Sending Bookish Love

Sending Bookish Love

In honor of Valentine’s Day, I led an hands-on Envelope Bookmaking workshop for families, at a building owned and operated by The Community Corporation of Santa Monica, or CCSM.

Participants learned to make a concertina or accordion fold,

and attach it as pages to their envelope covers.

Then came the fun part…

EMBELLISHMENT!

Markers, stickers, collage, ribbon…this is a mixed media project.

This artist displayed not only a wonderful color sense, but tremendous patience, as she cut and glued on paper triangles mosaic style to her envelope cover.

   This artist became absorbed in her writing.  Who is the lucky recipient of her efforts?

     The sky is the limit…or should we say the stars…

Proudly displayed…A very special Valentine, or some kind of communication.

BRAVO!

 

Behind the Mask 3

Behind the Mask 3

It has been fun integrating my Mom, Judy Disman’s “mini-masks” into a series of my handmade books.

The series is comprised of small (approximately 4.5 x 6 x1-1.5″), single and multiple signature books,

made of repurposed board, paper, jewelry parts,

hemp cord, linen thread, and Eco-fi felt (made from recycled plastic bottles.)

It is a joy to play with color and  the tension of opposites.  Here the compliments blue and orange, are couched in bright white, reflecting flag colors of red, white and blue, with a twist.

The stitched, or “lashed” edges are inspired by  medieval clothing and lacing.

Braided ties can keep the books closed, and the pages are blank.

All the better of stashing secrets!

 

Behind the Mask 2

Behind the Mask 2

It has been fun integrating my Mom, Judy Disman’s “mini-masks” into a series of my handmade books.

The series is comprised of small (approximately 4.5 x 6 x1-1.5″), single and multiple signature books,

made of repurposed board, paper, jewelry parts, and raffia,

as well as hemp cord, linen thread, and Eco-fi felt (made of recycled plastic bottles.)

The stitched, or “lashed” edges are inspired by

medieval clothing and lacing, and of course…color.

The books tie together, and the pages are blank…

all the better of stashing secrets!

 

Behind the Mask 1

Behind the Mask 1

It has been fun integrating my Mom, Judy Disman’s “mini-masks” into a series of my handmade books.

The series is comprised of small (approximately 4.5 x 6 x1-1.5″), single and multiple signature books,

made of repurposed board, paper, jewelry parts, and raffia,

as well as hemp cord, linen thread, and Eco-fi felt (made of recycled plastic bottles.)

The bound edges are inspired by

medieval clothing and lacing,

and of course…color.

The books tie together, and the pages are blank…all the better of stashing secrets!

Family Booking

Family Booking

It is wonderful to work with families, sharing with them a project through which they can experience the creative process. I had such an opportunity, leading a flag bookmaking workshop for residents of a building in Santa Monica owned and operated by the CCSM: The Community Corporation of Santa Monica. CCSM “Creates Housing and Strengthens Community.”

One of the ways it does that is to provide programming for building residents, which includes arts/crafts workshops. I have been gifted with the opportunity to lead several workshops, and this one was a blast. Both adults and children were able to complete a unique Flag Book, and had fun doing so while learning skills and techniques in the process, end expressing themselves creatively. What could be better?!

The black cover makes the letter’s in Mario’s name pop!

This young Angel artist is adding all sorts of adornment to her Flag book creation.

Michael, recently turned five, who started out drawing, added layers of color, texture and mixed media to his book!

Michael’s book just vibrates with movement, action and vitality!

His  Mom, Lynn, said, “I think I may be enjoying it more than he is. When you do projects with your children, it’s just fun!”  We agreed that adults, especially Moms, certainly deserve to have fun too!

Blue and orange, complimentary colors (opposite each other on the color wheel), contrast with pink and purple, which have red in common! Flag book color schemes are infinite!

Someone loves pink!

Samantha’s Mom embellished both the powerful red and black front and back covers of her book using a variety of materials,  and tied it all together with silver cord!

This is the kind of experience that a teaching artist lives for. Here’s to more and more of them!

Studio Poem: Seeing the Light (if only briefly…)

Studio Poem: Seeing the Light (if only briefly…)

We develop studios…work spaces…work places…wherever we are.

Palatial mansion (or loft), or a place within our heads.

The sunlight hit a series of samples which themselves became works.

Another “sun” was created.

For a moment… I saw things in a whole new light.

Gotta hold on to that…

BOOKED! (2)

BOOKED! (2)

“The world is so full of a number of things,
I ’m sure we should all be as happy as kings.” –Robert Louis Stevenson

Today I celebrate an embarrassment of riches…a gaggle of glorious words and images exploring all manner of fascinating facets of the worlds of art, design, graphics, type faces, artist books, and art made from books!.

100 Classic Graphic Design Books… “Bibliographic“: a treasury of graphic design, and the relationship of word to image. Lettering, typeface, symbol, color, shape…savor these elements, and return to this book as a reference and inspiration time and time again.

“Letter and Image” by Robert Massin, French designer and author: “…all things lettering…”

American Type Founders Company (ATF), was the leading producer of type in the world, and produced large specimen books, huge catalogs featuring borders and ornaments among other things.

“Art made From Books, Altered, Sculpted, Carved, Transformed“, is a machine printed book, with what appears to be a hand-sewn binding.  It features artists from around the world who use books as their primary artmaking material, including artist Brian Dettmer, who also wrote the book’s preface. An absolutely fascinating anthology.

“Le Maroc”, Georgia Russell, cut and painted book in circular acrylic case. Amazing.

“Cook Book Ballet Slippers”, Jennifer Collier, vintage cookbook, pages, ribbons, buttons, hand-stitching. you can see the artist’s training in textiles taken to a completely new conceptual level.

Art Books on Book Art…Word and Image chronicling the phenomenon of Word and Image…will wonders never cease?

I certainly hope not.

An embarrassment of riches indeed…just a book away.