Daily Doodles

Do More of What Make you Happy, the delightful daily doodles of self-taught Tokyo artist, Mogu Takahashi. This sentimental platitude is a nice reminder for all of us to attempt to embrace throughout the year. I hope Takahashi's daily doodles give her as much joy as they do me. See so much more of Takahashi's daily doodles and sketchbooks here. And look for a wee bit more of me in this space in weeks ahead...

Bring on the Dancing Bears!

Hello again from Letterologyland! I happily return after many long months of hibernation. My sincere apology for not surfacing much earlier after abandoning my post rather suddenly last August. I'd like to say I was working on a fine print edition of Letterology musings, but this was not entirely the case. For the past year, I've been struggling with severe episodes of vertigo related to an ear disorder. At worst, the unpredictable episodes have been frequent and debilitating, with no relief but to sleep it off for a day or more. Lately, they are just as frequent, but less severe, and I'm slowly learning how to anticipate them. When I feel dizzy, I mostly just lie low and agonize until my balance returns. When I'm good, I feel like dancing! 
     I am very grateful to all the loyal Letterology readers who sent me their kind notes and queries while I was away, and I'm happy to have the support of good friends and family. It has been quite a humbling experience on many levels, and I savor all the good days, yet regret the continual loss of time. It is now all about finding balance, and that dang, yin-yang symmetry of life. As I struggle to keep balance in my equilibrium, I also struggle to find balance in my work, sleep and play time. I wonder if I will ever get caught up entirely, but as someone wiser than I once said, "there is never enough time unless you're serving it." Life goes on with or without us, and it is all I can do to keep the balance and dance.
     Enough about me however...I am eager to share so many exciting new and old things I have discovered recently, so please watch this space. The first feature I'd like to share now is of a lovely 19th C hand lettered ABC album I stumbled upon at the Seattle Antiquarian Book Fair in October. It was displayed at the booth of White Fox Rare Books of Vermont, and owner Peter Blackman was kind enough to show it to me just at closing time. This unusual book is presumed to be created by a Maryette Shepard Bennet of Des Moines, Iowa around 1884, and contains her handiwork of dried seaweed letters, a popular pastime in her day. Her large, roughly six inch tall pressed seaweed letters nicely mimic the bifurcated wood type of posters and signage of this era, however her attention span dwindled some before completing it. Near the end, she chose to watercolor U, V and X, and then rendered Y & Z only in pencil. Over the years, I have seen many fine examples of dried seaweed images—often referred to as "nature printing"—but I have never seen such a charming book of mostly seaweed letters. For more information and sale price, contact Peter Blackman here. 

NaNoWriMo ReDo

November is National Novel Writing Month; or NaNoWriMo, for those in the know. Now in its 14th year, NoNoWriMo originated to encourage creative writing "from anyone who has ever thought fleetingly about writing a novel" according to their website. The goal is to complete 50,000 words or less in 30 days. 
     Rob Bowker of the entertaining Typewriter Heaven blog in the UK, recently checked in from the Typosphere to send me his own surrogate version inspired by this annual event. He created his first NaNo typewritten book (NaNoTyBo?), The Micro-Book Typed, and completed it by the 4th of November.

Typing on a 1950s Olivetti Lexikon at 12 characters per inch leaves little room for a wordy text, so Bowker wisely chose to just write a DIY textbook of sorts, on how to type a 16-page book using only a single sheet of paper. Written in concise language, he answers the questions of Why and How to go about typing a small book on a typewriter. Bowker, who frequently types blog posts on one of his many typewriters, also provides helpful hints on formatting monospaced text and creating illustrations using characters, pattern and texture. The Micro-Book Typed is currently available from Issuu as a free downloadable PDF ready to print, fold, stitch and trim. Bowker suggests more of his typewritten chapbooks, possibly with spreads and even illustrations, may be in the pipeline soon.

In more recent posts, Bowker offers a number of other downloadable PDFs of some fun DIY typewriter "Graphikubes" from his personal collection. As an added bonus, he also suggests a beer-of-the-day in many of his frequent posts—though not certain if he advocates drinking while typing however. 

This gif was made by Ryan (Magic Margin) Adney within an hour after Bowker 
originally posted his first typewritten micro-book. 

S'more Artwork

In yesterday's post on the Camp Stories, Illustrated exhibit, I posted a small portion of my mother's artwork chronicling her childhood memories living in the rustic one-room cabin lovingly known as "Camp". Curating this exhibit required a great deal of attention and time to edit and prepare my mother's work, which took precedence over my own. Therefore, much of my own work is still on the drawing board, yet I am eager and determined to complete it in time. Those which I did complete, are in editions—with exception to the campfire—and they will be for sale soon. 

Camp S'mores Outdoors Recipe Book
Borrowing from the theme of Camp Stories, I chose to construct a paper S'mores accordion book with an illustrated recipe for this All-American favorite campfire treat, consisting of roasted marshmallows and chocolate, sandwiched between two graham crackers. For the uninitiated, the name for this delicious dessert evolved after campers typically consumed them so quickly, they were prompted to immediately ask for "s'more." The first published record of this traditional treat is said to have been in the 1927 Girl Scouts Handbook. My Camp S'mores recipe book consists of laminated cardboard graham crackers (aren't they all?), white paper marshmallow pages and a choice of dark or milk chocolate endsheet filling. Laser printed and porchoir illustration; packaged in a glassine wrapper. 2.5 inches square in an edition of 100. Paper marshmallows sold separately.

Message in a Bottle

This mechanical paper construction derived from one of my mother's stories about finding a message in a bottle on the beach. Knowing what an imaginative kid she was, I pictured her making her own message in a bottle to ship out to sea. I chose to fashion mine all of paper. When closed (as seen on right), the message is seen inside the bottle. By pulling the exposed thumb tab at bottom straight down, the cork simultaneously pops up to expose the message. It is a very simple device, with an element of surprise. This digitally printed piece is in an edition of 25. 

Sunday Dinner at Camp

The most iconic piece I created for this show, was also the most challenging of any. I produced about 5 or 6 models, testing sizes, shapes and various weights of paper; then refining the drawings each time. I knew precisely what I wanted to do from the beginning, which was to parody my mother's image of Company Every Sunday, where the dining table on the front porch was filled with guests and food. The structure was to pop open to expose my dear grandmother, Mert, busily preparing food in front of the wood stove—just as my mother drew in her image below. 

Below are my first attempts at this mechanical structure which were mildly successful. The objective was to have the walls of the front porch open to expose the interior, when the two tabs on either side are simultaneously pulled away. With each successive model came improvements.

This version is my final outcome. It was my intention to keep the theme of my mother's original—illustrating the scolding she received from her father for clowning around during meal prayers. The table is filled with some of the same foods, although the people are mostly strangers to me—with exception to her sisters and brother, and the haloed young girl on the left panel. She was my mother's cousin, Marion, who later died and had gone to heaven she wrote. I took many liberties on the size and proportions of the porch, and the details of the house, which are much more finished than the original house was at that time. When closed as seen here, it folds flat. The illustration is laser printed and hand-painted. The house is made of 2-ply board and hand-cut papers. It stands freely when opened and is about 7 in. high x 10 in. wide by 4 in. deep. This is an edition of 10.

When I completed the final illustration, I noticed the young girl sitting to the left of my grandfather looks strikingly similar to my mother. Seems I made the same mistake she did on some of her drawings where she put herself in the image twice!

My dear grandmother is seen here wistfully waving, while dog, Spunky waits for handouts. The back door to the Camp house opens to find the outhouse. 

Building a campfire in the center of this library exhibit, seemed like the most appropriate thing to do for a cold November day. The paper marshmallows and stick accoutrements were an added attraction. The roasting is for real, and I took a cue from this earlier Halloween post for the process. The tablecloth was quickly assembled in place from scraps I found in a storeroom. This will be on exhibit at the University of Puget Sound Collins Library in Tacoma, Washington until January 14th. For more information on this exhibit, see my earlier posts here and here. 

The Second Lives of Books

After viewing the new Chronicle Books edition, Art Made From Books, by Laura Heyenga, it appears the literary landscape is being altered more than I could imagine. The work of twenty-seven international artists, including one anonymous artist who participates in guerilla book sculpture, are recognized in this anthology for their sculptural interpretations, transformations, and REcreations of the book. These engaging new works are about the book as object. Their medium is the raw materials of discarded, damaged, and abandoned books. Their message is the telling of new stories. 

In some cases, the books revert back to nature where their pulp originated, such as in the work of artist Guy Laramee, seen above, who carves volumes of books into beautiful zen gardens and remarkably accurate representations of steep topographical terrain. These carved literary landscapes reveal a new message about time and the erosion of our culture, yet they are inviting enough to step inside and explore if one only could. 

No anthology of altered books would be complete without the remarkable work of Brian Dettmer of Atlanta, Georgia. Dettmer, who contributed the preface to this book, cuts up books with the deft skill of a neurosurgeon. As he cuts away, he reveals new words, stories and images, and breaths a new life into each of his works. As one would imagine, Dettmer's intricate handwork requires some very sharp x-acto blades, and he claims he buys them by the thousands. He admits he often replaces his blades about every ten or twenty minutes, depending upon the thickness of the paper he is cutting at the time.  

Dettmer's collection of used x-acto blades. 
Source: Austin Kleon

In an informative introduction to Art Made From Books, Alyson Kuhn addresses the notion, impulse and debate surrounding altered and augmented books. To give us some historical context, she describes a popular pastime of embellishing books in 18th century England called extra-illustration. Publisher's often included blank pages in their bound editions so people could insert their own artwork, and customize it with prints or clippings from other sources. As Kuhn so aptly describes, "the original bound text was supplemented by the owner, who then possessed a uniquely curated edition—an interesting variation on vanity publishing." 
     This genteel hobby of embellishing lost favor in the 19th century, after critics justifiably accused the extra-illustrators of dismembering treasured books. In recent years, many of these historic augmented books have since become highly prized by librarians and book collectors. The Huntington Library in Pasadena currently has an exhibit of 40 extra-illustrated works in their collection dating from the late 1700s to the early 1900s. "Illuminated Palaces: Extra-Illustrated Books from The Huntington Library" is on view until October 28th.   

Argentinian artist Pablo Lehmann transforms books and text by cutting them, leaving it to the reader to interpret the lovely web of words he weaves which resembles a net of lace paper. 

British artist Jennifer Collier treats paper like cloth and stitches it with thread. She works with pages from books to create everyday household objects and clothing. 

In a completely different take, Jeremy May of Littlefly in the UK, creates literary jewels fashioned from the laminated pages of books and colored papers. His wearable jewelry of rings, bracelets, pendants and more, come nested inside the excavated space of the original book. Each unique object carries a serial number.

Lettering, paper and book artist Pamela Paulsrud turns books into stones. Touchstones she calls them—which carry the weight of time and storytelling—just as the wave-washed stones found on the beach. 

These artworks are just a cameo of the many engaging examples featured in Art Made From Books. The twenty-seven artists featured in this anthology have each found new narratives in the raw materials of discarded and damaged books, and their altered, augmented and eviscerated works have become the beautiful ruins in a new literary landscape.