accordion. Be careful to line up the pages and the fold. Smooth to help the glue adhere.

If you enjoy this, don't stop at holiday cards. It would be a great after birthday project.

Book Arts Tuesday-Scrapbooks

2011-11-29T10:08:00.001-05:00

I am often asked at workshops, "Do you scrapbook too?" I never want to discourage anyone from working with their hands to make things so I politely say, "No, I just don't have the time." However, my feelings are not so kind. For me, making books is about creativity not consumerism and scrapbooking is the reverse. Because so much of the material is purchased, there is a look of sameness and artificiality about the pages even when they are well designed. My main push to begin making books from recycled materials came from environmental awareness, but the commercial quality of scrapbooking also gave me a nudge. I wanted to make the point that you don't need to buy things to make things.

If I don't love scrapbooking as it is done today, I do love scrapbooks. Jessica Helfand's Scrapbooks: An American History is a beautifully designed and written study.

The book is divided into five categories—Time, Space, Sentiment, Nostalgia, and Posterity—and features five scrapbooks in depth and includes illustrations from many others. Here's how Ms. Helfand introduces the book:

Over the past eighteen months, in preparation for this book, I have traveled the country looking for examples that met five essentials criteria. First, because I am a visual historian, they needed to be beautiful: this was and has remained my primary point of entry. Second, once I was drawn into a beautiful scrapbook, there needed to be a payoff, a there there—a story worth telling. Third, the scrapbook selected for inclusion in this book needed to be eclectic: scrapbooks consisting solely of photographs or merely of clippings were rejected, as they lacked the formal complexity that I believed would most convincingly represent the person and the moment in which that individual lived. Fourth, I was convinced from the start that this book needed to include both celebrities and civilians...Finally, I restricted my research to American scrapbooks.

And this passage near the beginning highlights for me the difference between the scrapbooks she shows and the ones that result from today's scrapbooking culture:

The scrapbook was the original open-source technology, a unique form of self-expression that celebrated visual sampling, culture mixing, and the appropriation and redistribution of existing media. Over time, it came to mirror the changing pulse of American cultural life—a life of episodic moments, randomly reflected in a news clipping or silhouetted photograph, a lock of baby hair or a Western Union telegram. As a genre unto themselves, scrapbooks represent a fascinating, yet virtually unexplored visual vernacular, a world of makeshift means and primitive methods, of gestural madness and unruly visions, of piety and poetry and a million private plagiarisms. As author, editor, photographer, curator, and inevitable protagonist, the scrapbook maker engaged in what seems today, in retrospect, a comparatively crude exercise in graphic design. Combining pictures, words, and a wealth of personal ephemera, the resulting works represent amateur yet stunningly authoritative examples of a particular strain of visual autobiography, a genre rich in emotional, pictorial, and sensory detail.

Author and archivist Caroline Preston has created a thoroughly enchanting book—a novel in pictures—called The Scrapbook of Frankie Pratt. Told completely in scrapbook form, Frankie's story begins in Cornish, NH in 1920 when she graduates from high school and then goes on to Vassar, New York City, and Paris. I was very impressed with how rich and emotional the story is in this format.

I wanted to also share a children's/young adult book in a similar style. Members of the New England Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators listserve kindly shared suggestions. There were some wonderful books, but the only one that truly fit the bill—a story told completely though a scrapbook was Middle School is Worse Than Meatloaf: A Year Told Through Stuff by Jennifer L. Holm. Ginny's worst school year ever—seventh grade—told through lists, bank statements, notes, school essays, and various objects—is a warm, funny, and engaging story.

More on Girl Scouts making Spirit Books

2011-11-28T16:32:00.000-05:00

The sun was slipping down behind the trees and the birds were settling in for a long evening. It was peaceful, very peaceful... way too peaceful to be in the middle of a girl scout meeting, but as I looked around there they were - all six of them, fully focused on building spirit books.

Hannah McSawley posted a description of the Girl Scouts' Spirit Book session on her blog, Muddy Girls. Thanks Hannah for your kind words.

Studio Sunday-Clean Windows

2011-11-27T12:32:00.001-05:00

Thanks to my husband, the screens are off the studio windows and the windows are sparkling clean. I'm loving all the light, especially welcome in these darkening days. And I can see the outline of the wreath ushering in the holiday season.

Many Thanksgivings

2011-11-24T12:00:00.000-05:00

I am thankful for the opportunity I had to be part of the Children's Museum Many Thanksgivings Wampanoag program several years ago. I did a bookmaking component as part of two summer institutes. We visited the Wampanoag tribal lands in Mashpee where this photo was taken. I try to remember the way of the native peoples—the earth always provides us things to be thankful for.

Children's Museum People of the First Light website

Book: People of the first Light by Amy Cope

And a bookmaking project based on The Native American Good Morning Book by Chief Jake Swamp of the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois)

A Thanksgiving Gift from Ginger Burrell

2011-11-23T10:08:00.000-05:00

Ginger Burrell has shared a pdf of this wonderful little Thanksgiving book. Print yourself a copy, then fold and cut to make a book. She's even left a space on the last page for you to write thanks of your own.

Thanksgiving Book from Ginger Burrell

Book Arts Tuesday-Books at the MET

2011-11-22T10:07:00.002-05:00

The Metropolitan Museum of Art has an online series called Connections and one of the topics is Books. You can view a slide show with commentary by Kevin Soehner, the Chief Librarian at the MET. You can also view the slides In Time (placed on a timeline), In the World (placed on a map), and In the Museum (where to find them in the museum as well as a link to the Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History which has more information about the images).

The above image is Paul Gauguin's sketchbook from 1894 which is described in the Timeline:

After returning to paint in the Breton village of Pont-Aven in summer 1894, Gauguin suddenly found his activity restricted by a fractured leg suffered in a brawl. Thus, instead of standing before an easel, he was forced to spend much of his time seated, creating works on paper, which he must have placed in this hand-made portfolio. He decorated the inside with motifs inspired by his picturesque surrounds and penned a mock-heroic dedication to the local innkeeper on the leather cover, perhaps marking the grand finale to a drunken evening spent with artist cronies whose names are included in the inscriptions. One of Gauguin's most appealing excursions into the decorative arts, this extraordinary work remained virtually unknown until its sale at a Paris auction in 2000.

Connections/Books at the Metropolitan Museum of Art

Girl Scouts Make Spirit Books

2011-11-21T09:38:00.000-05:00

What a delight to find this email in my inbox last week!

Hi Susan,

I am a Girl Scout Leader of troop 41071, which contains 6 very energetic 3rd grade girls, and in following your work for the last several years we have used your books in many projects.

However, I wanted to thank you for an amazing meeting last night. I introduced to the girls your idea of spirit books and explained to them your ideas and then sat back and watched as they combined that idea with the love of fairies... Last night they put together fairy houses but also included tiny books cradled in twigs and logs where they awaited independent study from the winged ones themselves.

These girls were so enthralled with their creations, I have never seen them quite so at peace with what they were working on before, and I felt sure that you would want to hear their story... I am sure you must get many, many emails each day... I hope you are able to accept one more, which is so full of thanks from 6 girls and their leader!

I have sent you photos, as they asked me to do, in a separate email... they really did want you to see their work!

Many, many thanks

Hannah McSawley

Girl Scout Troop 41071, I love your Spirit Books! Thanks for sharing. You can follow the adventures of the Muddy Girls and Mrs. Mac on their blog.

Studio Sunday-Preparing Spirit Books to Travel

2011-11-20T11:06:00.001-05:00

I have intentionally not pursued selling the Spirit Books over the years. I've looked at them as a kind of family unit, a series of work that belongs together. I do love to exhibit them. I sense both energy and peace when a gallery is filled with Spirit Books and people. The problem is they are difficult to ship. I have only had solo shows that are within driving distance. Last fall I had a great experience exhibiting them at Wisdom House in Litchfield, CT and this fall at Bright Hill Literary Center in Treadwell, NY. Both were long drives and involved two trips—one to deliver and one to pick up.

After coming home from Treadwell a few weeks ago, I decided that I needed to focus on how to put together an exhibition of the Spirit Books that could travel. I have chosen 18 books that I feel are among the strongest and that work together well. I am in the process of creating packing for them. I will then get shipping boxes and be able to figure out weight and size and shipping costs and put together a proposal to send to galleries, libraries, museums, and nature centers.

One of the ironies of it all is that I came to books because I loved their portability. Instead of framed calligraphic pieces, I had, for a short time, small volumes that were easy to ship and store. Then one thing led to another and along came the sculptural Spirit Books that don't fold up and have delicate parts. Since I have been moving the books by hand, I made a box to hold each complete book—book, cradle, and base. For shipping, I will be packing each part separately—a box of books, a box of cradles, and one or two boxes of bases—with lots of labeling and instructions.

Yesterday the books were spread out all over the living room and the studio. I had this vision that I have the packaging completed by Thanksgiving. Everything was moving along smoothly until I decided I needed a different kind of bubblewrap for the cradles. I couldn't find it locally so I will have to wait for a shipment from Quill. In the meantime, my husband set up a table and everything is there waiting final packing.

I hope to have a proposal ready for the new year. Tomorrow will be photo day. The packing will continue when the new materials come.

Time and Creativity

2011-11-17T10:33:00.001-05:00

I discovered this short film through a post on facebook by June Maffin. This film answers the question asked by Kreativ magazine:

Our clients want us to do more work in less time? How can we make them understand that for new effective ideas we need more time?

They went to the "world's most talented people," a classroom of children, and gave them this drawing to complete—

When they were given 10 seconds, the drawings were like this—

And when they were given 10 minutes they looked like this—

The lesson here is important for all of us who work with children. We need to give them more time. Teachers know it but feel helpless in the face of all the material they are required to present during the course of the day, week, and year. I don't have a solution but hope that you will share this short film. Increased awareness is a start.

Thank You Ode

2011-11-16T11:45:00.000-05:00

I received this wonderful thank you from a graduate education class at Framingham State University. I love the poem they wrote. In addition to their most welcome kind words, I appreciated that they really understood my approach and made the thank you from recycled materials.

Ode to A Bookmaking Queen

Susan, we really cannot thank you enough
for showing us all your fabulous stuff
We know it is vital to publish and share
and you gave us ideas adding humor and flair
Now we can create books while saving our time
and use recycled items without spending a dime
We loved your ideas on how to minimize waste
but probably won't try out the homemade flour paste
You taught us how to fold and the value of colored glue
Who knew we'd get to sew and bang nails too?
So many options for publishing what kids write
even ideas for Family Literacy Night
We learned about velcro dots and bookmarks in a ring
and got to try your cool string-measuring thing
You advised us to choose materials with thought and care
and to avoid catalogs showing underwear
You anecdotes were really a riot
from girdle books to BEADS EQUALS QUIET
But probably our most favorite advice
is that things need not ever be precise
Tuesday's class was most certainly a blast
we never knew three hours could fly by so fast
You are the Bookmaking Extraordinaire
with quite a creative flair
For sharing your time and expertise, we thank you so so much!

Book Arts Tuesday-Scottish Mystery

2011-11-15T08:52:00.000-05:00

Several people have contacted me about this story of the mysterious book sculptures which have been appearing at libraries in Edinburgh, Scotland. As it's made its away around facebook and twitter, I thought it might already be familiar to many. However, it's just too good a story not to share.

It began in March when staff at the Poetry Library of Scotland found this magical creation on a table. An attached tag was addressed to the library's twitter account and said:

It started with your name @byleaveswelive and became a tree.… ... We know that a library is so much more than a building full of books… a book is so much more than pages full of words.… This is for you in support of libraries, books, words, ideas….. a gesture (poetic maybe?)

More have appeared in libraries and book places in Edinburgh. Garry Gale of the Music Library in Edinburgh deduced the creator as the pieces looked like one he had previously purchased from an artist. Instead of revealing the identity, the Edinburgh Evening News polled its readers: Do you really want to know, it asked its readers, who made these gorgeous teacups and dragons and magnifying glasses, or would you rather honor the artist, and let him/her remain anonymous? They said no.

Here are two places to read about and view the sculptures:

Robert Krulwich's blog at npr

This is Central Station

A Gathering of Gifts Workshop

2011-11-14T10:59:00.002-05:00

I am thrilled to be offering a workshop at the Center for Creative Wholeness in Newbury, MA on Saturday, December 3 from 10 a.m. to 12 noon. Thanks so much to Cameron Sesto for inviting me. The space is calm and beautiful. I had lunch there last week with Cameron to plan the workshop. It was magical then and will be even more so when we fill it with joy and intention as we make books.

Here's a description of the workshop:
Give yourself the gift of quiet time and creative activity in companionship with others while making small handmade books that can be used as gifts and cards.

With clear instructions and gentle guidance, you’ll make several accordion books and then complete them with collage materials. As a gift to the earth, the books will be made from recycled materials. No art experience or creative confidence is needed; this workshop is truly for everyone.

The focus is on simplicity. It's a perfect introduction to bookmaking for those with no prior experience and a chance to let go and relax for experienced book artists. Most materials will be provided. The short list of what to bring will be sent after registration.

A Gathering of Gifts Workshop Flyer

A Gathering of Gifts
Center for Creative Wholeness
Newbury, MA
Saturday, December 3, 10 A.M. to 12 noon
$25.

Space is limited. For more information or to register, contact me at susan (at) susangaylord (dot) com.

Studio Sunday-A Gathering of Gifts

2011-11-13T17:30:00.000-05:00

Here's the image (before cropping) taken for the flyer for new workshop, A Gathering of Gifts, which will be offered at the Center for Creative Wholeness in Newbury, MA on December 3. More about it tomorrow.

Stole of Bandaged Hearts

2011-11-10T09:24:00.001-05:00

Mo Crow created this beautiful Stole of Bandaged Hearts and I am so privileged to be a part of it. We met through our blogs and last month she sent me an image of a "bandaged heart"

with the following message—"I just made you this little bandaged heart in thanks for all the inspiration with your blog, your ebooks & especially your spirit books!"—and a choice: she could send me the heart or it could become part of the stole she was making for her husband Old Man Crow to wear to his gigs. It was a difficult choice. I really did want to have it for myself but ultimately decided that its place was on the stole where it would be worn and shared many times and live a fuller life. Mo also sent along this quote from Oscar Wilde:

They were built out of music
and so not built at all
and therefore built forever

You can read Mo's post about the stole at It's Crow Time and view more of Mo's work at Blue Cat Heaven.

Spirit Book Skype Workshop + Giveaway

2011-11-08T17:31:00.001-05:00

Although there always has been intention and thought in the development of the Spirit Books, there has also been an organic quality. Sometimes things just happen and often it is as much about letting go as putting in.

The Spirit Book Workshops have grown over time. I gave my first at my 2005 exhibit at Carney Gallery at Regis College in Weston, MA. At the time I called it a Book of the Spirit Workshop. I wanted to share the experience of meditation, calm, and connection with nature but I was not ready to call what others made Spirit Books. I held onto that name as something of my own. Over the years I gave more workshops at museums and retreats. I always showed a few of my books and introduced the concept as an extension of my Spirit Books and it made more sense to call it a Spirit Book Workshop. I concentrated on the book itself and didn't talk much about creating the cradles. The whole presentation—book, cradle, and stand—was still mine. At a workshop last fall at Wisdom House in Litchfield, CT, a few participants made cradles for their books. When I first saw them, I felt a slight tug at my heart and then realized it was time to really let go. The spirit in which the books are made is best honored through sharing.

And now onto Skype. I had been thinking about how to do Skype workshops in connection with the kind of work I usually do in schools but had not pursued it any further. In early September an email appeared in my inbox from Wendy Grosvenor of Cedar Crest Academy, in Clarkston, MI.

"In a search for book making projects to share with my middle school art students I came across your spirit books and am so inspired and excited to introduce your work and ideas to my kids! We have been involved in making altered books, sculptural books and other book making projects over the years and know this new extension of those ideas will be as exciting for my art students as they are for me! I am interested in getting some info from you about the possibility of a workshop via skype, though I’m sure you are very busy and may not be available at such short notice."

Organic and serendipitous indeed! I emailed her back, we agreed on a day and time, I cleaned the space around my computer screen, chose the books I wanted to show, came up with a better version of the book construction and wrote detailed directions, practiced a bit with Photo Booth so I could see how it worked on camera, and was ready to go. I started by talking about how I developed the Spirit Books, showed about six different books, and explained their project—both the bookmaking and gathering phases. At the end they asked very interesting questions which in addition to showing their sensitivity and intelligence also let me know that they had really listened. I was so pleased to get this report back from Wendy. I will mention that as this was a test for me, there was no charge which may have increased her enthusiasm.

"Thank you so much, Susan! We loved the workshop, you did a great job. The kids were totally engaged the whole time and all had questions, things they wanted to add, and ideas to use in their own books. They are really excited to get started, as am I! I used the instructions today to make the books with a couple of kids who weren’t able to go to camp, so that was nice to be able to try the process before doing it with a large group…it went very smoothly. The directions were concise, easy to follow, great visuals…I have no constructive criticism for you I‘m afraid! I think you did a great job all the way around! Can’t wait to try some of your techniques for stitching and wiring the objects, and I love that you added the quotes as options. I loved it when one of the kids asked about using glue and you explained how since your product is meant to be shipped and displayed, etc. that you have to consider the process for attaching things so that they hold up in different situations..that was a great conversation point, talking about what the end goal is for the product and craftsmanship, etc..we also were very interested in hearing about your process, and how all the elements were ideas that sprang from other ideas, or experiences you’ve had in the past…we talked about how knowledge, concepts, ideas grow organically out of each other over time and how the book itself is an expression of that. Very thought provoking, inspiring, yet concrete enough for the age group to work with and not feel too overwhelmed. Loved it!!!! Thank you so much!! I will take pics as they work next week and send them to you. Have a great week and thank you again!"

The finished books were creatively displayed at an art fair in Clarkston. A few more words from Wendy about their reception: "...everyone loved the concept and that the kids were doing projects with such meaning. We donated our earnings to our local land conservancy so it worked out well for all."

View all of Wendy's photos on flickr

Here's information about a Spirit Books via Skype for schools, retreats, nature centers, book clubs, and more.

Giveaway!

Leave a comment with an email address (you can use at instead of @ to avoid inviting spam) to enter into the random drawing for my CD about the Spirit Books. Comments about the Spirit Books will be most welcome as I prepare to make them available for traveling exhibitions. Comments close on Friday the 18th at midnight.

Autumn

2011-11-07T15:30:00.002-05:00

This morning's walk led to a different day than I expected. It often happens when I bring my camera. Instead of tackling the tasks on my list, I couldn't resist spending time with the photos once they were imported into the computer. I find that some of my most vivid experiences of nature occur indoors. The objects of the natural world—leaves, flowers, buds—are isolated from their environment but combine and blend on the screen into what for me is a deeper understanding.

I've compiled my favorite autumn images on flickr:

Studio Sunday-Standing Desk Update

2011-11-06T12:02:00.000-05:00

About four months ago, I made a post about changing how I work on my computer—from sitting to standing. The reason was shoulder pain and an inability to maintain proper sitting posture in the chair. I can report that it has been a success. It was easier to get used to doing design work and playing with images in Photoshop than writing but part of the reason may be that writing is less fun because I am such a lousy typist.

One of my problems when sitting has always been that when I am intently working, I can stay in pretty much the exact same position for hours. The good news is that I frequently move around when standing. I still do try to set a timer at the other end of the studio to get away from the screen but it's not as necessary.

I have just made two new additions that improve the new way even more.

An anti-fatigue mat to stand on—it is harder on the legs and feet—

And glasses with a prescription tailored to the distance I stand away from screen—about 14". When I was at Market Square Optical in Newburyport a few years ago and complaining about how I had trouble seeing the computer , the owner Tom Collins suggested he could make me a pair of glasses that would be adjusted for exactly that viewing distance. I never did it when I was sitting because I was always hunched over. When I decided that this standing system was here to stay, I got the glasses. It has made a huge difference. I am standing exactly straight and I can see perfectly! Thank you Tom.

And you may notice from the top photo that my clean desk of September 25's post did not last.

Playful Learning

2011-11-04T12:53:00.000-04:00

I got this book from the library after seeing a post about it on the Artful Parent. If my children were still young, I would have already added it to my library. Sections include: Nurturing Young Authors, The Joy of Reading, Mathematicians at Work, Scientific Investigations, Exploration of Art And Artists, Growing Globally, and Raising Citizens of Tomorrow. Each section has a developmental overview and a series of projects. I especially love the liberal sprinkling of lists of Books to Inspire. An extra treat was in the Bookmaking Section of Nurturing Young Authors: a mention of makingbooks.com in Web Sites to Inspire.

You can also follow the author's blog Playful Learning.

Hand Lettered at Abecedarian

2011-11-04T11:32:00.000-04:00

The exhibition Hand Lettered opens today at Abecedarian Gallery in Denver, Colorado. I am so pleased to have Words for the Journey a part of it. The structure is a fan book. The pages were cut from a full sheet of bagasse paper on which I made a series of marks with sumi ink and a brush.

Each page contains a quote that I find particularly meaningful—words for the journey. I had planned to share a page from the book each day. I have a distinct memory of taking photos of all the pages but alas, I cannot find them on my computer. Here is one page with a quote from Thoreau:

Alicia Bailey does a wonderful job of sharing Abedcedarian's exhibits online. You can find the catalog here.

November 4-December 17
Opening Reception: November 4, 6-8 pm, part of Denver's First Friday Artwalk
Gallery Hours: Thursday-Saturday 1-5
1st & 3rd Fridays 1-8

Alphabet Video

2011-11-02T10:42:00.000-04:00

Thanks to Peter Lüssenheide and Babs van der Graaf for sharing this on facebook. It's delightful.

The Alphabet 2 from n9ve on Vimeo.

Taxonomy Step Book

2011-11-01T22:11:00.001-04:00

As I worked on the image for this year's Samhain greeting using the remains of a sunflower leaf, I thought of the step book I made about the sunflower to illustrate its taxonomy, which wikipedia defines as "the science which deals with the study of identifying, grouping, and naming organisms according to their established natural relationship." My mother-in-law taught me the importance of Latin names in gardening and I enjoy learning the names of individual plants and their families.

I used three panels from the front and back of grocery bags for the pages and strips cut from a plastic bag for the ties.

Here is a slideshow of the pages:

And here are directions for making a step book:

Written directions for making a step book

In Spanish

A short film about Carl Linnaeus
who developed the system in the 1700s

Classification Rap by T.H. Culhane and his class

This month's giveaway will be a CD about the Spirit Books. Look for it next week on Book Arts Tuesday.

Samhain

2011-11-01T11:07:00.000-04:00

Samhain

The first day of November
ushers in Celtic winter and the new year.

As we enter the season of darkening,
we hold within the knowledge
of the rebirth and renewal of spring to come.

Studio Sunday-Working on Spirit Books

2011-10-30T06:00:00.004-04:00

On my second Sunday away from the studio, I'm writing this ahead. Today, Thursday, was a wonderful day working on the Spirit Books. I have three new ones under construction and discovered a book that I didn't use in the past that fits perfectly on a holly branch from last winter. I have some more sewing details to do on the pages of the books and then assembling them. I have the joy of handwork before facing the more demanding precision (or at least as much as I can muster) of the stands. My goal is to have them all ready to greet the new year.

Book Arts Tuesday-Dinosaur Day

2011-10-25T17:00:00.000-04:00

In honor of October being International Dinosaur Month, here's a collaborative project I did with my daughter's preschool class at the Newburyport Montessori School in 1996. We called our publication company Peace Corner Press and made multiple copies of Dinosaur Day—one for each student and teacher. Each child contributed one drawing and an accompanying text which is most cases was dictated to a teacher.

I started the story with the first two pages:

We gave each child a piece of paper slightly shorter than the size of a page (to leave room for the text at the bottom) and she drew a picture of what might have happened after the dinosaur foot was seen and then dictated a story to accompany the drawing.

I assembled the pictures and words into a story. It was a bit of a challenge to wrestle the events into a story line but I think it worked pretty well. I prepared the pages which were then copied by photocopier. I used 11" x 17" paper (ledger size). It was cut in half the long way and then folded to make the pages. We stitched the books with a Japanese binding. I worked with groups of 3 to 4 children and an adult helper. Each child took home a copy of the book.

More on Edward Johnston by Tom Costello

2011-10-20T11:52:00.000-04:00

Thanks to Tom Costello for sharing his eloquent appreciation of Edward Johnston that he originally posted on the Cyberscribes website.

A propensity for patience. A proclivity for precision. A passion for perfection.

If Edward Johnston had heard those attributes ascribed to him, his reaction may have been, “What a penchant for pomposity!” - but this modest chap, eschewing gratuitous embellishments in his life as well as his craft, would never have expressed that brusque sentiment for he was, as his student and friend Noel Rooke described him, a man of “exceptional courtesy.”

Acknowledgement of Johnston’s significance in the revival of the calligraphic art sometimes removes that achievement from its context as a particular manifestation of the Arts & Crafts movement, a practical aesthetic philosophy that grew from a desire to revive the skills and creativity of the pre-industrial craftsman evocative of a time that there was a simplicity and honesty in the way things were made. William Morris sought to overcome the banality of the 19th century decorative arts by reinstating the craftsman as the equal of painters, sculptors, and architects in their imaginative prerogatives, and Johnston was a devoted disciple that brought that spirit to the letter with its two-millennium wealth of expressive potential.

The Arts & Craft movement flourished most notably in Great Britain, the United States, and Germany, Johnston’s Writing & Illuminating and Lettering being published in 1906 as but one of The Artistic Crafts Series of Technical Handbooks by John Hogg in London and MacMillan in New York, and in Germany in 1910 in translation (Schriebschrift, Zierscrift und angewandte Schrift) by Johnston’s Royal College of Art student, Anna Simons. It has continued to instruct and inspire generations of calligraphers in dozens of subsequent editions for over a century.

I have always considered the literal meaning of the word ‘calligraphy’ as “beautiful writing” woefully inadequate, and much prefer Claude Mediavilla’s 1996 definition: “The art of giving form to signs in an expressive, harmonious, and skillful manner.” I think Johnston would concur. As his daughter Priscilla wrote of her father, “...he saw clearly that the duty of the scribe was to express the meaning of the words, and this remained for him the supremely important consideration before which all others must give way.”

One hundred and thirty-nine years after his birth, Edward Johnston's story is still being written every day.

Book Arts Tuesday-Edward Johnston

2011-10-18T12:46:00.000-04:00

I have just reread Priscilla Johnston's biography of her father Edward Johnston who is often called the "father of modern calligraphy." The first time I read it, over thirty years ago, I was moved by his dedication to creative discovery and what he called "formal penmanship", charmed by his eccentricities, and with no question felt I had spent time getting to know a genius. At this second reading, I added another observation: his wife was a saint.

I was led to reread the book by two reminders of Edward Johnston: the description of Johnston's groundbreaking typeface for the London Underground in 1916 in the new book Just My Type by Simon Garfield and seeing a photo of a book made by Johnston posted on Georgia Angelopoulos' facebook page.

The above image shows the incredible life of his letters. He is quoted in his daughter's biography:

"... Freedom is an essential quality of all work. Thank heaven I have known the joy of it sometimes, when the heart is warm and the Pen, Surface, and Ink and Hand are all doing their best, and then, indeed, nothing can go wrong."

Here is an appreciation of his legacy from the Edward Johnston Foundation website:

Edward Johnston (1872-1944) by his teaching and practice almost single-handedly revived the art of formal penmanship which had lain moribund for four centuries. His major work Writing and Illuminating, and Lettering, first published in 1906 and in print continuously ever since, created a new interest in calligraphy and a new school of excellent scribes. The life he breathed into this ancient craft and its continuing tradition even in today’s hi-tech world can be ascribed to his re-discovery of the influence of tools, materials and methods. His researches were carried out with the understanding of the artist-craftsman, the scientist and the philosopher and this three-fold approach resulted in a profound insight - he fully grasped the root of formal writing and saw how all the branches grew from that root.

The epoch-making sans-serif alphabet he designed for the London Underground Railways changed the face of typography in the twentieth century whilst two of the most popular types of our day ‘Perpetua’ and ‘Gill Sans’ were by his great pupil Eric Gill (1882-1940).

Johnston’s influence has been world-wide. As early as 1910 his pupil Anna Simons translated Writing and Illuminating, and Lettering into German and a tremendous interest was sparked off in that country. So much so that Sir William Rothenstein remarked on a visit to art schools on the continent, ‘in Germany in particular the name of Edward Johnston was known and honoured above that of any artist’.
The other great revival has been in the United States particularly since the 1970s where there has been a veritable explosion of interest both on a professional and amateur level. The annual lettering conferences held in important centres throughout the country are testimony to this rebirth. But, lest we forget Johnston’s pioneering work, we ought perhaps to remind ourselves of what Hermann Zapf has said recently of him,

Nobody had such a lasting effect on the revival of contemporary writing as Edward Johnston. He paved the way for all lettering artists of the twentieth century and ultimately they owe their success to him.

Here are some resources on the web to learn more:

The Edward Johnston Foundation

Johnston's Railway Type

And history of Johnston and his type and its redesign by Eiichi Kono in 1979.

Images of his work at the Visual Arts Data Service, an amazing online portfolio of visual art collections comprising over 100,000 images that are freely available and copyright cleared for use in learning, teaching and research in the UK. He was famous for his blackboard demonstrations.

Studio Sunday-Scissors

2011-10-16T17:09:00.000-04:00

Here is my collection of scissors. From left to right:

The purple-handled Fiskars student scissors stay in my desk drawer at the computer end of the studio. I get very bent of shape if they get moved.

The orange-handled scissors are my workshop scissors. I have lots of them. When I first started teaching I thought I would mostly work with parents and teachers. It turned out over the years I have most often taught children. They managed quite well and the younger ones found using grown-up scissors rather thrilling. I store them in plastic shoe bins and carry them to workshops in a large plastic container which also holds bins of glue sticks and hole punches.

The small red scissors are in my work kit (a shoe box) for the Spirit Books which holds scissors and needles and whatever beads or thread I need for a particular project.

The silver scissors were purchased at a discount store in Northampton, MA and are wonderful. They are in a drawer at the workshop end of the studio.

The small blue-handled scissors are also for workshops. I really don't like blunt scissors but I use these for DIY workshops where parents and kids move through stations with materials and bookmaking instructions. Occasionally parents are more interested in talking to their friends than watching their children and I go for safety especially when there are young children.

Here's a little scissors history and superstitions at uncommon scissors.

Little Free Library

2011-10-14T13:31:00.001-04:00

Thanks to Stephanie Sherwood's post on the Book Arts List, I learned about this wonderful project of Rick Brooks and Todd Bol who are the cofounders of the nonprofit Little Free Library. Here's an excerpt from the article in the Library Journal that describes how their project got started:

In 2009, they began fabricating and installing little libraries around Madison, WI. The libraries are essentially a nicely designed, weatherproof hutch mounted on poles, which contain a collection of about 20 books and a sign that reads "Take a Book, Leave a Book."

Literacy and a sense of community are the project's bedrock, and it has begun to take hold beyond Wisconsin.

"The primary motivation, without any doubt, is the good feeling that people get around these," said Brooks, who lives in Madison. "What made it happen was Tod had just built a little box in the shape of a schoolhouse as a memorial library to honor his mother. People would drive by his house and stop and say, 'What a cute idea,' " Brooks said.

About a week after finishing the first structure, Bol had a garage sale that wasn't very successful, but everyone was drawn to the little library. "I called up Rick and said, "People really want this,' " Bol said.

"It was really interesting that it was a cross section of the populace," Bol said. "It was like a literary water cooler, where people gathered and had a discussion about books in a way they wouldn't have had if they had just met on the street," he said.

I absolutely love this idea. For more information, visit the Little Free Library website.

And if you like the idea of little libraries, check out this past post about Lighthouse Libraries.

Autumn milkweed

2011-10-13T12:02:00.000-04:00

Autumn—milkweed—
The summer ends
in threads of silver
as well as
bursts of gold—
an invitation to the
delicacy and grace
of winter

The image above was created from a photograph of a milkweed pod taken at Battis Farm in Amesbury, MA. And here are some poems about milkweed to celebrate the season:

Milkweed
by Philip Levine

Remember how unimportant
they seemed, growing loosely
in the open fields we crossed
on the way to school. We
would carve wooden swords
and slash at the luscious trunks
until the white milk started
and then flowed. Then we'd
go on to the long day
after day of the History of History
or the tables of numbers and order
as the clock slowly paid
out the moments. The windows
went dark first with rain
and then snow, and then the days,
then the years ran together and not
one mattered more than
another, and not one mattered.

Two days ago I walked
the empty woods, bent over,
crunching through oak leaves,
asking myself questions
without answers. From somewhere
a froth of seeds drifted by touched
with gold in the last light
of a lost day, going with
the wind as they always did.

Milkweed
Mary Oliver

The milkweed now with their many pods are standing
like a country of dry women.
The wind lifts their flat leaves and drops them.
This is not kind, but they retain a certain crisp glamour;
moreover, it’s easy to believe
each one was once young and delicate, also
frightened; also capable
of a certain amount of rough joy.
I wish you would walk with me out into the world.
I wish you could see what has to happen, how
each one crackles like a blessing
over its thin children as they rush away.

Milkweed
by James Wright

While I stood here, in the open, lost in myself,
I must have looked a long time
Down the corn rows, beyond grass,
The small house,
White walls, animals lumbering toward the barn.
I look down now. It is all changed.
Whatever it was I lost, whatever I wept for
Was a wild, gentle thing, the small dark eyes
Loving me in secret.
It is here. At a touch of my hand,
The air fills with delicate creatures
From the other world.

Book Arts Tuesday-Anne's ABC

2011-10-11T15:51:00.001-04:00

I received this wonderful ABC Book as a birthday gift from my friend Anne. It is so thoughtful of her and so meaningful to me. I love what she wrote at the beginning "Thank you for all of your Amazing Beautiful Creations & for encouraging me to Always Be Creative."

I hope you might be inspired by Anne's idea. I'm sure you have a friend who would love an ABC book too! The book is made from 5 hotdog booklets (made from used copy paper with writing on one side) glued together with a cover glued on the outside. Here are written directions for the hot dog booklet and a video tutorial.

Studio Sunday-Summer and Fall

2011-10-09T18:43:00.001-04:00

A small arrangement on one side of the box which is now the support for my standing computer—nasturtium blossom, a beech bur, and a horse chestnut seed pod—the end of summer and the beginning of fall— along with a few beach stones and in the back my moleskine journal. I still love to copy quotes and take notes by hand.

On the left side is something I wrote a long time ago and found recently. On the right, a passage from a wonderful book by Sylvia Jorrin which I bought at the Green Toad Bookstore in Oneonta, NY. Sylvia's Farm: The Journal of an Improbable Shepherd is beautifully written with lyrical descriptions of the often difficult, always interesting life of a sheep farmer in Delaware County, New York. This passage was written in January but she also talks about autumn.

It is autumn whose brilliance and fleshy colors delude us into thinking winter's days are dark. Autumn, with its gleaming blue and deep purple skies. Its evenings of opal and hyacinth clouds bordered by russet and gold hills; the mornings, with shining leaves, brilliant in the sunlight. And slowly, slowly, the night grows long and the days short.

Letters, Type, and Steve Jobs

2011-10-07T09:53:00.001-04:00

I thought I'd share my July 1995 newsletter (just text, no images at that time) which was inspired by Steve Jobs' commencement address at Stanford University. A few changes have been made as some of the links are no longer live.

*******

"Letters are symbols that turn matter into spirit."
Alphonse de Lamartine

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July: Letters and Type

July is summer and vacation for many. I am taking a bit of a vacation from the norm in this July newsletter and indulging myself is something book related but not about books. On the Books Arts List (info on how to subscribe below), there was a posting about the commencement address by Steve Jobs, founder of Apple Computer, at Stanford University. It is a moving statement of his experience and philosophy of life and I highly recommend reading it. One of his main points is that you can't understand the way the experiences in your life will connect until later. He refers specifically to his experience taking a calligraphy class at Reed College and its impact on the quality of typography in computers.

"Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country. Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer, was beautifully hand calligraphed. Because I had dropped out and didn't have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this. I learned about serif and san serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can't capture, and I found it fascinating.

None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me. And we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts. And since Windows just copied the Mac, its likely that no personal computer would have them."

To read the full text of his speech, go to
http://news-service.stanford.edu/news/2005/june15/jobs-061505

This all reminded me that my first entry into the world of visual art was calligraphy. I spent about eight years as a serious practitioner doing both commercial and creative work. For years I was deeply in love with the form of letters. In addition to letters on paper, I put them on my clothes, my kitchen tiles and dishes with the help of a potter friend, and made them in the sand when I went to the beach. For this issue, I've gathered some websites to increase awareness of the form of letters for both adults and children.

****************
For Children

Found Alphabets

The point of these is not learning the alphabet, although that can certainly be accomplished as well, but to increase children's sensitivity to the actual form and construction of letters.

The Butterfly Alphabet
While not the first person to think of finding and photographing letters in nature and the landscape by any means, Kjell Sandved, who created a poster of letters photographed on butterfly wings, has done a lot to bring the idea to a wider audience. You can find his story here (scroll past the images to get to the story part):
http://www.butterflyalphabet.com/story.htm

The Alphabet by Abba Richman has beautiful black and white photos of the 26 letters found mostly in the urban landscape.
http://www.pbase.com/abbarich/the_alphabet

He has also made one of color photos.
http://www.pbase.com/abbarich/coloured_alphabet

For a found alphabet of pastels and watercolors from the urban landscape, check out Stephen T. Johnson's Alphabet City, a Caldecott Honor Book published by Penguin Putnam.

Bembo's Zoo is an alphabet book by deVicq de Crumptich. An abedecary of animals is created from the font Bembo. You can see a delightful animated version at
http://www.bemboszoo.com/

If you or your children are interested in improving handwriting or just having fun writing, I recommend looking into Italic handwriting which is based on calligraphic forms. The best source is a series by Barbara Getty and Inga Dubay. http://www.cep.pdx.edu/titles/italic_series/faq.htm

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Information About Typography, Calligraphy, and Letterform for Adults

The Canadian Bookbinders and Book Artists guild has a couple of informative pages on calligraphy. When you get to the bottom of page on, go to the information on the history of the roman alphabet for a more detailed description of the changes in letterform through the ages.
http://www.cbbag.ca/BookArtsWeb/Calligraphy.html

A brief visual history of calligraphic forms can be found at
http://www.dancotton.com/History_of_writing.html

Calligraphy, Lettering, and Artist Books, curated by Cecelia
A site from Australia with lots of limnks including a Calligraphic and book Arts Worldwide Travel Guide
http://www.cecilia-letteringart.com/index.htm

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Reed College and Connections

I have a very removed connection to Reed College and calligraphy. One of the most influential calligraphy classes I took was a week-long workshop at a 1982 conference in Philadelphia with Jaki Svaren, author of the wonderful book Written Letters, who had studied with Lloyd Reynolds who was the key person responsible for calligraphy at Reed College. Other students of Lloyd Reynolds at Reed, in addition to Jaki and Steve Jobs, were the Beat poets Gary Snyder, Lew Welch, and Philip Whalen. My mentor, Jenny Hunter Groat, also studied with Lloyd Reynolds, as well as the authors of the series on Italic handwriting for children mentioned above.

For an appreciation of calligraphy at Reed College and the spirit of Lloyd Reynolds and his successor Bob Palladino and a lament for its demise, visit
http://web.reed.edu/reed_magazine/aug2003/features/dance_of_pen/6.html

For information about subscribing to the Book Arts List mentioned above, go to
http://palimpsest.stanford.edu/byform/mailing-lists/bookarts/index.shtml

More on the Bhutanese Nepali Folktale Project

2011-10-07T09:31:00.000-04:00

We have developed a routine, Terry and I. I drive into the car park at the bus terminal in Portsmouth, NH and she is waiting for me. I get into her car and we drive to Laconia for another visit to the Bhutanese community. Yesterday we went to see the artist Dal Rai.

Last month Terry came here and we planned the layout of the 32-page picture book. We broke the text into pages and then decided what scenes should be illustrated and how the text and picture pages should be arranged. Fitting it all into 32 pages is not easy. In addition to the story itself, we have introductory and explanatory material which we feel needs to be part of the book. And arranging the story pages so that the illustrations are opposite the appropriate text pages makes it even harder. We eventually laid out 32 index cards on the table, cut the printed text pages into the desired page lengths, and assembled and reassembled until we came up with a workable model.

Yesterday we went to visit Dal to discuss the illustrations. We had chosen scenes that we felt would highlight the action of the story and tell about life in Bhutan through details in the paintings—the oxen and the plow in the field of the farm, the utensils and dishes in the kitchen, the traditional dress at a wedding ceremony.

In addition to Dal, we were accompanied by Hari the storyteller and Dal's wife, Birkha. Terry got some new insight into the details of the story that will help her with the writing. We learned that millet would be growing in the field, that cooked lentils are mashed by twirling a pirke,

and about the ghumpta which the bride would wear on her head at the wedding.

I am so thankful to Terry Farish for including me in the project, the NH Humanities Council for funding it, and the generosity and patience of Dal and Hari and their family and friends who welcome us into their homes, guide us through the process, and share delicious food. The Story of a Pumpkin moves forward.

Book Arts Tuesday-Carol Barton's Pop-ups

2011-10-04T07:00:00.002-04:00

I love pop-ups but don't use them very often in my teaching and never in my work. I do follow and admire the work of Carol Barton. She has published two excellent books on the subject. Here's the description of The Pocket Paper Engineer, Volume 1.

The Pocket Paper Engineer, Volume 1, is a lively how-to workbook that guides the reader through the process of designing and constructing basic pop-up forms. Filled with do-it-yourself models and easy-to-follow visual and verbal instructions, each form is illustrated with a playful pull-out card that can be cut and assembled, then stored in a pocket within the book. Also included are instructions for creating your own pop-ups, production tips, and discussions about paper, adhesive, and pop-up mechanics. This is a workbook for adults and children alike who are seeking some creative fun!

You can order copies at the Popular Kinetics Press website. You'll also find a gallery of pop-ups made by Carol and her adult and child students, a link to her blog The Popular Edge: Pop-Up and Book Arts News, and information about her classes. On the Meet the Artist page there's a link to Carol's podcast interview with Steve Miller for "Book Arts and Poets".

Popular Kinetics Press

Studio Sunday-Organizing Plastic Bags

2011-10-02T09:12:00.002-04:00

More from the studio cleaning: Here are before and after pictures of my plastic bag drawer. Sue Williams from South Africa sent me an email after a previous post which showed my overflowing drawer. She kindly sent me directions for a way to fold plastic bags with handles for storage. Here are her directions with photos I took of the process.

Fold in sides and then flatten the bags with handles at the top.Then fold over in half lengthways and then again and may be again if a big bag. You should now have a long narrow strip of folded bag!

Starting at the bottom, fold over to make a small triangle and then the other way until you reach the top.

Use the handles to fold over your "fat" triangle and store in your drawer.

Thanks Sue!

Dinosaur Time Line Accordion Book & Giveaway

2011-10-01T06:52:00.000-04:00

October is International Dinosaur Month. It doesn't seem to get the attention I would think it would, but it's a good reason to make a book about dinosaurs. The first book I ever made with a group of children is pictured below—a Dinosaur Time Line with my son's Montessori preschool class twenty-two years ago. I had run the paper through a copier so the writing was already there and made slits in the paper (cover stock actually) ahead of time. The kids threaded the ribbon through the slits and using stamps and pictures, put the dinosaurs in the proper time period.

The current project reflects the changes I have made to my teaching over the years. I used one panel of a grocery bag cut in half the long way (recycled materials) and a hole punch for holes instead of an exacto knife for slits (the simplest tools and materials). Making this book brought me back to my son's preschool days when these complicated Latin dinosaur names rolled off our tongues.

Materials:
Long piece of paper (I used one panel of a grocery bag cut in half the long way)
Hole punch
Piece of yarn (or ribbon) an arm-length long

Making the Book:

1. Fold the paper in half.

2. Take the side edge of the top layer, fold it back to meet fold, and crease.

3. Turn the paper over so the big side is on top.

4. Take the side edge, fold it back to meet fold, and crease.

5. Punch a hole through all the layers on either side of the folded accordion towards the top. When I do this with young chuildren, I quickly go around and punch the holes. If the group is large, it's good to have some extra adults or older children to help.

6. Open the accordion and stand the book up so that if you look at it from side you see the letter "W."

7. To prevent the yarn from fraying, fold the edge over to make a small loop before threading it through the holes. With younger children, you may find it helpful to wrap one end of the yarn with tape or dip it in white glue ahead of time so they don't have to do this step.

8. Starting on the outside of the W (either side is fine), push the yarn through the top hole.

9. Pull the yarn and insert the end into the next hole on the same page.

10. Turn the paper over, go over the mountain fold, and insert the end of the yarn into the next hole. Turn the paper over again.

11. Continue until the yarn is threaded through all the holes. Adjust the yarn so that there is an even amount on each side of the book.

Dinosaur Links:
Dinosaur Printouts from Enchanted Learning

Dinosaur Resources from TeacherVision

Prehistoric Life from the BBC including a video of a scientist who studies ostriches to see how fast Tyrannosaurus Rex could run

And if you're in New York, on exhibit at the American Museum of Natural History—The World's Largest Dinosaurs—and of course their usual great fossil exhibits

Giveaway!

A copy of the most recent Letter Arts Review which contains my article about teaching bookmaking to children. Here's the blog post I wrote about it. Leave a comment and enter into a random drawing which closes midnight on Wednesday, October 5.

Book Arts Tuesday-Bookbinding Now Podcasts

2011-09-27T10:11:00.000-04:00

I recently discovered Bookbinding Now. The biweekly podcasts are hosted by Susan Mills. I feel like I have companions in the studio as I listen to the interviews with a wide range of people involved in the book arts. So far I've listened to interviews with Karen Hanmer, Peter Verheyen, miniature book collector Neale Albert, and Tara Bryan from Newfoundland and look forward to more (18 recorded so far). There are different interviewers as well as interviewees and lots of fascinating questions and responses.

You can download the podcast on itunes.

And take a look at Susan Mills' website. I particularly like the Garden Ledger with pages of pressed harvest from the garden.

Studio Sunday-A Clean Desk

2011-09-25T20:24:00.000-04:00

One of the most popular quotes when I sold small matted calligraphy many years ago was by Justice Felix Frankfurter: "A clean desk represents an empty mind." Looking at my newly cleaned desk, I prefer now to take inspiration from this quote by the medieval mystic Meister Ekhart which I first read in Lewis Hyde's The Gift: "Let us borrow empty vessels."

Before I turned sixty last weekend, I had a deep urge to do a major cleaning and sorting of the studio to welcome the new decade but life got in the way. I find the cleaning and sorting process a way to think about where I have been and where I am going—a good way to get my head as well the physical space in order. And what better time than a zero year birthday for that.

When I began to gather work last week for my exhibit at the Word and Image Gallery at Bright Hill Literary Center in Treadwell, NY, I found myself missing four framed Emily Dickinson pieces. I took it as a sign that now was the time for the big cleaning/sorting. I was surprised to find the four pieces unframed in a print paper box with a post-it note on top saying "to be framed." Since there are 31 framed and ready to go, they will not be missed and none were in the favorite category.

The front of the studio (what was the porch when we moved in) is the desk and computer area. There is a long narrow space which is mostly storage and then the back opens up again and that is where construction takes place. I'm working back and forth at both ends and putting all the things to find homes for in the middle.

This is one corner of my desk. The lamp is new, purchased at IKEA a while ago but found yesterday while cleaning a cabinet. Also bittersweet in an old bottle filled with blue corn, a tea light candle holder filled with lavender, an array of markers and colored pencils, a plexi cube with Emily Dickinson images, my autumn image, a teapot with a cup resting on top, and a little standing file with slots for my phone message book (so much less used in this era of email), a folder for banking, outgoing mail, and index cards with computer directions (sad how things I learn don't stick unless I use them all the time).

Autumn 2011

2011-09-23T16:36:00.000-04:00

On this first day of autumn,
light equals dark, dark equals light.
Wishing you balance and tranquility.

Uncommon Threads at 23 Sandy in Portand OR

2011-09-21T16:49:00.000-04:00

Uncommon Threads: Handicrafts in Book Arts opens at 23 Sandy Gallery in Portland, OR on September 23 and runs through October 29. There is an Artists Reception on Friday, October 7 from 5-8 pm and an Artist Walk Through Event on Saturday, October 8 at 4 pm. The gallery hours are Thursday through Saturday from 12-6 pm and by appointment.

You can view the catalog online as well as purchase a printed copy. And read Laura's description of the jurying process for the show, Behind the Scenes of Jurying an Exhibition: An amazing week with Uncommon Threads, on the blog.

I have one piece in the exhibit—Spirit Book #49: Creative Generosity.

Book Arts Tuesday/Banned Book Week

2011-09-20T15:52:00.001-04:00

Sam Ellenport posted on the Book Arts List today about the American Library Association website for this year's Banned Book Week which is September 24-October 1, 2011. It sent me searching for artists responses, in particular artists books. Here are some interesting links to check out:

ALA Banned Book Week: Lots of interesting material for librarians to use to promote Banned Book Week—display ideas, activity ideas, a PSA script, a letter to the editor, a First Amendment Film Festival of suggested fiction and documentary films, and a list of banned books in 2011.

Banned & Recovered: Artists Intervention—an online version of a traveling exhibition organized into four themed sections—Banning Books and the First Amendment at a Crossfire, Literary Works on Trial, Race, Gender and Justice, and Burning Books: The Extreme Ban.

Here's the description from the website:

The idea for this exhibit, as envisioned by curator Hanna Regev, is rooted in the changed world of post 9-11, the “Patriot Act” and its effects on libraries and librarians. It also comes from a quote penned by Judy Blume, a children’s author:

“It’s not just the books under fire now that worry me. It is the books that will never be written. The books that will never be read. And all due to the fear of censorship. As always, young readers will be the real losers.”
Thirty-seven contemporary artists created new works of art inspired by titles from the long list of banned and challenged books.

In keeping with the theme “free people create freely,” participants were not hindered by restrictions or guidelines, but left to interpret their chosen title however they wished. The result is a spectacular collection of witty, whimsical, angry, and thought-provoking statements about the ramifications of censorship and the importance of free speech.

Through original book art, mixed media, paintings, photographs, and multi-media art, this exhibition brings to light historic bannings and challenge attempts that continue to threaten our First Amendment rights today.

This traveling exhibition was inspired by Banned & Recovered: Artists Respond to Censorship, which was on display at the San Francisco Center for the Book and the African American Museum and Library in Oakland in 2008.

For viewing the gallery of images, you may find it easier on their flickr page.

Authors of Mischief: an exhibition in Philadelphia in 2008.

From the press release:

From the Canterbury Tales to Ulysses, the Rosenbach Museum & Library’s collection is full of books that have been banned, challenged or censored. To mark Banned Books Week, an annual celebration of the freedom to read, the museum will present Authors of Mischief, in conjunction with Philadelphia Center for the Book. The juried exhibition features contemporary artist books on themes related to banned books, censorship and control. Authors of Mischief features the work of R. D. Burton, Monica Kane, Amee J. Pollack and Laurie Spitz, Jude Robison, and Miriam Schaer.

The Tower of Babel, a 35-meter tower of banned books by Argentinian artist Marta Minujin in Buenos Aires.

Huckleberry, a song for Banned Book Week 2008 on youtube

And should you live in Michigan, the Kalamazoo Public Library is having a Banned Books Art Contest. Work is due on October 5. Artists must be MI residents. Two categories—junior (grades 7-12) and senior (over 18).

More On Outdoor Sculpture at Maudslay

2011-09-19T20:35:00.000-04:00

Saturday was the Artist Walk which I always enjoy. It is both instructive and inspirational to hear the artists talk about their process. I was thinking I'd be speaking early as I was toward the beginning of the trail but due to a Theater in the Open performance in the park, the order was switched and I had to leave before my turn.

I did walk past mine on the way out and noticed that some of the books were slipping on their strings. My test in the garden was with a thicker jute strings which held better. I returned today and tied a small piece of the green jute under the knot that tied each book to the string.

Come and add your offering. There are only a few blank books left but quite a few blank pages as not all books are completely filled. They are being written and drawn in by all ages and are filled with joy and appreciation of the park. I'm looking forward to binding them all in a larger book after the exhibition closes.

The exhibit at Maudslay State Park continues until October 1. Lots of great work. The theme of play is fun!

Studio Sunday/New Spirit Book

2011-09-18T19:34:00.000-04:00

When I exhibited the Spirit Book in the Carney Gallery at Regis College in Weston, MA in 2005, I thought it was the end of the series. After a long break, I decided that I missed making them and have three underway. This is Spirit Book #51. As yet it is unnamed. All the sections are made and I need to put them together—always a joy—and then make the base from binders board and paper—my least favorite part.

Book Arts Tuesday/Book Installation at Maudslay

2011-09-13T21:56:00.000-04:00

Saturday was installation day at Maudslay and three days later, I am breathing a sigh of relief. The work is up, it looks good, and visitors are participating. The theme of the exhibit is Play and I titled mine Play at Maudslay. I was inspired by a quote from the book Free Play: Improvisation in Life and Art by Stephen Nachmanovitch:

I wanted others to have the opportunity to experience the play of a creative act and decided the best way was to involve them in creating a part of the piece. My original intention was to involve people before the installation so that a completed piece would exist from the start. I am now thankful that summer schedules and busy lives stopped that from happening. Seeing it now, it is absolutely perfect that those who come to the park can take part on the spot.
Twelve green jute strings were tied around the tree branch. The books are made of Tyvek and tied to the jute with flat synthetic cord that I have had for years. Weights at the bottom allow the strings to sway in the wind but keeps them straight. If I had small children, I would have known that the first thing they would do with the hanging weights was try to make them hit each other.
I spent the day at the park slowly making and putting up the books and encouraging all who came by to take part. Susan, a facebook friend, came with her mother and daughter and were joined at the picnic table (very conveniently located nearby) by some teenage girls. I certainly enjoy making books with kids in schools but my absolute favorite thing is when different generations join together in creative activity.

I will be a frequent visitor until the show comes down on October 2. On Sunday afternoon, I saw this group

And today this lovely little book with a child's drawing and an adult's writing.
Thanks so much to Steve Hill for the top photograph. We'd never met before but he was touring the park with his camera and took some photos which he kindly shared with me. He does freelance photograph for Kelly Chadwick Photography should you want to contact him.
Outdoor Sculpture at Maudslay will be on exhibit until Sunday, October 2. The park is open daily from 8 AM to dusk. You can find information and directions at Maudslay State Park. Saturday, September 17 at 2 PM is the reception and Artist Walk. I always enjoy hearing the artists describe their process.

Studio Sunday/ Boxes and Bittersweet

2011-09-11T18:33:00.001-04:00

In the front of the studio, where it's usually kept clear as this is the path from the front door into the house, today there are boxes holding Spirit Books and bittersweet. The Spirit Books are usually stored elsewhere in the house, but I gave my first Skype workshop (great fun—more later) last week and these were the books I used for a show and tell.

And then today I gathered bittersweet to decorate the house. I usually don't manage it this early but this is the best time to gather it for fall decorating before the yellow cases open to reveal the orange berries. There are several kinds of bittersweet. The native Celastrus scandens or American Bittersweet is not a problem but the more common Asian Bittersweet, Celastrus orbiculatus, is. For all its fall beauty, it's is an incredibly invasive plant with birds spreading the seeds far and wide. The vines wind around trees and eventually strangle them. I only put it in the house—never outside—and when I replace the fall vines with winter greens, I make sure the berries are in the trash not the barrel for brush.

Guest Post at A Bit of This & A Bit of That

2011-09-09T13:29:00.001-04:00

Jo Ebisujima invited me to take part in the New Skills Festival at her blog, A Bit of This & A Bit of That. During the month of September she has invited guests to introduce different craft projects. So far making vegan soap, a fall banner from burlap, an adorable felted ninja, a bento box wrap, and a dreamboard collage. Coming: making an envelope, a patchwork tote, carving rubber stamps, and more.

And today: Book making with Susan.

Jo is from the UK and lives in Japan with her husband and son. Her blog is full of recipes, craft projects, and family life in Japan. Stop by and visit.

Book Arts Tuesday/The Greenwich Village Bookshop Door

2011-09-06T20:13:00.001-04:00

On facebook, I learned about The Greenwich Village Bookshop Door: A Portal to Bohemia 1920-1925, a great virtual exhibit from the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas in Austin. Thank you Mary Baughman. I'm extending book arts to include bookstores because they are places which bring us into direct contact with the wonderful object of the book.

This exhibit pays tribute to an object in their collection—the painted door of the Greenwich Village Bookshop with signatures from a collection of writers and artists in New York from 1920 to 1925. Here's how Molly Schwartzburg, Cline Curator of Literature, describes it:

This exhibition reconstructs the bookshop and its community. The door is not accompanied by an archive of the bookshop, so this project seeks to create a virtual "archive" on the web. Artifacts gathered from across the Ransom Center's collections provide audiences with documentation of the shop's operations and the lives and careers of its customers. This is an ongoing project: we hope that audience participation will enrich the project with further information. Explore The Door to learn about the lives, careers, and relationships of almost 200 identified signatures—and help us identify those signatures that remain mysteries. Read the forgotten history of The Shop, immerse yourself in The Village, and visualize the many connections among The Bohemians who browsed the shop's shelves.

...The rich resources of the web are, of course, a bittersweet development for those of us who have long loved browsing, talking, and learning from each other in bookstores. While resources on the internet have fostered this project, they have also led directly to the closure of thousands of bookstores over the last decade. We hope that telling the story of this shop and its community will encourage audiences to be mindful of the history of bookstores, bookselling, book buying, and the power of place, as we experience this moment of enormous change.

There is lots to see here. I especially liked Edna St. Vincent Millay's A Few Figs from Thistles published by Frank Shay, the bookshop's owner in 1920. You can view all the pages and zoom in to see detail. This is just one of the many treasures awaiting.

Studio Sunday/Bins

2011-09-04T09:59:00.000-04:00

I've been asked how I keep all my materials, especially recycled, organized. It was a matter of necessity as I packed and unpacked materials for workshops. I am so lucky to have space. And a part of that space is filled with stacked plastic slide-out bins. I think the Rubbermaid ones are better but I have a cheaper version from Tom's Discount. I have 24 and used to have even more.

I started with the bins when I was bringing all the paper and materials to my workshops, before these recycling days of paper bags, cereal boxes, and used copy paper. I used to buy paper from a printer pre-cut in specific sizes and had a drawer for each size and sometimes for each color. When I first started, I kept the paper unsorted in a stack of boxes from the printer but packing was tedious. My daughter was at a Montessori preschool where there were stacks of bins in the classroom with a bin for each child. I adapted the idea for my studio.

Here's what's in this stack:

Stencils and Patterns

I love the Fun with Stencils books with 6 pre-cut stencils in each and reasonably priced. There are ones on Dinosaurs, Flowers, Northwest Indian, Pirates, Egypt, and many more. I've seen them in bookstores, card shops, and toy stores. I order mine directly from Dover Publications, Inc. for the largest selection. I use these most often in family workshops. There are also some patterns I use for specific projects like the ones for the dreidel accordion book which you see here.

Recycled Stuff

This drawer has miscellaneous recycled things I'm saving for book projects. It used to contain rubber stamps but I reduced my collection as I don't bring them to workshops anymore. They make more of a mess and I find that stencils, markers, and collage papers offer inspiration enough.

Index Cards

I use index cards a lot for accordion books (directions for Index Card Accordion Book) and keep a selection on hand. Also in this drawer are a bunch of little pads of bright colored paper that I bought on sale at Staples. I think they're a little small for what I had in mind so they may be going into the donation bin.

Plastic Bags

No matter how much I try to bring my own bags, plastic bags do find their way into the house. I keep the nicest colored ones. As of now, my main use is to cut them in strips and and use them for ties but you never know when a new idea might come along.

Ribbon

I don't use ribbon as much as I used to but still have a healthy collection. For accordion ties, it is flatter than yarn and makes a more attractive book.

Card Stock

This is the last of my collection of paper from the printer.

Maudslay Installation Takes Shape

2011-09-02T11:49:00.000-04:00

Every year my Maudslay installation starts with an idea and a vague plan of how I will actually execute it. I can be so cavalier because I know my husband will solve the situation for me. He has come through again and I have a test version of it hanging from the dogwood in the back yard.

My piece this year is one that only an optimist could make. It's called Play at Maudslay and is collaborative installation of books. I need others to make it a reality. VIcki Hendrickson who heads the Newburyport Literary Festival helped get it started by assembling members of the steering committee for a fun evening of bookmaking.

I will be inviting all who come by on the day of the installation, Saturday, September 10 from 11-3, to make a book. And to extend participation into the run of the exhibit there will be blank books mixed in with the completed ones and markers available. Again the optimist. I hope people don't take the makers home and put the tops back on tightly. If you're in the area on the 10th, please stop by. I'll be along one of the main paths into the park called Hedge Drive on the map.

Here's the tree.

Maudslay State Park
Curzon, Mill Road, Newburyport, MA
The exhibit runs from September 11-October 2.
Reception and Walk Through with the Artists, September 17, 2-5 pm

Wish Scroll for the New & GIveaway

2011-09-01T09:51:00.004-04:00

I live by three calendars—the one where the seasons change on the solstices and equinoxes, the traditional Celtic calendar where the seasons begin at the midpoints between, and the school calendar. After sixteen years of being a student, four years of teaching swimming for the Boston School Department, twenty-plus years of teaching bookmaking, and twenty-three years of kids' education (two kids six years apart), the year starts in September.

This Wish Scroll (which is based on scrolls from Ethiopia and one of the sixteen projects in Handmade Books For A Healthy Planet) contains wishes for the new. The idea is that if the scroll is worn, the wish will come true. You can make a scroll for yourself or one for someone else.

I used to use film containers but they have become less available. Now I often use used prescription containers. If you collect them from others, I suggest you ask them to remove the label. For paper, I used used copy paper with writing on one side, folded in half the long way, and then glued together. Whatever paper you use, you'll cut it to be a little taller than the container.

I made the scroll before the case but in workshops, I make the case first. You'll also need tape, a piece of yarn about an arm-length long (36"/91.4 cm for those who like to measure), and a piece of paper to wrap around the case a little shorter than its height. I decorated mine before but you can also do it after the case is complete. For more decoration, I strung buttons (you can also use beads) onto a piece of crochet cotton and tied it to the yarn.

Make the case:

With a small piece of tape, attach one end of the yarn to the one side of the container at the top. Do the same on the opposite side.

Wrap another piece of tape all around the top to help secure it.

Put glue on the back side of the cover paper and attach it to the case.

Add Buttons or Beads:

This is an extra touch which is fun but not necessary. If I were doing this with a group of younger children, I wouldn't do it unless I had a lot of extra adults to help.

Thread buttons or beads onto a piece of thread. I used crochet cotton. For most buttons you need something thinner than yarn.

Tie the end of the thread around the yarn on one side of the case near the top.

Tie the other end of the thread to the other side. This is a little trickier because you need to keep the beads on the thread and have the thread an appropriate length when you tie it.

And Finally:

Roll up the scroll and put it in the case.

You can find ideas for a Wish Scroll here.

GIVEAWAY!

A signed copy of Handmade Books For A Healthy Planet to a randomly drawn commenter. Please make sure your email address is in the comment so I can contact you. You can write out the word at to avoid spammers. The Giveaway will close on Saturday, 9.3,11, at midnight.

On the Appalachian Trail

2011-08-31T14:18:00.001-04:00

My son is on the Appalachian Trail. I'm enjoying his blog posts and thought I'd share the link: http://shortcuttoneworleans.wordpress.com/

Here's a taste of his writing:

This is from the outrageously awesome sunset I enjoyed on Bird Mountain with a Scottish hiker named Jim, who’s wife was vacationing in NYC while he had his fun for a few days in the woods. I made a fire and whooshed it to life as the stars came in to focus. My breathe grew the flames and the light poured back out towards the beaming stars like some sweet savage call and response song from way back when. ‘Hi stars, I’m here.’ Then the moon climbed the mountain and the night was lit up like a 711 parking lot. My fire didn’t seem as impressive next to the moon so I went to bed.

Book Arts Tuesday/23 Sandy Gallery

2011-08-30T13:55:00.000-04:00

23 Sandy Gallery is located in Portland, Oregon. I wish it weren't on the opposite coast but the great thing is that owner Laura Russell uses the web to make it accessible from anywhere. Here's she describes the gallery:

23 Sandy Gallery is a fine art gallery located just east of downtown, in Portland’s central east side arts district. We present local and national artists working in contemporary book arts, painting, photography and printmaking. The gallery also serves as a community gathering space with lectures, workshops, salons, readings and more.

Pages to spend time on:

Artists in Inventory: Each artist gets a page with biography, statement, and images of work. The largest representation goes to book artists, but there are also painters, photographers, and broadsides. All of the work shown is for sale. Above photo is of Look Towards Home by Mary Beth Boone.

Blog: Laura has a great blog featuring exhibits and artists as well as helpful posts on the Business of Being An Artist like "Photographing Your Artwork" and "How To Get Your Work Into Art Galleries". Laura also has a workshop available called Marketing 101 for Book Artists.

Past Exhibitions: Each exhibition has an online catalog.Above photo is from Mary Bennett's 1,983 Rejections: 3 Acceptances.

I hope you enjoy your virtual visit to 23 Sandy Gallery. And do visit Laura's own website and see her books at Simply Books, Ltd.

Website Update Part One

2011-08-29T18:04:00.001-04:00

I am very excited! Two tedious days of fiddling with html in my very inefficient (a serious understatement) way has concluded with an update to my art pages at susangaylord.com. I hope you'll take a look.

susangaylord.com

Part Two will be an update of makingbooks.com. I'll let you know when that's ready.

Studio Sunday/Printer Directions

2011-08-28T12:26:00.000-04:00

A short post for a stormy day. I got a new printer which I love (an Epson Workforce 60 on the recommendation of Karen Hanmer, purchased because I wanted to be able to print with archival ink) except that the paper needs to be loaded with the printable side face down—the opposite of my last inkjet printer and my laser printer which I use for black and white. I finally accepted that it was beyond my ability to remember and put this sign on top. So far so good.

Travelling Morrice in Newburyport, MA

2011-08-24T14:27:00.001-04:00

Yesterday the American Travelling Morrice, a group of Morris dancers who gather for a week each summer, came to our little city of Newburyport. I heard about their tour on the Revels facebook page and was thrilled to find they were coming here.

Here's how they describe themselves on their website:

Morris dancing is an English country tradition, with roots in medieval street theatre. For hundreds of years, teams of white-clad men have capered and stepped through the intricate patterns of the dance, clashing wooden sticks and waving handkerchiefs in time to lively traditional tunes.

The American Travelling Morrice continues this tradition for a week each summer, bringing the morris dance to a new geographical region. Since 1976, the men have toured throughout New York, New England and Pennsylvania, with performances at such settings as The House of Seven Gables, Newport Folk Festival, Old Montreal, and the White House.

A morris “stand” is a colorful spectacle indeed. The dancers, with small bells strapped to their legs, leap through complex figures accompanied by the music of the accordion, fiddle, or the ancient pipe and tabor. Directing the proceedings with comical grace is the all-licensed Fool, whose antics amuse the onlookers and harass the dancers. Moreover, it was thought in ancient times that morris dancing brought good luck and prosperity to the community.

Today I had to take the time to make a small book celebrating the occasion using photos printed from the computer, two copies of the little brochures they handed out, and a cereal box panel.