We truly live in a small world. In January of this year I received this email:
My name is Valery and I am a Peace Corps Volunteer teaching at a small high school in rural Cambodia.
I'd like to thank you so much for all the information on your Making Books website! I am using it to have my students create storybooks and fill it with their own stories. To them, making these little books are more than just a small activity.
The arts in Cambodia, especially creative writing, were pretty much destroyed and discouraged during the time of the Khmer Rouge. It continues to affect Cambodian education today. None of my students have ever been encouraged in school to use their imagination and write their own story. My students have all been busy working on writing their own stories and they LOVE it. They will also illustrate the stories and then present them to fellow students. I also plan on finding and inviting a Cambodian writer to come and speak to the students.
And then in June:
I wanted to provide you with an update. I managed to team up with the school and some other Peace Corps Volunteers and got the materials to create the books! About 20 students wrote their own short story and created a book and illustrated it. We drew inspiration from your blog and techniques and then incorporated local materials and student knowledge to create the final product. They came out great and the students had a good time! They also showed off their books at a Peace Corps Volunteer-run arts festival. They were a hit and also unique- they were the only students who did books. I think we inspired some others! Here are some pictures. I will certainly do this again next year for my students and will use your blog. Thanks for such a wonderful resource!
Here are some photos of the books. Congratulations to Valery and her students!
Valery also asked that I share a link with the Peace Corps Partnership people can directly donate to a Volunteer's projects. All proceeds go to the Volunteer for the project and it is also tax deductible! Here is the link: Find a Volunteer Project | Donate to Volunteer Projects | Peace Corps. For example, a Volunteer in her country of service (Cambodia) is trying to raise money for a national spelling bee.
I had a wonderful afternoon on Saturday at the "Pumpkin Patch", a family-friendly Halloween Party organized by the Sudbury Valley Trustees at Wolbach Farm. Bookmaking was just one of the many activities. I was in the barn along with candle making, a display of books and art by Gordon Morrison (he also led a drawing session outside), refreshments, and toe-tapping music from The Whiskey Boys.
Austin was the first to arrive at the bookmaking tables and we made a little accordion book with newspaper ghosts. After so many years of working with large groups of children, it was a delight to spend one-on-one time with one child. After we made the book, we spent time opening and closing the accordion and saying "Boo!"
I have completed the final step of All Our Voices: The Lowell Women's Week 2012 Public Art Project: preparing the books for the LWW Archives at the Center for Lowell History. While I am very organized in my teaching, I am not a planner when it comes to my art. Anything that involves my personal making of something tends to evolve rather than be planned ahead even if I think I have a plan. My intention was to bind all the books together into one big book for the archives. I envisioned this wonderful twisting, turning book full of voices. There were two things wrong with this picture. One was that we had many more books than I expected. I didn't do a complete count but it was well over 200, probably closer to 300. The thought of putting this large collection of books of different sizes and shapes together was overwhelming and I didn't feel up to the task. The other was how exactly this unwieldy object would then be placed in the archives.
In addition to these practical considerations, I also came to feel that binding all the books together was not the right treatment. As part of the process I photographed all the books and loved my intimate connection with each. I realized that the experience I wanted anyone who came to view the archives to have was the same as mine. It was an interesting thought to make this public art piece into an art piece of a different sort and to put my personal stamp on it through the binding process but what All Our Voices really needed was an honoring of the individual voices by allowing the books to be viewed on their own.
The Lowell Women's Week Public Art Committee put their faith in me from the beginning and we all worked together and adjusted our plans as the project developed. I am especially appreciative that they were happy to go along with my recommendation for this final change. I packed the books in two archival boxes and accompanied each with a small portfolio of images and information from the exhibit.
You can see all the books on flickr in three sets: Part 1
The "Poetry Fence" has just come down. Part of the Newburyport Literary Festival, it was in front of the Newburyport Public Library for two weeks. The project began last fall after I installed my piece at Outdoor Sculpture at Maudslay. I had purchased a large roll of tyvek for the project and had lots left over, including pre-cut pieces just ready to be made into books. I knew that the Newburyport Literary Festival would be focusing on poetry in 2012 and remembered the PoeTree Project I had done with students when poetry was previously the focus. Then, the students wrote poems on strips of tyvek which hung from trees around town.
We got permission from the library to use the fence and then I contacted Pat Levitt, one of the fourth grade teachers at the Molin Upper Elementary School in Newburyport. I knew that the fourth grades spent a lot of time on poetry throughout the year as I had made books with them a few years ago. They were interested and it all began.
I visited the Molin in late March and spent three hours working with the 8 fourth grade classes in four groups of two with the help of Nancy Smith, a fellow Festival volunteer. We made a practice Hot Dog Booklet from recycled paper that they could use for a draft copy and then a larger one from tyvek to withstand the outdoors. We spent a few minutes talking about the books. I suggested that each book should contain one poem and some simple illustrations. Waterproof Sharpie markers were left for the students to use to write and draw in their books. Two and a half weeks later, a bag of colorful books arrived at my door.
More Festival volunteers (Nancy again and Lucia Greene and Linda Harding) joined me for a morning of attaching a string to each book for hanging on the fence. Lucia and I then spent a morning installing the books. With Lucia on her knees on the ground and me in a crouch, it was beginning to get painful. Luckily I got the idea to borrow a few library stools—what a relief!
The poems were well-received. I got reports of young and old reading the poems and many positive comments about the quality of the poetry and the presentation. Thanks to all who made it happen. And to Alyson Aiello who interviewed me for a blog post about Poetry, Art and Children at Newburyport Today.
Here is South Common Haiku lettered on brown paper for a sandwich board sign for today's event. After it dries, I'll trim it. I'm packing up the materials—string, hole punches, scissors, velcro coins, bone folders, and haiku cards. It will be a true community effort—attendees will read the poems and bind the books.
Three community bookmaking projects are awaiting the next step. First (above) will be preparing the books from the fourth grade students at the Molin School in Newburyport for the Poetry Fence that will be installed in front of the Newburyport Public Library a week from tomorrow. Three other Newburyport Literary Festival volunteers will be joining me on Tuesday to thread them for hanging.
Above are bins with the books from Lowell Women's Week. My original thought was to bind them all into one long book (method yet to be determined) but there are so many that I think there will be four separate books in boxes for the LWW Archives at the Lowell Center for History. The smaller box below contains the books from the Maudslay installation last fall. As they will be the model for the LWW books, they will be bound first. I had expected that task would be long done but...
Lowell Women's Week, a celebration of the women who have come before us to the women of today, has taken place at the beginning of every March (Women's History Month) since 1996. In 2000, the Public Art Committee and Project were created as a way for the “voices” of Lowell’s girls and women to be given positive public attention and regard while giving girls and women a creative opportunity.
I lived in the Lowell area from 1977 and 1985 and consider Lowell the place where my life as an artist began. While I was living in North Billerica —unemployed and directionless—a chance request from a high school friend reconnected me with my occasional interest in calligraphy and I fell in love. I eventually went on to do lots of commercial calligraphy work in the city and get involved in the art scene such as it was in those days. I was a founding member of Art Alive! The Greater Lowell Art Co-op which had a gallery on Merrimack Street courtesy of the National Park Service.
Anne Mulvey, one of the Public Art Committee members, has been a friend since the old Lowell days. We both now live in Newburyport. We often talked about Lowell Women's Week and this year Anne and Irene Egan of Visiting Nurse Association of Greater Lowell, Inc. (a new friend from my new Lowell days) decided we would design a project together and apply for a grant from the Lowell Cultural Council, which we did receive.
Of course my first choice was to make books. Last year's piece of hanging books at Maudslay Outdoor Sculpture was a great success and I wanted to use that as a model. We began our planning in September with a visit there.
Two things that came up in our early conversation was the fact that the public art exhibit was often located in places out of the mainstream and that it was not able to be viewed at the key event of Lowell Women's Week—the breakfast. I decided that we needed something portable and found a free-standing collapsible clothesline online. We chose the Pollard Memorial Library for its central location and public access as well as its connection with books. Sean Thibodeau, the Community Planning Librarian, was receptive and has been a great help throughout the process.
Here was my initial sketch with my sample books added:
This year's Lowell Women's Week theme was All Our Voices and we chose that for our title as well. Our suggested prompt for the books' content was "I am." We used recycled bags for the books, both brown paper from the grocery store and colored shopping bags from department and clothing stores. We provided materials and training and reached out to groups across the city.
I created a training video and written directions and we had a well-attended "Training the Trainers" session at the library.
While Anne and Irene kindly give me lots of credit for the success of it all, it was their tireless work of outreach to the community that made it happen. Without the books and the "voices," there would have been no project. They sent letters and emails, made phone calls and follow-up phone calls, led workshops themselves, and picked up books. Some of the groups who took part were:
Bridget’s Crossing, Brush Gallery & Artists’ Studios, Christ Church United Sunbeams, Lowell, Family Literacy Center, Girls Incorporated of Greater Lowell, Girl Scout & Brownie Troops of Greater Lowell, Living Waters, Lowell General Hospital Art through Healing, Lowell Women’s Week Planning Committee, Middlesex Community College Multicultural Center, Morey School, RARA (Remarkable, Active, Resilient Adults), Tsongas Industrial History Center, UMass Lowell Department of Psychology, UMass Lowell Office of Disability Services, UMass Lowell Office of Student Activities, UMass Lowell Protestant Campus Ministry, and Visiting Nurse Association of Greater Lowell, Inc.
We gathered here along with Anne's partner Donna to assemble the installation last Saturday. We started by threading crochet cotton through the top of each book. This was used to tie the books to the pieces of ribbon that hung from the clothesline.
One of my lesser skills is estimating how much time things will take. A little math would have helped. Such as: If it takes 4 minutes to tie the string on each book and there are 250 books, how many minutes would that be? Answer (alas calculated now instead of then): 1,000 minutes, which when divided by 60 is 16.6 hours, which when divided by 4 people is a little over 4 hours. In a feeble defense, I will say that we didn't know we would be getting that many books (a pleasant surprise until the sky darkened as we worked) and I was kind of winging it as to the final assembly so I hesitated to expand the group beyond our little well-acquainted band.
After adding threads to all the books at the dining room table, we moved to the studio where the clothesline was set up. It had been modified after my husband and technical helper had looked at it and said, "It's too short." Our friend Ed Eaton fabricated a center piece to extend the height. It also added some needed weight to the assembled structure and made it more sturdy.
We laid the books on my worktable and tied them to ribbons which I then hung from the clothesline with binder clips. At its final assembly at the library, I also stapled the ribbon at the top for added strength.
I did the finishing touches on Sunday morning including the sign at the top and then took it apart for travel. We reassembled it at Lenzi's in Dracut where it was ready and waiting for the breakfasters the following morning. It was wonderful to see so many people viewing the books and actually taking time to read them.
Then it was time to take it apart and transport it to the Pollard Memorial Library. We installed it there in the first floor landing of the grand staircase.
Tuesday evening was the reception. We were thrilled that many of the book makers came, especially the large group of Brownies and Girl Scouts. I had a few moments of panic when several different girls looked up at me with sad eyes and said, "I can't find my book." But all were found and all was well. We chose not to hang the books by group because we wanted to visually vary the sizes, shapes, and colors of the books. I think it also made the viewing process more interesting.
If at any point in the process we became bogged down by details and the work involved, this entry in the guest book is a reminder of why we did it and the power of creativity and expression for all.
View photos of the process and some of the books on flickr.
All Our Voices continues until March 31 at the Pollard Memorial Library, 401 Merrimack Street, Lowell, MA. After it closes, the books will be bound together and archived in the Center for Lowell History.
This program is supported in part by a grant from the Lowell Cultural Council, a local agency which is supported by the Massachusetts Cultural Council, a state agency.
to my online studio and journal where I share my art and my thoughts on the creative process and the artist's life. Your comments are most welcome here and by email: susan(at)susangaylord.com.
The Keepsake Books videos were created in response to the pandemic and this time of uncertainty and isolation. Engaging in creative activity and expression has always helped me stay grounded. I share these videos with the hope that making books may do the same for you.
