Coming up in September I’ll be teaching another altered book workshop at Blim. The session is three hours long and I try to pack in as much information as I can to get people inspired about working with books.
Altered Book Workshop at Blim Date: Saturday, September 22nd, 2012 Time: 2 to 5pm Cost: $74.80 ($65 + tax + $2 service charge) Location:115 Pender St. E, Vancouver
When I was in Seattle this past weekend Boris and I did a few hours of gallery hopping. I was most excited to visit Foster White Gallery because they are currently showing two artists working with books, Cara Barer and Guy Laramee. I’ve only ever seen their work online, so I was thrilled to finally see things in person.
I didn’t really like Barer’s current body of work, but Laramee’s carved books were amazing! Below are two of my favourite pieces. The detail is amazing.
El Libro de Arena | Guy Laramee
Brown’s Bible | Guy Laramee
One of the gallery staff mentioned a CBS news feature on Guy Laramee which shares some of his book carving process, so I had to track it down. I’ve always wondered how he does these, and the video demonstrates how he uses a sandblaster to create undulating landscapes from antique books.
I’m exhausted today after spending the last few days sharing my work and talking with people at Vancouver Mini Maker Faire. This year I had two tables set up, one to display my work, and a second as an activity table with books for people to work on.
I taught a few people how to make paper flowers on the first day, then switched to encouraging book page folding on Sunday. By the end of it there were four books on the go that became collaborative projects with pages folded by many different people. A few people started their own book and took it home with them to complete.
I really loved seeing parents sitting down with their kids to try different things with the books or pages, like this little girl and her father. I showed them my new favorite paper cutting technique and they made a tiny lantern from a book page.
A few kids did origami with the scraps of book pages. I was really impressed with the paper crane folded by a young girl, as it’s a fairly complex set of folds that I find difficult to do. She made it look easy.
These final four photos are the collaborative altered books folded by many hands. They’re a wonderful mishmash of different folds, cuts, and sometimes crunched up pages. The books I had on hand were a donation from the librarians at Bull Housser, as they’ve been in the process of decommissioning some of their law books.
I love being part of Maker Faire because it feels like a celebration of community and creativity that breaks down the silos. I will definitely continue to be a part of this event every year, and look forward to watching it grow.
A HUGE thank you to Boris, Monique, and James for their support and assistance in running my booth over the weekend.
And it’s a really nice book, packed with pages and pages of book art in its many forms. I like the selection of images on the front cover because they really challenge the idea of what a book should look like.
You can find my piece, Forgotten Knowledge, in a tiny corner on page 284. I am thrilled to be included, and hope someday I can have a three page spread devoted to my work as Brian Dettmer has in this book.
If you’re in Vancouver, ask for this at Oscar’s Art Books and support an independent book store.
Despite how uncomfortable I feel watching myself in this video, I am thrilled with the results of the shoot I did last week with Ryan and Justin from Opus. Watch the video below.
Thank you to Opus Art Supplies for inviting me to do the interview and feature about my work. The video was shot and edited by Ryan Mund, with sound assistance by Justin Ray.
This finished work took an uncomfortably long time to complete, because it was a commissioned piece with loose parameters and no deadline. I think part of me was scared of messing it up because I had a very special book provided by the client.
The book in question was an old chemistry textbook from her university days that had sentimental value. When she approached me to create an altered book she had no particular requirements other than a horizontal composition, the rest was up to me. So of course I was overwhelmed with possibilities and completely blocked on what to do, up until two weeks ago that is.
My concept for this book was to create a sculptural piece with a more abstract composition than my previous altered book work. I began with a flurry of paper folding in a five page pattern with a slightly different variation on the right and left sides. The video above was taken using the iTimelapse app on my iPhone during about an hour or so of work at the beginning stages of page folding.
I added a decorative red paper with a gold design as the end pages once the page folding was complete, and then tried to figure out my idea of sewing thread throughout the book.
This part was tricky because paper is not at forgiving about sewing mistakes the way fabric can be, so I experimented a bit with a secondary book before fully diving in. I stitched the thread back and forth across the book in an irregular pattern because I felt it worked better and looked more interesting than carrying the same stitch across the entire piece.
Once the completed altered book was framed I needed to go back and increase the tension in most of the threads. I’d been working with the book flat or on a slight angle and discovered everything shifted once the book was in a horizontal position. Imagine me pulling the threads tighter as it hung on the wall, and you get an idea of this part.
In choosing the title for this I wanted it to relate to chemistry in a subtle way. I did my usual playing around with different terms in google search to inspire ideas and came up with, “Thread of Transformation”. It relates quite literally to the metamorphosis of the book itself, but is also a play on chemical reaction as a form of changing one thing into another.
I was very pleased with the finished altered book, but was nervous about sharing it with my client friend. I needn’t have worried because when I presented it to her over the weekend, she absolutely loved it. Hooray!
Altered Book Workshop at Blim Date: Saturday, April 28th, 2012 Time: 2 to 5pm Cost: $74.80 ($65 + tax + $2 service charge) Location:115 Pender St. E, Vancouver
I’m always on the look out for new books about book arts to have on hand for inspiration. These are two I’m looking forward to acquiring for my personal library. The first one seems to be about using old books to create large scale art, and the second is more a survey of handmade artists books.
Book Art: Iconic Sculpture and Installations Made From Books
by Paul Sloman Amazon listing
1000 Artists’ Books
by Sandra Salamony, and Peter & Donna Thomas Amazon listing.
I may have some of my work published in 1000 Artists Books. I’m still waiting to hear if it made the final cut. Either way, it will be a welcome addition to my collection of art books.
It was terrific to get back to teaching altered book workshops over the weekend. This time the class was hosted by Blim, an awesome multi-purpose creative space in Chinatown. It was fully booked with eight people in attendance, and once again everyone made really interesting work.
I love sharing what I do, and it’s inspiring for me to see people walk away at the end of class feeling excited about what they’ve just learned. Below are photos of some of the amazing work made by participants in the class.
At the moment I’m working on booking more classes for the upcoming months, and have been asked by Blim to teach the class again. Stay tuned to the blog or my mailing list for details.
In February I will be sharing my book altering techniques as a guest teacher at Blim. The workshop is a short introduction to making altered books, with a focus on paper folding.
To get an idea of some of the work you can make in this class, check out the set on Flickr of work made by students from previous workshops.
Altered Book Workshop at Blim Date: Saturday, February 25th, 2012 Time: 2 to 5pm Cost: $74.80 ($65 + tax + $2 service charge) Location: 115 Pender St. E, Vancouver
