Andrew's Urban Paper Arts

New Book Review: Self-Made Stationery

cooknfold@gmail.com (&rew) — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 13:44:00 +0000

Self-Made Stationery: Handmade Goods Designed for Me
by Kazumi Udagawa

This practical book shows different and clever ways to improvise your own stationery items from supermarket/food packaging, discarded travel ephemera, tickets, junk mail envelopes, and loose paper. There are only four chapters on how the following items can be created from scratch: notebook, memo accessories, files, folders, cases, small stationery items, and decorative gift items. This may not sound much, however each chapter is loaded with many different ideas, demos, and examples.

In the first chapter, she customized her store bought organizers by using the coffer filter as a ticket or card holder; by inserting small mini booklets; and by adhering small maps or clippings next to the notes on the pages. In this same chapter, she shows how you can create your own tear off memo board with the perforated sheets of paper.

In other chapters, she also showed different methods for organizing and storing the small paper pieces, and ephemera. For example, instead of putting them in boxes, she used plastic page sheets for business cards to store her personal “knickknack” collection of small paper pieces – packaging logos, postal & parcel items, travel items, character items. I have created my own travel notebooks with storage for the receipts, but the book gave me more ideas to make the travel notebook more interesting and effective.

The last two chapters are focused on creating the small stationery and decorative gift items with recycled/repurposed materials. At the end of the book are fourteen (14) pages of templates – corner bookmarks, message tags and greeting card pictures.

It is a great reference book for those who want to reuse/recycle junk mail, catalogs, discarded food wrappers and paper goods. Each time I opened this book, I found new ways or came up with new ideas. I would recommend that you look in this book for any stationery needs or gift before going to the store – you might end up making your own as most of them will take less than 10 minutes.

It is not yet available in the bookstores, however, you can pre-order this book in Amazon.com by clicking on the title above.

Squam Art Workshops - Fall 2009

cooknfold@gmail.com (&rew) — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 19:28:00 +0000

Click on the above image for the story about the Squam Art Workshops.

Book Review: Good Mail Day

cooknfold@gmail.com (&rew) — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 18:49:00 +0000

Good Mail Day: A Primer for Making Eye-Popping Postal Art

I wrote a book review for this wonderful and informative book and published it in Amazon.com - take a look at it by clicking on the title above! Look for my name (Andrew Borloz) and you will find some details on what's in this book in my book review.

New Posts

cooknfold@gmail.com (&rew) — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 18:27:00 +0000

New posts have been published in my other two blogs. Check them out:

Andrew's Creative Life - includes a new post about one great mold-making class at Squam Art Workshops plus a book mini-review and mail art stuff.

Andrew's Travels & Explorations - includes a post about wonderful meals at Rockywold-Deephaven Camps - I should have entitled it as "Food, Glorious Food". Also included are two posts on last month's trip to Vermont & New Hampshire.

Enjoy!

Book Review: How To Be An Explorer Of The World

cooknfold@gmail.com (&rew) — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 13:15:00 +0000

Author's Note - this blog post was originally published last year (November 3, 2008), and I was reading it again. I still think it's a great book and I want to republish it again.
I went out today this morning to a bookstore to see if I could get two magazines that I wanted. Nope, they were not available just yet. While I was in the store, I decided to go to the crafts section and see if there were any new books.
Sure enough, there were a couple of them. I picked one particular book,How to Be an Explorer of the World: Portable Life Museumout from the shelf, and skimmed through it. I was elated to see that Keri has written a book that can help you to see the way I see. No, my deafness does not give me any advantage of being able to see differently. As a matter of fact, and in my own humble opinion, Keri Smith does a much better job than me in seeing things differently or in new ways. I am sure that her book will definitely help you how to do that. So, please do me a favor - get the book yourself and I will feel a lot better knowing that you can learn to see the way I see, or should I say, the way Keri sees. Have a great day!

Hey,

cooknfold@gmail.com (&rew) — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 20:28:00 +0000

Go to &rew's Creative Life blog to find out about his exciting plans for the trip to west coast.

About the New Camera

cooknfold@gmail.com (&rew) — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 19:12:00 +0000

Canon PowerShot A1100IS 12.1 MP Digital Camera with 4x Optical Image Stabilized Zoom and 2.5-inch LCD (Silver)

At the beginning of last month, I had to buy a new camera as the springs holding the lens covers together broke in my old camera's during the photographing of the cardboard play domehouse. Yep, that's the new camera that I used for the close-up photos of the beautiful daylily stamens as posted in my other blog. This camera is much lighter and thinner, and it fits in my pocket perfectly. I have been using this camera since the beginning of July for the new posts in all of the three blogs. One thing I have to keep in mind is that I should not put the camera and the keys or coins together as most of the camera's surfaces (including the back screen) are easily scratched. I will need to buy a protective case for this camera. A good number of this camera's features are similar to my older Canon camera, and it did not take me that long to become used to it. I'm very pleased with it, and if you need more information - click on the underlined product name above.

Book Review: Face Parts

cooknfold@gmail.com (&rew) — Sun, 02 Aug 2009 19:43:00 +0000

Last Friday, I stopped at a bookstore on the way to a class in New York City, and I was browsing through the art instruction section. I decided to look for anatomical reference books, and I did not like most of them. But I came across this book, Face Parts (author: Simon Jennings) and I have never seen anything like it.

Face Parts

This book provides, not necessarily exhaustive, but just enough information on the facial features to generate ideas for any project. Not only that, it provides excellent examples of how the whole or parts of the face can be drawn, painted, sculpted, photographed, digitally processed, or created with found objects (!). It also shows the three different styles used by Picasso, Miro, and Modigliani in drawing the eyes. And it provides suggested "art directions" i.e. etchings, graffiti ("defacing"), pictographical represenations, and typewritten portraits, to name a few. It even contain a photocopyable images of the turning face and winking eye, so that you can created an animation flip flick book. This is really a neat and one of the most interesting reference books on faces.

Book Review: The Street Art Book

cooknfold@gmail.com (&rew) — Sun, 02 Aug 2009 19:06:00 +0000

The Street Art Book: 60 Artists In Their Own Words

I got this book, The Street Art Book (author: Ric Blackshaw and Liz Farrelly) while I was in New York City last week, and I wondered why I did not see it sooner. I have acquired several other books on "street art" and more often than not, they're more of the coffee table variety - just pictures of the art itself. But this book is different as it's more of a street style book than an "art book". It contains tons of information on various artists, their techniques (stickers, spray paint, markers, and stencils), their style, and their bios. I have never seen so much information in a small book like it, and yet, it has references to other websites where you can get even more information. A number of paintings on public spaces are indeed illegal, but I thought they were really great, and talents & cleverness are evident in these street art. For example, the parking space lines were transformed into stems by stenciling in the flying seeds at the ends. They're probably illegal, but I have thought about another way of doing street art without getting caught - photograph the street scene and do some graffiti on the printouts. I know that it's not the same thing as actually do the work right on the building walls or streets, but at least I won't get caught! Anyway, despite some partial nudities and "dirty" or nitty-gritty side of urban/city life in this book, I love it!

Exciting News

cooknfold@gmail.com (&rew) — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 10:45:00 +0000

Early this morning, I just read the press release and the postcard for the International Fiber Arts Festival in Vancouver, Washington. I have already made plans to attend the opening reception for Nature Gathered exhibition as well as Art in the Heart Festival and the Fiber Arts Festival. I can not even imagine how exciting these special events will be for me. Here's the postcard (front and back) as well as the press release from the Sixth Street Gallery.

FIFTH ANNUAL NATIONAL FIBER ARTS FESTIVAL
A Perennial favorite comes to Sixth Street Gallery

Vancouver, WA, July 22, 2009 - Opening August 5, Sixth Street Gallery presents the Fifth Annual Fiber Arts Festival. Also showing is Nature Gathered, a show of twelve artists from across the country. The show runs August 5 - 30, 2009. Opening reception is during the First Friday artwalk on August 7 from 5 - 9:00pm and coincides with the second annual Art in the Heart Festival.

This year's Fiber Arts Festival once again shows the vast diversity of the beloved art and craft medium. From weaving to stitching, from wall art to sculpture, from traditional to contemporary, this show has a little bit of everything. Twenty artists from across the country show work that ranges from playful to somber but is always beautiful.

In July 2008, a group of twelve mixed-media artists from across the United States, entered into a year-long art challenge to celebrate their love for all things in nature. Each month, the group chose a different nature-based subject to interpret and create in a variety of mediums, limited only in creating art that fit on, or within, an 8" by 8" canvas. Finished pieces use photography, paint, fabric, metal and fibers to represent the artists' vision of subjects as diverse as birds, seasons and the heavens. Each piece is a unique glimpse into the world of nature. For additional information, please view their blog.

Sixth Street Gallery is an all-volunteer, cooperative gallery located in the heart of downtown Vancouver. Since 2004, Sixth Street has been a venue for performance, spoken word, and visual arts as well as providing art education classes for all ages. For more information, please visit www.SixthStreetGallery.com.

Nature Gathered Exhibition

cooknfold@gmail.com (&rew) — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 11:59:00 +0000

Yes, I will be flying from New Jersey to the West Coast next month. I plan to be in three states: Oregon, Washington and California.

Yes, I will be there in Vancouver, Washington (across the river from Portland, Oregon) for the Nature Gathered Group's opening reception (6 pm to 10 pm) at Sixth Street Gallery on Friday August 7th. I am really looking forward to seeing others' work there.

Yes, all of my pieces will be for sale there, however, they are to be sold as one set of 12 pieces together. They look best as a set than as individual pieces. You can contact the gallery for the price of this set.

I hope to see some of you at the reception. Those of you who are unable to come to the reception, you can view the exhibition which runs from Friday, August 7th to Friday, August 28th (Wed-Sun 12pm to 5pm) at:

Sixth Street Gallery
150 West 6th Street
Vancouver, Washington
(360) 693-7340

And if you still are unable to either come to the reception or view the artworks, you still can see them in our Nature Gathered blog.

Book Review: The Uncommon Quilter

cooknfold@gmail.com (&rew) — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 20:40:00 +0000

The Uncommon Quilter: Small Art Quilts Created with Paper, Plastic, Fiber, and Surface Design

I bought this book (author: Jeanne Williamson) from a museum shop in Jacksonville, Florida after I saw the quilt exhibition, A Survey of Gee's Bend Quilts which I reported in my art travel blog. Before I purchased it, I went through it, and immediately, I felt that I had to buy it right away. I have never done quilting before except that I have sewn square patches of fabric together to form a pillow. Until I saw the Gee's Bend quilts some time ago, I often thought of quilts as nothing more than blankets of repeated patterns. These two exhibitions, one at Whitney Art Museum in New York City some time ago, and one at The Cummer Museum in Jacksonville, FL, made me see the quilts from a different perspective. And this book has already helped me to see the everyday materials in a different light - especially from the produce section of the grocery stores. I have saved the tomatoes or oranges bags that looked like nets, but I was at a loss at to what to do. This book showed me different ways to use them as part of an artwork - in this case, the author used them in her art quilts which were much smaller than blankets. It also showed excellent examples for producing great composition - using textures, colors, and shapes. I have already developed several ideas of my own using the same principles that the author demonstrated in her book. Also, if you look at the cover of this book closely, they were actually cut out from plastic shopping bags (the ones from nice stores)! I highly recommend this book if you need to see the everyday materials from a different perspective, and also how to use them creatively and effectively in your artwork even though you might not want to sew.

A Learning Experience

cooknfold@gmail.com (&rew) — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 18:40:00 +0000

Hi everybody!

Late last night, I was lying down on the coach in the living room, not wanting to go to bed nor watching the TV. I was looking at my bare feet, and decided to take the camera from the coffee table and take a picture of it. I started to play with different features, and the above picture was taken with the camera. It came out exactly like that - it was not modified or changed in the digital manipulation software. The camera changed the color for me - it's so eerie but cool.

Anyway, thanks so much for your patience as I am still working on the problems reported by the readers with these three blogs. For example, someone reported that there was no link to the book page in my book review post. I should have tested the blog post in Firefox as I discovered that it did not appear in that browser at all. So, I have modified yesterday's blog post and you should see the underlined book title.

As for the links between three blogs, I am planning to include the links inside every post so that you will be able to return back to where you first entered into the triad. I am thinking of putting in the code so that a new window will appear instead of the going into another blog within the same window.

But the bottom line is that I apologize for the inconveniences and thank you for your patience! And I would appreciate if you will let me know any kind of problems that you experienced with these three blogs. Thanks so much again!

Book Review: The Art of Decorative Paper Stencils 2

cooknfold@gmail.com (&rew) — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 18:22:00 +0000

Last week while I was working on this blog's renovation, a package containing two books came in the mail. One of them happened to be Kanako Yaguchi's The Art of Decorative Paper Stencils 2: Traveling with Stencils.
I love this book because of the way the "paper stencils" (I prefer to call it "kirigami") was cut as per the patterns found in her travels to various country. This is really great in that she was "cross-breeding" the Japanese paper cutting techniques with the local patterns from different countries. Not only that, she used the same patterns to record the wonderful memories that each trip created. I will have to start looking at brochures & ephemera differently, and then cut the patterns based on the local design motifs. I will then scan them into my computer to create more design possibilities. The other interesting technique that she used in her book is layering. I am familar with the concept of layering from the acrylic painting or mixed media classes, but I never thought of using different paper cut-outs to create layers.

The Art of Decorative Paper Stencils 2: Traveling with Stencils

I do have a copy of the first volume, but it's somewhere in my house and I can't find it to do a review. As soon as I find it, I might do a review. Anyway, two days ago, I was gathering soda bottles for cutting up to reduce storage space, but I always get distracted by several ideas that came up in my head whenever I see anything. You can see what I have learned from this book and what I did with the soda bottles by taking a cybertram to the other blog. I strongly recommend this book as one of the great tools to sharpen observational skills while traveling in another country.

Welcome Back!

cooknfold@gmail.com (&rew) — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 19:00:00 +0000

Whew! I finally finished the refurbishment of this blog as well as the creation of two new spinoffs. As you can see in the photo above, I was reviewing the progress and checklists for all of the three blogs. Oh, by the way, that blue thingie on my belt is an insect repellent - I was outside reviewing the papers and enjoying the beautiful weather.

I have heard that some of you were very concerned by what it seemed like I was closing my blog out forever. It was temporarily "closed" for safety reasons as I would hate to see you get hurt by the falling debris or slippery floors, or get the stray paint or wallpaper paste on your good clothes. I apologize for causing you to be concerned, but it was nice to know that many of you do enjoy reading my posts.

Anyway, I have given this blog a new "wallpaper", moved its previous one to another blog and gave it a fresh coat of lime green paint. In the third one, I put up the sunprints on the wall. I also moved the furnitures and accessories around, and put in some finishing touches. To make your navigating experience an easier one, I have created the following specific objectives for each of the three blogs:

1. Creative Life: In this new blog I will be sharing the joys and challenges of my life as a creative professional, and also how I meet the challenges of maintaining my own creativity and addressing its needs despite my hearing impairments and other obstacles. Sort of like "The Agony and the Ecstasy" but not quite. You can join me in my creative journey as a fellow colleague by using Google's Followers gadget on the left sidebar.

2. Wanderlusts and Explorations: This blog will focus on travels & my personal observations of various places from a designer's/artist's perspective. This is part of my attempt to be more globally minded - by looking at the various cultures locally and globally. Also it caters to those who are more interested in getting off the beaten path or looking at places with different eyes. Additionally, as I am currently going through my slides and digitizing them, I will be retrospectively writing about my earlier excursions. A new feature has been added to allow you to look for the posts based on locations, i.e. New York City or Seattle. You also will have an opportunity to join me as an "co-explorer" by using the Google's Followers gadget on the left sidebar.

3. Urban Paper Arts (UPA - this blog): This is still in development as I am still working on the development of the product line and unique offerings for sale. It will contain book & product reviews, links to my artworks and publications available for sale, cards & prints, and various kits. It may include my teaching schedule for both in-person and on-line workshops.

Each blog has two links installed just below the large banner and above the first post title - you should see two highlighted links with hyphens in between. This location should make it easier to you to find them much more quickly than the left or right sidebar. All of the three blogs are linked to each other so that you won't get lost. If you do, please holler for help!

The reorganization of the current posts from this blog is not yet completed. They will be either stay here, or moved to other blogs. However, they will be reviewed, and may be either re-edited and re-published in one in the above blogs, and the others will remain in my own archives.

Links will be made between posts as long as they're related. For example, if I visited a museum, my account will be published in the travel blog; if I bought books or anything from its shop, the reviews will be published either in the UPA or Creative Life blog; and if my design/aesthetic sense is influenced or motivated by my visit to that museum, it will be written and published in the Creative Life blog.

I am very pleased and proud with what I have accomplished so far, and I do hope that these three blogs will either inspire or motivate you to produce your own art/design work.

Yours for a creative life,

Navigational Aid

As I was thinking about creating directional signs and possibly new weekly table of content pages, I thought that maybe some of you might got a little bit confused by the new layout. So, those of you who are reading the posts inside one of the three blogs, I have come up with a simple map which might help you understand how they are linked together to form a triad (or a 'megablog'). I have also added the underline to the links above this post so that they become more obvious as links to other two blogs. I hope this will help some of you, but, unfortunately, these map and links may not make sense at all to those of you who are reading the posts in the email subscriptions, Google Reader, iGoogle or anything outside of this blog.

Published!

cooknfold@gmail.com (&rew) — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 13:14:00 +0000

A while ago, someone gave me an article from central NJ newspaper (The Star-Ledger - my father used to work there) about an art retreat experience in Portland, OR, and it was written by Jeannine Stein. I have never met her before, but imagine my big surprise when I got an email from her, inviting me to submit my contributions for her new book, Re-Bound. So, I got myself to work on creating two books from discarded packages and children's board books. The first one below was created when I noticed that many food-related journal or recipe books out on the market were geared to only one specific purpose - recipe card storage, scrapbook, lined journal book for writing (no pockets), business cards from restaurants, or anything related to food. So I created a book with lots of pockets from food packaging, boxes, paper placemats and discards using duct tapes to store all kinds of food-related information and ephemera in one place.

I think it's a great book for me, a real foodie. I can put in all kinds of information about diners (NJ has the largest number of diners in the USA), restaurants, special recipes, food stores (Paramus, NJ now has four great food stores), and even my own edible garden. The other project involved recycling children's board book and it was not included in the new book. But I really like this wall hanging - it's foldable and collapsible for easy storage as a "book" which can be placed on a bookshelf instead of being put away in a box and placed out of sight somewhere in the house (probably either in attic or in basement). And you can easily either flip the whole thing around or take it down from the wall if you are expecting company (especially relatives or in-laws) that might not appreciate your personal taste.

I am sure that you can see the big grin on my face when I first saw my food journal in the new book up at Squam Lake in New Hampshire last week. The book will be coming out next month (July), but you can pre-order this book from Amazon.

MVP's Trade Show Booth & Japanese Design in Paper

cooknfold@gmail.com (&rew) — Thu, 28 May 2009 05:00:00 +0000

Last March, I was in a South San Francisco warehouse, working on the design for Mountain Valley Paper Company's (MVP) trade show booth at National Stationery Show (NSS).
Two weeks ago, I was at Jacob Javits Convention Center to provide assistance with product placement for my client, and it came out very well.
It took me only a half day to place all of the full paper sheets, however, it took me a longer to do the rest - leaves, orchids, and origami paper.
Three racks of paper were placed in the center of the booth.
This is the back wall on the left side (below).
Several packages of smaller pieces were displayed on this rack.
In the back center, flowers and leaves were folded by the company's owners.
This is the front view from the left corner.
Center view.
Behind the corner panels are the origami paper displayed on the wall.
This is the right corner of the booth.
Hung from the same corner are multiple cranes folded from mesh paper.
View of the right side of the booth.
Two happy owners - June and Vicky. Both of them have appeared in Martha Stewart Show - June was demostrating origami, and Vicky was demonstrating gift-wrapping. For several years, June created and designed annual holiday trees at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. Vicky is in all of the origami instructional DVDs - available for sale to the retailers from Mountain Valley Paper Company.
On the opening day, I decided to visit International Contemporary Furniture Fair which is below the National Stationery Show. I thought I was in heaven when I saw all these wonderful and inventive design, and then I came across a special exhibition on Japanese designs.
I have been to Japan four times, and it's both a paper heaven and a designer's paradise. Of special interest to me at this exhibition are several products made mostly with paper. Here are the photos of what I saw:
If the above yellow paper seemed fimilar to you, yes, it's the same fold that I used for the squares on the corner panels of MVP's booth. And these books below are just exquisite.
After I toured the furniture fair, and the stationery show, my clients and I went to the Rainbow Room for a fun evening of food and dancing.
One of my dreams came true. A while ago, this place was closed for a while and I thought I would never get to go there. Well, I was there, and the views from the top were priceless - below is Central Park.
And this is northern view east of Central park - you can see Bronx in the distance.
What a room - and the dancing floor does revolve.
The food was great, and I had fun dancing. The whole trade show experience was a great one, and I look forward to the next trade show where my new booth design will be implemented.

Display Set-Up Experience at CHA - Jan 22-24, 2009

cooknfold@gmail.com (&rew) — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 17:38:00 +0000

Last September (2008) in South San Francisco, the imported paper distributor, Mountain Valley Paper Company, asked me if I would be interested in doing the displays for their trade show booth at Craft & Hobby Association (CHA) Convention in Anaheim, California last January. I agreed to do them, and they sent me two sets of sample paper.

One of the owners came up with an idea for the art displays, and she told me through emails what she was thinking. I saw the photos, and then I went through the stack of samples. Many of them were selected and cut into 5 inches square so that I could fold them. It took me two days to fold all of what I have selected from the 300 paper samples.

I made the pre-creases first, and then opened each one of them. I then had to do several "reverse" folds on each sample to make the interesting pattern of alternating mountain and valley folds.

After I completed a whole stack of folded samples, I came up with several arrangements, and sent the photos to the company for their consideration.

The day before I left NJ for Santa Ana, I carefully packed the folded samples in my luggage. My clients and I went to Anaheim Convention Center on January 22nd to pick up our ID badges.

While we were waiting to pick up our badges, I noticed the interesting architectural features in the lobby of the convention center which is right across the street from the well-known theme parks in Anaheim.

After we got our badges, we went to the spot where the company's booth is located.

All four of us set up the whole thing, and I got myself ready to do the display of the paper.

For three days, I worked on one corner of the booth - selecting and displaying sheets of paper from Thailand.

After the sheets were hung, I created two panels of folded paper "sculpture". Each piece was glued to the foam core.

After I completed the work on the corner, the company owners asked me to do more display work. I created several more displays of TOYO's orgami paper. TOYO is Japan's number one distributor of origami paper.

The other side (left) of the booth contained more of TOYO's origami paper and kits, make-it/take-it table, and video.

It took a long time (three days) to set up the whole booth, but it took less than a day to take the whole thing down. I will be working on Mountain Valley Paper Company's booth design for the National Stationery Show to be held at Jacob Javits Convention Center in New York City this May. (Author's note: books of Mountain Valley Paper Company's paper samples are available to the trade/retailers/store-owners only.)