Poetry Month-The South Common Haiku Project

I spent a lovely afternoon with haiku by my friend Paul Marion. We are working together on the South Common Haiku Book Project. We first talked about doing something together about thirty years ago when I was deep in lettering and not yet involved in bookmaking and we tossed around occasional ideas in the intervening years. Last year Paul started posting haiku about the South Common in Lowell on facebook and I immediately thought that here was the opportunity we had been waiting for. We met just after Christmas and the plan grew into an event with the official title of the South Common Haiku Book Project: An Earth Day Celebration in Lowell which will take place on Sunday, April 22.

I am hand-lettering Paul's haiku and creating the book design and pages. People who come to the event will bind their own copy of the book using sticks gathered on the Common. The event will begin at 2 PM with a guided tour of the South Common Historic District by Dick Howe, Jr. and then move into the EN Rogers School to learn about and see design drawings for the City of Lowell's planned improvements at the Common with Allegra Williams, hear music by Joseph Darensbourg, and bind books and enjoy Paul's haiku.

Please join us on April 22nd. RSVPs (you can leave a comment or send an email) are helpful but feel free to come whether you respond or not.

Here are a few of the haiku up close. I want to use my lettering as is with no doctoring in photoshop so I have written some of the poems more than once or repeated lines. It will be reduced to fit the book's pages.

And here's a link to last year's Poetry Month post about Paul's work.

Poetry Month & Book Arts Tuesday-More South Common Haiku

There is one line that is guaranteed to get a laugh in our house, and it's most often said by me: "That took longer than I thought." It's holding true for all my current projects including the South Common Haiku book.

I thought the lettering was going to be the most time-consuming but the layout in the computer took the longest. Paul originally sent me 43 poems which needed to be winnowed down to 29. I wrote out all 43 and figured I'd take his choice of 29 from those but once I got the final set, it seemed that the right thing to do was to write them all over again. I'm so pleased I did. One of the things about no longer being frequent calligrapher is that it takes me time to get a rhythm back so repetition is always good. After I wrote out the first 43, I was spent. I couldn't believe there was a time in my life that I frequently spent eight hours a day at the board. I was more relaxed for the final batch and I think it shows. And of course it is always a big help when the lettering is reduced for reproduction, in this case 55%.

There are two two-sided pages to be printed. Each piece of paper will be cut into four long strips (by the printer) to make a book with 32 pages including the cover. Each strip will be folded in half and punched at the circles. Page numbers will help to stack the folded pages in the correct order, and then the books will be bound with stick and string at our community event. I'm using some Mohawk paper that I had from a project that faded away before completion.

I started by making a model of the book and writing the the poems in the order Paul had chosen. I took the pages apart and used them to figure out what the layout on the pages for printing would be.

When I printed my test version, I discovered that I hadn't laid out the pages in the computer as carefully as I thought and had to go back several times. This is when the process took over my desk and the area by the printer and scanner as well as the assembly end of the studio.

There will also be a case for each book. It will be printed one-sided on cover stock and then cut out and folded by our volunteer binders. I'm just waiting for my order of Wausau Royal Fiber cover stock in Kraft paper color to arrive and then it's time for printing which will be digitally done by Omni Printing of Lowell.

We are looking forward to a great afternoon on Earth Day with a walking tour of the South Common, a binding party with music by Joseph Darensbourg and a chance to see the City of Lowell Department of Planning and Development's plans for improvements to the common.

See Part 1 of the South Common Haiku story

South Common Haiku Binding Kit

When Paul Marion and I first talked about putting his South Common Haiku in print, I thought it was a perfect opportunity for me to combine my commitment to involving as many people in the creative process as possible and decided to design a DIY binding. We knew we were going to have a launch event. I designed a binding that needed minimal tools (scissors and hole punch) and that could be easily assembled in the correct order. It worked. We had about fifty people of all ages and abilities at the Edith Nourse Rogers School in Lowell on Earth Day 2012 and everyone left with his or her own copy of South Common Haiku.

We now offer it to you as a Binding Kit which contains detailed step-by-step directions illustrated with photographs and everything you need except a pair of scissors and a hole punch. You can purchase one for $20. postpaid at my etsy site. You can read more about the project here.

Studio Sunday-Getting Ready for the South Common Haiku Event

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.

Spring Bookmaking Events

Join us for an evening of hands-on fun and make a small book to welcome in the spring. Susan will lead you through the bookmaking process and then you'll have time to decorate your book with images cut from garden catalogs.

Revels Spring Sing

Saturday, March 24, 3 PM
80 Mount Auburn Street, Watertown, MA

part of Revels Spring Sing: A Family Celebration of the Vernal Equinox
Tickets are $15 adult; $5 children (11 and under)

Celebrate the arrival of spring amidst forsythia blossoms and sprigs of green at this joyful family event featuring lots of community singing, refreshments, and entertainment by children from our Spring Workshop. Revels music director George Emlen hosts the celebration featuring legendary folksinger Tony Barrand, Revels favorite David Coffin, soloist Jamie Jaffe and a fine band of musicians. And bookmaking with me!

A Gathering of Gifts: Fan Books

Saturday, April 14, 10 AM to 12:30 PM
Center for Creative Wholeness, Newbury, MA

Welcome in the spring with this simple book that unfolds like a fan. As a gift to the earth, the books will be made from recycled materials.

South Common Haiku Book Project: An Earth Day Celebration

Sunday, April 22, Lowell, MA, 2-4:30

A project with Lowell poet and old friend Paul Marion—his poems, my lettering and book design, binding by you! Plus a tour of the South Common in Lowell. Details will follow.

Homes for Poems Bookmaking Workshop

Newburyport Literary Festival
Saturday, April 29, 9:30 AM

Author, educator and renowned Newburyport artist Susan Gaylord guides young and old during this workshop on creating personal poetry books. Using a stick, string or ribbon, and recycled paper, each burgeoning artist will craft a small book perfect for haiku or other small poems. Collage papers, markers, and printed haiku from the Japanese masters will be supplied. This workshop is geared for families but open to all.

Studio Sunday-Haiku Collaboration

This spring I will be giving a couple of workshops for poets and writers, one at the Mass Poetry Festival in Salem and the other at the Gloucester Writers Center. We will be making small keepsake books that can be published as editions or made as one-of-a-kind books. They are not intended to take the place of a published chapbook but rather to be given out at readings and/or shared with friends, family, and readers. All the printing and writing is done on one side of the paper to make it easier to design and print. In addition to this sewn binding, we'll also make books that require only folding and cutting.

In preparation, I am working with friends on small editions of their work. My original inspiration for this was the South Common Haiku project that I did with my friend Paul Marion. I will use the stick binding again but will simplify the layout this time. 

My first project in this new series is Morning View Haikus with my friend Anne Mulvey. It started when she sent me this card

and I offered work with her to make a book together. She had been thinking about putting this series of haiku written over the course of the year into some kind of book for Christmas gifts so it all came together quickly. 

I think the hardest task was Anne's which was to choose 11 haiku out of the many she had written as part of her daily practice from April to December 2015. I then wrote them out in calligraphy using my favorite Speedball C-4 nib. I wrote each one three times and chose the one I liked the best.

The drawings had been done in pencil so the next task was to make them more suited to the book. I suggested she trace them and that she did not have to include every line. We spent a cozy hour or so in the studio with her at one end tracing

and me at the other end on the computer scanning in the lettering and beginning the layout in Indesign. It took me a bit of planning to figure out how the layout would work. I always start with a paper copy. I find it never works to try to do this sort of thing in my head.

We had originally planned to do a separate color for the covers but eventually decided that having all the pages the same was the easiest. We were pleased with how well that worked. The original plan also included a bead in the binding but when the edition size grew to 80, we opted for less complexity. 

We had a little binding party and once everyone (first time doing this for everyone but me) got the hang of it, we figured it took about 5 minutes per book once the pages were collated and folded. As a last touch, I ordered small clear envelopes from Clear Bags. The size of the book is 2 3/4" high and 4 1/4" wide. I ordered 3" x 5 1/8" envelopes without a flap. The price was very reasonable. The books were a bit of a tight fit but once we tore a few, we settled into a rhythm and they worked out well. Anne and I have a second book underway. In this one, I'll be using type instead of calligraphy for the text.

The workshops are listed in the news section of my website. 

Forty Years #14: Poetry of Paul Marion

The first texts I worked with by a contemporary writer were the poems of Paul Marion. I met Paul at the same art festival in the Lowell Memorial Auditorium where I met the people who were forming Art Alive! He read his poetry and I soon after asked him for permission to write out his poems. I exhibited them at the National Park Service across the street from Art Alive! on Merrimack Street. Salmon Ladders was one of the poems from the exhibit.

I later exhibited my renderings of Paul's poems at the Whistler House,

Lowell City Hall,

and recently as part of New England Haiku at the Masscribes exhibit at the Moseley Courthouse in Boston.

We also did a book project, South Common Haiku, and I hope there may be another one in our future.

Poetry Month-Union River by Paul Marion

Bootstrap Press has just published Union River, a collection of writing spanning over 40 years by my friend Paul Marion. Poet Kate Hanson Foster has written an insightful review on the Boston Small Press and Poetry Scene blog. Do check it out.

Paul and I have been friends since the late '70s and fellow travelers in the worlds of books, words, art, and Lowell. We collaborated on South Common Haiku and hope to find another project to do together. Here's a calligraphed version of his poem Green Windows. I'll be sharing examples of his poems with my calligraphy for the next few days. The writing was done with gouache and pen and the hands with acrylic.

The book is available here.

Studio Sunday-Starts and Finishes

My desk shows projects beginning and ending—the application and map for Outdoor Sculpture at Maudslay proposal which is due tomorrow, the white envelope which I am preparing to ship binding kits for the South Common Haiku Project, the Journal we used for comments for All Our Voices : the Lowell Women's Week Public Art Project some of which will be included in the final documentary material about the project for the LWW Archives at the Center for Lowell History, my notebook with notes for my workshop for The Educational Service Center of Cuyahoga County in Cleveland in October, and a piece of sea glass with a hole and wire that I made in a class with Lisa Scala through Newburyport Adult Education. And my computer glasses on the top.

Book Arts Tuesday-Stick Book Workshop

We had a wonderful evening a couple of weeks ago at the Newburyport Public Library celebrating autumn by making books with sticks for the binding. We met in the Children's Program Room which is a cozy space and there was a particularly good feeling of connection and camaraderie within the assembled group.

I took screen shots from directions for the binding of the South Common Haiku Project that I did with my friend Paul Marion. They are different in the sense that the pages were stacked separately but I think they get the point across. At the workshop we folded the pages together like a traditional Western signature and punched the holes.

If you'd like to have a tie at the top and bottom holes, use slightly longer string, use the same loop to string it through, pull so that you have an even amount of string at each hole, cut the loop, and tie a knot around the stick at each hole.

Here are some photos from the workshop:

Why not celebrate the season with stick books of your own?