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The Book Club of California Centennial

The design for the centennial celebration of The Book Club of California via Felt & Wire.

I am completely charmed by the idea of a book club devoted to the love of the printed book, whose members include artists, collectors, and printers. If you're one of the 1000 members you receive a letterpress printed "Quarterly News-Letter" ("QN-L" for short) and other exclusive printed perks. Sweet.
The claim is that the newsletter is the only letterpress printed newsletter in the U.S. There are pictures of various covers of previous newsletters on the site, and a notice that some issues can soon be read via a PDF.
This logo was designed by designer Michael Osborne, and I took particular note because I just designed, in my own bumbling Illustrator way, a similar rectangle as a return address for myself.

The Joy of Books

via Colossal

50/50

An annual exhibit at the AIGA National Design Center presents the best in book design and book covers published in 2010 in the 2011 competition.

All of the book covers are in the design archives here.

A few of my favorites ...


This book is a memoir of two years in the life of a Jewish librarian in a Boston prison. The portrait is made up of colored library date stamps.

This is one of my favorite reads of 2011.


And this one was gifted to me by my daughter for Christmas.

The Day We Changed Our Lives Forever

Cut paper and hand sewn tunnel books by Andrea Dezsö with interactive LED lights.
" ... tiny red, green and blue LED lights that correspond to three sliding knobs on the wall. Shifting the balance of light from blue to green changes the energies and intentions of conversing devils, whispering rabbits, dancing pixies, perching grasshoppers; the creatures live in aÊtenuous balance between cute and sinister according to the behaviors of red, green and blue. Here, the narratives are open-ended; we create the story as we the turn the knob."
Chloe Hawkins: Zero to Superhero, NY Arts Magazine

Exploding the Codex: Theatre of the Book

EXPLODING THE CODEX from Douglas Sandberg on Vimeo.


Through Felt and Wire, a film and photographs by Douglas Sandberg Photography featuring artist's books from the collection of Mary Austin in a show entitled "Exploding the Codex: Theatre of the Book". I especially like "Inside Chance", a book using a form I've seen in several children's toys ... as it is a kinetic piece it's best to see it in the film, at about minute 3.

Rag and Bone

One of my favorite blogs for seeing a vast variety of art and artists in paper and book arts is Rag and Bone. Some things that caught my eye on this visit:
Folded "word" books by Veronica Salazar

The classic British red phone booth recycled into darling little libraries

"Corrugations" folded by Dutch artist Noud van den Boer

Anthropologie

Anthropologie transforms discarded books into sculpture:

Pictures are from (1,2) casasugar, (3) apartment therapy through aesthetic outburst, and (4, 5) dreambirdz.

These displays almost make me want to buy some overpriced clothing... or at least a doorknob.

Altered Surplus Library Books - Main College of Art

Susan Winn - "Field of Greens"

A Maine College of Art collaboration with the Portland Public Library produced a collection of altered books created from library castoffs. Most of the books are available for checkout at the library and through interlibrary loan.

View a gallery of images of Altered Books

The books are listed in the library catalog with descriptions and are available for checkout!

Another 60 Books Project Page

This was a really BIG book, maybe 15 inches tall. A bit intimidating because there was so much to fill. The other entries (3 others) were done on 8.5x11 paper and then glued into the book. Decided to paint this time...


I began with whatever acrylic paint that wasn't completely dried up in the jar... found a dark blue and purple lumiere and added a stainless steel color. After painting the whole page I stamped into the wet paint with a foam design stamp over the whole page. Unsure about what to do next, but sure that I wanted to get it done that afternoon since the book was already 4 days overdue and time is money...


After the paint dried, got out this new set of Souffle pens that are supposed to dry slightly embossed and opaque. I just decided to play around with symbols (thinking about Paul Klee, science fiction, runes, petroglyphs and heiroglyphs ...) and filled the whole page with mostly made-up symbols. Fun, even though the paper wasn't the sort that would make the pen marks 3D.

About the Bone Folders' Guild

Here you can see all of the 60 journals
for the 60 Journals, 60 Libraries project.

Visit the Bone Folders' Guild website here.
Some recent exhibits/photos associated with the Wisconsin Book Festival.
"If Death Were A Woman Interpreted" ~ artists' books in response to a poem by Ellen Kort, Wisconsin poet laureate.
"A Progressive Conversation Party" ~ "The exhibit recalls the etiquette of the 1950s, when the game of sparkling conversation was considered a social art."

60 Books Project

This is my first page for the 60 Books Project. Sketched with a pencil and then a micron pigment pen. Used watercolor pencils and an alpha rubberstamp set. (There's a message in amongst the letters. Pay no attention to the word "stork" though... that happened before I realized that it's much easier to spell words when you're not trying to than one might think. Why I'm not better at Scrabble I don't know.)
Funny that I heard about the 60 Books Project through a yahoo group - Everydaymatters - even though it takes place in my own hometown. I looked up the details on the Wisconsin Book Festival site, though. My book group went to see Isabel Allende (http://www.isabelallende.com/) when she lectured as part of the Festival. We read "House of the Spirits" prior to seeing her, and will be reading another of her books for our January meeting.

Melanie's page

Melanie participated in the 60 Books Project, a project modeled after the online 1000 Journals Project (http://www.1000journals.com/). Books were made by the Bone Folders' Guild of Madison, Wisconsin, and distributed via the public library system to be journaled/drawn/painted in etc. I made a sticker for her of acetate/gold leaf with a rubber stamp she bought in San Antonio last summer. Her page in the book was published in the newspaper last month with an article about the project. After a year of circulation the books will be exhibited for the next Wisconsin Book Festival.