Books 5 & 6 Make a Pair

Someday, when my baby grandchildren are old enough to enjoy books, they will each have a miniature book made by Grandma. These two are bound in the traditional manner by being sewn, backed, and cased in as are bigger casebound books. They are covered in origami paper; the flyleaves are marbled in the European tradition. How appropriate for these precious babies: they are of both Japanese and European ancestry.

These books have no text yet. Grandma is still considering whether to write the stories herself, or write stories the children tell her as they grow up!

Second Book

Book two is "Ocean." It is an accordian book whose covers I have not yet foil stamped. The wavy band holding it closed is cut from book cloth. Only one end of the accordian is anchored; the loose end has a panel to pull out the text.





Pulled out text is two-sided. The first is marbled paper whose edges reminded me of waves breaking; the torn bottom edge represents the meeting of ocean and sand. The second side is my brief handwritten poem about the colors I see in the ocean near home.

Bookaholic

Yep. It's true. There is nothing like a book for me. Technophile that I may be, I can't snuggle up with a kindle and be happy. But give me a cat (or two) and a good book, and I'm a champion napper, err.... reader!

So now you know why this little bookshelf is beginning to fill.

I made all of these miniature books in one weekend- a workshop at the International Printing Museum (Carson, CA) with Peter Thomas of Santa Cruz. Despite my binding & repair of full size books, I took the class with an eye to having some fun, and fun it was indeed. I'll have to do subsequent posts to show them all off. The shorthand version of the weekend was that Peter, who is internationally known as a book artist, papermaker, and binder, is also a teacher extraordinaire. He leads workshops with humor, serious discussions about the future of the book and print, tales of his learning curve, and ukelele serenades. Each of us in the workshop had no trouble keeping up, from the beginner sitting next to me to the experienced printer/binder on my other side. The pacing was great and our output of learning samples impressive.




This one is the travel journal, designed to fit into a shirt pocket as a small souvenir collector- pockets on each page of it, with room to write notes. I think two views of it are enough for the first post. I hope to have time tomorrow to add the other books.

Travel journal open:



I wonder what delights will fill this when I've actually travelled with it!