I was sad to hear that poet Mark Strand died yesterday. I did this book with his poem Lines for Winter using Hedi Kyle’s crown binding. The poem starts
Tell yourself
as it gets cold and gray falls from the air
that you will go on
walking, hearing
the same tune no matter where
you find yourself—
Read the rest here. And more poems here. There’s a nice obit on the Paris Review website.
I’m designing a new book with some sewing and a poem by Li-Young Lee called persimmons. Finding just the right color thread or yarn has been a challenge.
For quite some time, I’ve had on my to-do list to play with the single sheet dos-a-dos instructions I posted a year ago (!) I finally got around to it several weeks ago. The book in the directions, made from a complete 11×17″ sheet is awfully skinny. By cutting down the sheet, I made a nice 2×2″ miniature book. Here’s the result, with “circle” on one side of the book and “square” on the other. Below that is the template I made to know which panel goes to which book and the orientation of the text. Click on the template to download a full sized PDF that you can use.
Erica Spitzer Rasmussen makes books as well as mixed media pieces she calls garments. Her website lists workshops that she teaches. I must be a magnet for sewing ideas right now, because I immediately focused on this one:
Drawing in Stitches: Non-Traditional Embroidery
In this two day workshop, students learn to stabilize and embellish paper to create unique grounds for hand stitched imagery. Motifs and narratives are developed from such sources as clip art, handmade stamps and freehand drawings. Non-conventional threads, such as wire, dental floss and horse hair, are used in conjunction with floss and simple stitching techniques to create personalized and tactile compositions.
Here is her book “Talking in Circles.” Below that is one of her garment pieces that I found particularly effecting. See all her work here.
Below is “A Portrait of my Father”. Mixed media (abaca, flax, various plant fibers gathered from ancestral land, acrylics, cotton thread and bovine blood)
A friend gave me these cigar boxes. They are like over-sized matchboxes! I’m excited to see what I do with them.
