I Could Have Written Sooner

Heaven knows there were enough post boxes around, but who had time to write? We're just back from almost three weeks in the beautiful British Isles: England, Ireland, Scotland, the Isle of Guernsey and the Normandy beaches in France. There were so many things to see and do, including lots of side trips related to books and paper, art and architecture. I'll be posting here over the next few weeks about our adventures; hope you'll enjoy this vicarious tour!

S C C Workshops

There was more fun to come in Pittsburgh, where I returned for my annual week long workshop at the Society for Contemporary Craft. I first began teaching at SCC when I lived in Pittsburgh from 2000 to 2005; this organization is so well run, it is a pleasure to work with everyone there. Many of my students there have been coming since the beginning, and this was, I believe, our sixth year to hold the week long bookmaking workshop. So, lots of friendly familiar faces, lots of laughs, lots of great coffee from the 21st Street shop across the way, and breakfast at Pamela's almost every morning make for a fantastic environment.

Our projects for the week included four decorative spine bindings, a Japanese stab binding, the Butterfly binding, a rounded back Bradel binding, a box construction with loose fitting lid, the Blizzard and Crown books, a cereal box journal, several french fold booklets, and orizomegami, or tie dyed paper. Above are a few photos of our paper and box work. On Saturday, I taught a separate class on constructing a leather journal sewn over colorful leather tapes.

We're already making plans for next year's workshop at SCC, so watch for details. It will be in June, 2011 and it will be fabulous!

Q S D S Workshops

The first week of June marked my return to teaching at the Quilt Surface Design Symposium in Columbus, Ohio. This was my second time to teach at this event; I was last here in 2006. This year's offerings included a three day workshop on silkscreening and fabric books, and a two day workshop on silkscreening and a wall hanging/palm leaf book.

Silkscreening fabrics took up the first half of each of the workshops. I had encouraged students to bring in pages of their own handwriting or letters, and printed pages from old books and other publications. There was tremendous variety—old birth documents, children's writing, poetry, quotations, pages from random publications, scribbles, intricately drawn illustrations, and . . . Sitting Bull.

One student had found a great photo in an old magazine; we turned it into a screen print, and SB soon became our mascot for the first session. Students and their friends were screening him on everything they could find, including the shirts off their backs. It's all part of the infectious enthusiasm that comes from the speed of this medium .. once you've made the screen, you can get the image onto anything you can get on the print bed, and right quick, too. Instant gratification!

In the second workshop, our new mascot became Bob the Dog, the pet of one of the students. Bob had been through quite a lot and certainly deserved his own screen. By the end of the workshop, he was also the subject of a fabric based book and turning up on shirt backs everywhere.

The QSDS experience is always fantastic. In addition to top notch instructors and classes, there are many exciting activities in the evening hours ... presentations by artists about their work, artist vendor night where you can get some gorgeous stuff to use in your work, a hand dyed fabric sale, a mini quilt auction, ice cream by the pool .... the list goes on. One of my favorite parts is the long hall where vendors keep shop hours every day, so you can stroll down the hall any time and pick up that fabulous hand dyed fabric or extravagant button that just makes your piece sing!

Good news for all you fabric buffs in the Cincinnati area: Becky Hancock of St. Theresa's Textile Trove has reopened shop on the first floor of the Pendleton Arts Center. Hooray! The hand marbled fabrics I got there were breathtaking. Now I must make some bookcloth!

Isn't She A Beauty?

Gosh, where are all the posts about my adventures in making books for the last few months? Oh wait ... I guess I forgot to blog. Thanks to all you loyal readers who have checked in periodically, and let's get this train back on the track.

Since I last left you on the streets in Paris, I've been traveling mostly in the U.S. There were fabulous classes in Columbus, Ohio and Pittsburgh, and both sessions of the Book Arts Coterie here at my studio have all since taken place. During the July fourth weekend, we dashed off to New York for a fantastic wedding at the Vanderbilt estate. Preparations are now underway for our next trip to Europe, visiting the British Isles for several weeks. Life is good!

Meanwhile, I have to share this recent addition to the studio, a vintage book press purchased from another book artist in the Chicago area. It's a great size, it's cast iron and unbelievably heavy, and .... it's RED! What could be better than that? It's in excellent condition. I've wanted an older press for awhile, and have looked for one in the junk stores, flea markets and antique stores around here without success. This one turned up on a book arts bulletin board, and was worth the almost two hour drive to pick it up. Moving a book press down a flight of stairs from the car to the studio is character, if not muscle building experience; now it has a home atop my grandmother's treadle sewing machine in the library area of the studio.

Stay tuned for photos and reviews of the summer workshops ... after taking a break from teaching last summer, it was fun to be back in full swing this year. There were also new tool adventures, new friends, new projects .... all of which you'll see soon.

Rue Vavin

After the experience at Relma, I headed for another favorite paper store in Paris, Marie Papier. It is located at 26 Rue Vavin in Montparnasse, a few Metro stops and a short walk away. Rue Vavin is one of my favorite small streets in Paris; it is lined with one little boutique after another and makes for great window shopping while you head for your destination. In addition to Marie Papier on Rue Vavin, there is also an Art du Papier shop (think very small Paper Source type store; these are found in several locations around Paris) and also a fabulous game shop, with a display window guaranteed to pull you in if you weren't already so inclined. What's the attraction? A collection of stunning and fanciful Tarot and other card decks, handcrafted wooden games with very cool game pieces, small figures, small toys, little figures .... so wonderful, you'll think you've gone down the rabbit hole.

Marie Papier is a lovely store, the walls lined with beautiful hanging sheets of paper, and a huge center island with dozens of small objects in little wooden bins ... pencil sharpeners, miniature pens, clips, tools, erasers, calligraphy ink canisters and pen holders, everything to do with writing and making marks on paper. The store also carries its own line of exquisitely made journals and portfolios, in luscious colors, many soft bound, in a wide variety of sizes. On my visit here in 2009, I had purchased some papers, and my visit this time was not only to see what was new but to do a little buying for friends who had been lusting after some of last year's purchases.

Shown here are some of the papers that I purchased this year. I am absolutely in love with the batik style dot paper, so I bought it in every color. It folds nicely and takes adhesive well; it's also quite strong. Haven't seen it anywhere in the states. The striped sheets are screen printed and also fold and glue well, like a fine Japanese yuzen sheet. The "olives" were just too much fun not to bring home. Martini book, anyone?

You can make a virtual visit to Marie Papier using the link at right; the website has an English language option, and if you click on La Boutique you can see the store for yourself!

Another post, another paper store ....

A Visit to Relma

I can't imagine a trip to Paris without a visit to Relma, the mecca for bookbinders and lovers of fine art papers. There are so few retail stores in the world devoted entirely to our craft, and this one is perhaps the finest of them all. Tucked away on a little side street close to St. Michel, Relma is easily reached by Metro (exit St. Michel) followed by just a short walk on Rue Dandon to Rue de Pointevins. The street is so small, it did not appear on any of my maps, but not to worry, because each Metro station has a highly detailed map of the quarter it serves, and a good index so you can find even the smallest of rues.

This is not to say the store itself is small; oh no, quite the contrary. There are at least four large rooms, and probably more that are not open to the public. Relma sells everything for bookbinding--decorative papers, luscious leather skins, headbands and linen tapes, adhesives, hand tools, instruction books and breathtakingly beautiful wood equipment: sewing frames, presses, and so on, along with cutters and board shears. Conspicuous by its absence is the lack of waxed linen sewing thread in the many colors we love to use; Relma sells only white thread for this purpose.

When you walk in the front door, you enter a large room with ceiling high, three inch deep shelves around the entire perimeter and several large tables in the center. This is the marbled paper room, with a few leather skins occupying some of the back portion and a large display of hand tools on the wall. There must be several hundred different pattern and color combinations of marbled paper housed here. To the left, a similar room devoted entirely to leather and suede skins, arranged by color. To the right, a room devoted largely to book cloth, with a wall of open shelf storage and a hundred (perhaps more) little cubby size drawers, each one containing a tool or supply. The fourth room, reached only by walking through the book cloth room, contains the fabulous wooden equipment for which Relma has been known in fine binding circles for decades.

Entering the store calls up all sorts of sensory delights; it looks like something from 50 years ago, and it smells, well, like paper and leather and wood all mixed together .... three of my favorite things. I take a deep breath as a I close the door behind me, because I know I'm going to be here for a long time. The staff is small, usually one or two people, but there is a nice Indian gentleman who always seems to be there, and he speaks English very well, enough to answer the technical questions you might have. Otherwise, you can simply wander from area to area, pulling out the papers you want to see in detail, creating your stash on the tables in the center. No one seems to mind if you want to open the many cubby drawers to see what delightful items are waiting inside. You're never rushed or pressured to move on; it's a little piece of heaven where time has stopped just for you.

My mission was to find some luscious papers for my summer students, and I also had shopping lists for friends and students with specific requests. So, I will share with you photos some of my paper purchases, knowing that some of you will actually be able to get your hands on these and work with them for our book projects in July.

In a small lapse of judgement, or maybe not, I purchased a bookbinding book, La Reliure (the French word for binding) because it has good photographs inside of some production techniques that interested me. I will sit down with my LaRousse French English reference at some point and translate the sections that are most useful. I have checked for this book in English but it does not seem to exist in any other language, nor is it available from Amazon.

This is not the only paper store I visited on this trip--more to come in future posts--but if you love making books and find yourself in Paris, you should treat yourself to this heady experience.

Bon papier appetit!

Back from a paper grab

Well, yes, I did leave you here with a couple of CDs for quite some time. Not too long after my last post here, we had an unexpected trip to New York, a flurry of events and activities here, and then shortly after that, took off for France for my annual paper buying frenzy. There are all kinds of wonderful things to show and tell, so watch for a series of posts in the next few days about these adventures.

I also want to report that my summer workshops here at the studio are full; if you didn't apply in time for 2010, please consider this experience for next year. In the meantime, you can still catch me in Cleveland, Columbus or Pittsburgh. Check the workshop schedule in the right column and click on the links for availability and other details.

Jet lag sucks. I must sleep now...........