Pastepaper making is a technique developed by bookbinders about 450 years ago, according to some accounts, in which pigmented starch paste is designed on paper to create decorative pieces which act as book covers or end sheets. They can also be used in greeting cards, wrapping paper and boxes…or anything, really.

Initially, I sort of thought of pastepaper as a kind of esoteric craft. But actually, this is a really interesting and rewarding technique of making your own decorative papers rather simply and beautifully. And today, I had the pleasure of participating in a workshop led by book artist and paper ninja Curt Dornberg. He spoke briefly about the history of the craft, then showed us – the Book Art Collective – what to do.

Basically, all you need to do is mix paste with pigment (as in, Golden Acrylic Paints). There are many, many recipes to make paste so here is a simpler one from Curt:
- 3c boiling water
- 1c cold water
- 1/2c cake flour
Mix flour and cold water with wire whisk. Gradually pour boiling water into mixture, stirring constantly. Bring mix back to a boil, reduce heat slightly and cook for ten minutes, stirring constantly to prevent paste from burning. Cool completely; then whisk again. Paste will keep for one week or so.

With the mixtures mixed and supplies at the ready, Curt demonstrated for us the basic techniques of pastepaper making. Or designing. Or whatever one might call it. A most basic tool to lay pigment to paper is a brush, which, if I do say so myself, renders this craft a lovely way of combining gestural techniques with design. Note, the paper is first dampened with a sponge before working.

In addition to the brushes, you can use other tools, anything really, like stencils, hand carved burnishers, plastic grout spreaders, rubber spatulas and popsicle sticks. Dough rollers also come in handy. You can carve shapes from sticky-backed foam and paste them onto cardboard rolls. Then you can insert them onto the roller and make patterns.

After watching the demonstrations, we spent the next several hours working on our own sheets that Curt had generously prepared for us.

We then laid them to dry. One of the exciting possibilities of pastepaper is that you can layer the pigments. Once your first layer/pattern dries (usually 24 hours is the wait time…but Tucson is a pretty dry place) you can add a second pattern, creating a really interesting sense of depth and texture.

Another spontaneous way of creating patterns/textures/designs is to paint them on, or literally remove the pigment using objects like the back end of paint brushes. This can also be a way of illustrating the canvas.

We were in the Printmaking Studio for this workshop, and laid our papers wherever we could find space. The equipment in there is so incredibly beautiful. Here are some of our final results!

In the next week, we will make many of our papers into book covers of notebooks to display at the Tucson Festival of Books, where we have a booth! So, if you’re in town, come check us out (Booth 108), and if not, visit us in the digital world here or on our site, which will soon have a blog. Soon.

Lastly, here are some sources to inspire your bookmaking practices:
My Handbound Books
Paste Paper Patterns
Sage Reynolds

Happy painting/making/pasting/book-covering!

Last week I received a totally flattering phone call from two editors, Joan Chapman and Claudia Sternbach, at the literary journal, Memoir (and), to whom I sent an illustrated essay called The Backyard of the House at 48 Northview Drive. They selected my piece as the winner for the prize in graphic memoir!

The purpose of the journal is to “encourage the perception that the landscape of memoir writing is changing in form and expression” and to pass this shifting space on to readers. I like this view, and the openness of the mission – a kind of recognition of the experimental approaches to the genre/s that exist/are emerging.

The issue is forthcoming and I’ll post again when I receive an actual copy. A large thanks to the lovely folks at Memoir (and). And hooray!

John Gilbert Wilkins’ Research: Design in Nature, 1931.

The book was created by Wilkins for the Art Institute of Chicago, particularly for the Field Museum, founded in 1893 (as the Columbian Museum) in Chicago with a mission of accumulating and disseminating knowledge, and preserving and exhibiting objects illustrating art, archaeology, science and history.

A detail of the cover.

The museum was founded to house biological and anthropological collections assembled for the Chicago’s World’s Fair in 1893, also known as the Columbian Exposition, as the event was in celebration of the 400th anniversary of Columbus’ arrival in the “new world.” Fun Factoid: 716,881 people attended the fair.

F.A. Brockhaus, Berlin und Wien, birds’ eye view of the Chicago World’s Fair, 1893.

The structure of the book is beautifully made and well-integrated to the loosely didactic, exploratory nature of the content, allowing readers to leaf through pages at will, changing the order of pages and organization of information. While the enclosed content isn’t indexed, causing obvious problems for scientists, it works as a kind of an informational art piece.

The book is bound with loose pages and housed in a cloth-covered case.

In 1905, the name of the museum changed to the Field Museum in honor of Marshall Field, the first major benefactor. This name change also illuminated the museum’s focus on the natural sciences.

The book is bound with loose pages and housed in a cloth-covered case.

In the 1920s and 30s (and maybe, and probably longer), Stanley Field, nephew of Marshall, was the museum president. And wouldn’t you know it, this book is inscribed from the prolific author to our very own Stanley Field, thereby elevating to unknown sums the value of the book, clearly indicating that I have no business with it.

The book is bound with loose pages and housed in a cloth-covered case.

Ellen, who has an undergraduate degree in ecology and a Masters in Scientific Illustration (in addition to her MFA in Visual Communications) acquired this book from a professor here at the University of Arizona. The professor, a collector of things, simply handed it to her. There apparently existed a second volume, however it has been lost. Without further ado, some of the book’s pages:

Sea Life (on left) and Shells, Construction & Design (on right).

A detail of the lovely page designs. Reminds me of a certain Alphonse Mucha.

The book is apparently available from Amazon for the whopping sum of $500 (a second copy is noted for $780). Wow. Anyway, my next project is to scan these pages, so they’ll be preserved in dots and pixels and TIFF files for digital eternity (so, a few years). Enjoy!

Voltaire Table designed by Wendell Castle, that I think would go nicely in my imaginary future house.

Here are Castle’s rules for life and art.

1. If you are in love with an idea, you are no judge of it’s beauty or value.
2. It is difficult to see the whole picture when you are inside the frame.
3. After learning the tricks of the trade, don’t think you know the trade.
4. We hear and apprehend what we already know.
5. The dog that stays on the porch will find no bones.
6. Never state a problem to yourself in the same terms that is was brought to you.
7. If it’s surprising or offbeat it’s probably useful.
8. If you don’t expect the unexpected, you will not find it.
9. Don’t get too serious.
10. If you hit the bulls-eye everytime, the target is too near.

Castle’s thoughts put me in mind of designer Bruce Mau’s Incomplete Manifesto, which seems to be pleasantly growing and changing, as a manifesto should.

Rise to the challenge from ASUF Admin designed by Bruce Mau.

My favorite Mau-ian truths (re-numbered) are these:

1. Allow events to change you.
2. Forget about good.
3. Process is more important than outcome.
4. Love your experiments (as you would an ugly child).
7. Study.
8. Drift.
9. ____________________.
10. Make new words.

These are some photos I took this morning after setting up the exhibition – Making Memory: Stories of Nonfiction in Artists’ Books – in the Main Library! Like everything, it still feels like a work in progress, and I’ll go back next week with final touches and more photos.

Ah, fluorescent lighting. But still, books among books is excellent. Awesome. Magnificent.

Julie Chen’s True to Life.

Susan Kae Grant’s The Wink, the Kiss, the Slap.

Oh. Happy [belated] Valentine’s Day!

The exhibition is up from now through March. Coming soon is a catalogue of all of the artists’ books displayed and information about their binding, printing and availability. For now, enjoy the show!

The Reading Room at Special Collections at the University of Arizona

With the help of designer/artist/teacher Karen Zimmermann, a loose criteria was determined with which to choose books (because there are so many, and I would have wanted all of them). We decided that the books should be nonfiction narratives that tell us about life in some way. I also have a particular fondness for accounts of memory, so wherever possible, that topic was favored.

Anyway, the collection is pretty expansive, and I wanted to share some of the books here, because it’s often hard to find images of artists’ books online. Also they are awesome; I love them and want to own them. (NB. In addition to Karen, I had the expert help of book artist Philip Zimmermann to help choose the books.)

Scott McCarney, Memory Loss (detail of cover), 1988

One side of the open view of Memory Loss.

Detail of the interior from McCarney’s Memory Loss.

I don’t know much about this book artist, Meg Webster, but I enjoyed her boxed compilation of items, titled Matter. Inside the box is a bag of crushed clover, a mirror, six marbles, two pearls, and a plate of copper.

Meg Webster’s Matter.

Inside the box.

There’s really no reason for this…except that I thought it was pretty.

Artist, bookmaker and gallery owner Susan Baker is a witty and talented thinker who is the recipient of many grants and fellowships, like at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown. This is an interesting, hilarious book with stories of an adult life.

A book within a book, from Baker’s How to Humiliate a Peeping Tom

Humor. I like humor.

Henrik Drescher is an excellent contemporary illustrator and author (Hubert the Pudge, Turbulence, McFig and McFly…36 books in 23 years) whose work, I think, transcends genres and audiences. Aesthetically and conceptually, the ideas and style communicated within his work appeals to both children and adults because he doesn’t sacrifice his vision. Anyway, here is an artist book he made printed in an edition of 100.

Henrik Drescher, Comeundone, 1989. The book comes in a metal case.

An interview with Drescher can be heard here.

The cover of the book.

The book explores some sins.

Places (like Shanghai) attached to other places on the skull.

The following book was created by artist Sandra Turley at the Women’s Studio Workshop in Rosendale, NY in 2001. Processes used to make the book include devore printing (burning away of natural fibres) and letterpress. The fold is accordion and the craftsmanship is beautiful.

Sandra Turley, This Original Self, 2001.

Detail of the cover, which looks like stained cloth. Delicate.

Accordion fold.

The imagery is incomplete; sentences never begin or end.

One of the first book artists whose work I fell in love with is Julie Chen, founder of Flying Fish Press. Chen currently teaches at Mills College’s groundbreaking MFA program in Book Art and Creative Writing. Chen’s craft is impeccable and the content of her work is poignant, authentic and simple. Perfection, really. This book, True to Life, is about the power of memory on everyday life, and was created in an edition of 100 copies. The structure is a tablet, with a built-in lifting floor, with tabs that are moved and with them, the text/images changes. Very clever, very clean.

Julie Chen, True to Life, 2004.

The book is protected by a clam-shell box.

Detail of the tablet, showing the first lines of text.

The fifth section of text. The pages were printed using a combination of pressure printing, letterpress and photopolymer plates.

Atlanta-based book artist Ruth Laxson makes beautiful experiments with form. Communication is a major theme in Laxson’s work, and she uses the surrealist technique of automatic writing to compose much of her text. The following book, (Ho+Go)2=It, was created in an edition of 500 copies (still available!) at the now defunct Nexus Press in Atlanta, using an offset press and Mohawk Superfine paper.

Ruth Laxson, (Ho+Go)2=It, 2004.

“I hope to test the language for meaning and merge text and image in the spirit as the surrealists. But I want to take it a step farther to text as image.” – Laxson.

So, this should be a good start. There are more books in the show and I’ll be photographing next week. In the meantime, enjoy the books!

Here are a few online resources for artists’ books:
- Buy artists’ books (many of the ones shown here) at Vamp & Tramp Press

- See a huge collection of books at the Joan Flasch Artists’ Book Collection

- A huge archive of artists’ books can be viewed (with background information) at Artists’ Books Online

- Here is the Book Arts Web which also publishes the online book arts journal, Bonefolder

- For techniques, tools and terms, see the curiously named Evilrooster Bookweb

Panther Peak Bindery in Saguaro National Park, Tucson, AZ.

For nine years, Mark was the head of Boston’s North Bennet Street School Binding Department. This School, featured on PBS’ Craft in America Program, focuses on hand crafts like violin-making, cabinetry and [drumroll] bookbinding. Hear president Miguel Gómez Ibáñez describe the programs here:

North Bennet Street School President explaining their programs on Craft in America.

What’s so exciting about visiting a kind of human like Mark is that we are able to see how alive the craft of bookmaking is. Mark has a diverse background, which includes a Fulbright Scholarship to study bookbindings in Sweden and playing in a rock band. (He also saw Bob Marley in concert, which affords him no small amount of street cred.)

Mark discussing various bindings.

Mark has a ton of teaching experience, which is of great benefit to us. In addition to his knowledgeable brain, which he’s happy to let you pick, he has a ton of didactic samples of bindings, stitches, boxes and gold tooling. Here’s a smattering of what we learned.

A bookblock sampling stitches from different time periods.

Above and below are examples of trends found in stitching/books made in different time periods. An interesting point made in the visit was the resourcefulness of binders throughout time. Basically, bookmakers utilize materials available and affordable. Traditionally, they were academically uneducated, trained perhaps only in their craft (beginning as apprentices).

Models of bindings from all time periods, made on his Fulbright in Sweden.

Part of the trade of binding is decorating your books. One method of fancifying is gold tooling, which is an ornamental decoration applied to leather book covers by impressing heated tools into the material.

Covered gold tooling…tools, which I thought were murder weapons.

Detail of tooling wheel.

Tools can come in the form of metal wheels (above) or stamps (below), and each has a different purpose. Wheels are for consistency in line work, as in creating the front or back covers. Stamps are used for the spine, which requires more controlled precision. Often, only the spine will be decorated to save money…and show bling when on a shelf.

Detail of tooling stamps.

After the visit, we got to see the Andersson garden, complete with all kinds of tomatoes, peppers and snap peas. Yum.

Tomatoes from the Andersson Garden.

Vines.

Mark is also a member of the Guild of Bookworkers, a national organization for all of the book arts. All of them. There was talk over the weekend of starting up a Tucson chapter, which would be fitting as their annual Standards of Excellence Conference is happening here this year (in October). This is super exciting because it means that book artists, binders and conservators from all over the country will be right here, in sunny Tucson.

View from the front of the bindery.

So, if you’re in need of, well anything related to books, Mark can probably help out. Check him out at the Panther Peak Bindery. Happy binding.

For two weeks or so I had this idea that I just needed to see. In our letterpress lab, there are dozens of these old (or still-in-use) logos, many of which harken back to another time. So, I ordered some beautiful Pop*Tone Papers from French and, as soon as they arrived, got to work on these notebooks.

Although I’ll likely continue on with the series, each will be printed in its own edition. There are between 5 and 10 notebooks in each of the colors shown here (totaling about 35 notebooks total). All are hand stitched (in what’s known as a pamphlet binding) with brightly colored endsheets. The corners are rounded at 1/8 inch. They are about 6 x 9 inches, with 64 sheets (front and back).

Check them out here!

As an aside, today’s my birthday. Happy birthday to me!

[NB: Hello, dear reader, and apologies for my absence in the bloggery. My excuse: this semester is insanely busy. But a ton of exciting things are in the pipeline (corporate word) and writing will recommence soon.]

Last year, Ira Glass came to Tucson and blew me away with a live radio performance. That’s kind of what it was. Basically, he was taking us through the process of compiling his most excellent radio show, This American Life. He spoke, played clips, talked about music and meeting people. It was simple, was beautiful.

So, I read his Manifesto a while ago, and was just reminded of it this evening, and thought I’d share it here. It’s broken into three parts, all of which address a question or idea and present solutions or action points for, well, you.

In his Manifesto, Ira – with whom I’d like to be on a first name basis – talks about the long, long…long learning curve of his and any industry, what a story is and isn’t, and is complete with exemplary radio clips. I think his overall message is to have fun, to trust yourself and be willing to learn; good advice for anyone. So check it out here and enjoy!

As requested, smaller prints are now available in my Shop. These archival prints will help support the Intercultural Center for the Study of Deserts and Oceans. $10 of each print sold will go directly to the lovely folks there to help preserve the delicate estuaries and life on the Sea of Cortes.

Also, feel free to request certain color combinations or illustrations from the posters not shown on the prints.

Happy Shopping!