Paper and Book Intensive

Sunday morning I'll be getting in my car and driving to Saugatuck, Michigan to attend Paper and Book Intensive. This one has been on the bookmaking bucket list for a very long time, and I feel incredibly lucky that I am going to attend. When you have a heavy teaching schedule in the summer it is hard to find the time to take a workshop or two for yourself, but all the forces came together this year to make it an ideal time to go.

Inside my car is assembled enough art supplies, clothing, inspirational books and collage ephemera, sketchbooks and art journals and bedding (yes, you bring your own... another first for a supply list!) to last for about 10 days.  I confess this is about as close to camping as I care to be, but I will be in company with some of the finest book artists in the country and I suspect the accommodations soon won't matter all that much. My workshops will include leather bindings (first time I will be learning how to pare and work with leather to cover boards), page design, and content/structure.

Back in the day, when I first began to make books, I was gifted with a copy of an incredible artist's book called Flight Into Egypt by Timothy Ely. It was big and beautiful and mysterious and inspirational, even though written in an unknown language to diagram a book that didn't quite exist. All these years laters, I will be taking a workshop with Tim Ely as we explore creating new language, markings, collage and drawings for a book to be constructed during these sessions.

Somewhere inside the car is my iPad and, if technical connections allow,  I hope to post a few times while I am away. Hope you will make a beautiful book or two yourself this week!

Society for Contemporary Craft, Part 2

Our second adventure at the Society for Contemporary Craft in June is this delightful 3D structure, a box making project with architectural features, posing as a building. Made of heavy binders' board and covered in a variety of decorative papers and bookcloth, the House Box can serve as home to a special handcrafted book or house an entire little library, as shown above.

About 200 miniature books fill this bookcase, all of them constructed during my travels this past year. I discovered that I could pack enough supplies to make 200 books in a very small plastic case that fits in my carryon or purse, and it passes all the current TSA requirements for tools (very small scissors) and supplies (less than 3 oz. of adhesive). It takes about 5-7 minutes to make one of these babies, so here are many hours of fun I can bring along in a small space.

As I make these books during our trips, I sign each one in the back with the date and location. They literally come from all over the world now, and I won't be stopping this any time soon. Once you get started, it is hard to stop. As you can see, I have made quite a few ......

See my previous post for information and links on how to register for classes. Hope to see you in Pittsburgh, where we'll get you started on your own delightful library!