A Bookish Life

One of Jeannine Stein’s travel booksThere’s a nice article in the LA Times by book artist Jeannine Stein about what bookmaking means to her. Stein is the author of Re-Bound: Creating Handmade Books from Recycled and Repurposed Materials and Adventures in Bookbinding: Handcrafting Mixed-Media Books. That’s one of her travel books to the left (photo by Glenn Scott / Quarry Books). The article starts off

I made my first book about 17 years ago, a feat I consider a miracle. On a whim I took a class on making cased-in books with hard spines, and when I looked at the finished product I was astounded, as if I’d made a car with my bare hands.

Tilt-Shift Photography

Tilt shift van goghI’ve used a fair amount photography and some paintings in my books, and I thought tilt shift photography might be something to explore, especially since I can simulate it in Photoshop. Wikipedia defines the technique as “the use of camera movements on small- and medium-format cameras … often for simulating a miniature scene” — in other words it gives a real-world scene the illusion of being a miniature model. The detail to the left is from a set of Photoshop manipulations of paintings by Van Gogh. Look here for examples of photographs. There’s a Photoshop tutorial here, and this Google search will get you even more.

Stone on Stone

Clair Van Vliet, Ghost Mesa

Several of my books use structures I learned from Vermont book artist and printmaker Claire Van Vliet (from classes with her as well as her book Woven and Interlocking Book Structures). So when I heard there was a small exhibit of her work close to my sister’s house in Vermont, where I’m staying for the month of August, I made it a point to go take a look. Much to my surprise and delight, on exhibit were lithographs of stones, most of them outside Abiquiu, New Mexico, near my own home. The one above is called “Ghost Mesa” and is close to Ghost Ranch, where Georgia O’Keefe lived and painted, and about an hour from my house in Santa Fe. (The exhibit was called “Stone on Stone,” as they are stone lithographs of stone outcroppings.)
I found an interesting interview with Van Vliet by Bob Bahr — Van Vliet’s Rocks — where she talks about why she often uses stones and rocks in her work.

Claire Van Vliet, a veteran printmaker and an acclaimed art-book printer and publisher, loves to draw rocks. “Drawing rocks gives you a really good excuse to make a picture that is just pure form, without a literal history,” she says. “When I start, the form catches my imagination — the shape of the rock is what catches my eye. I’m not looking for anything specific. That’s why I like to work with something abstract like a rock. I’m just looking, seeing.”

You can see more of Van Vliet’s lithographs here.

Book a Day

Donna Meyer’s Book a Day blogThis year, Donna Meyer started a blog to record her “make a book a day” challenge. She says “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” and “Why books? A book can be made of almost anything, and I can stretch its definition. Some will be fancy, skilled and take time. Others will be quick-&-dirty, maybe just images, or ephemeral, disappearing books.”
Most of the books are blank, but a few have content, like the one to the left, called Seeing Past Myself. Take a look at all of them here.

Cake Mail, a Slice of Fake Postcard Cake

cake mail, a nice slice of fake postcard cake.While I would prefer to communicate solely by email, my friends don’t always oblige. Some want to use Skype, some only by phone, some only postal mail. I’m not so good with handwriting letters, as my writing gets worse and worse as time goes by, and there’s no spell check. My mom, in particular, prefers cards and letters. Recently I saw this 3-D cake postcard that I thought she would particularly enjoy.