After two and a half days of marbling morning, noon, and night, it was time to move on to two and a half days of bookmaking morning, noon, and night! And despite the around-the-clock studio time, we did not make all those books pictured above! Our bookmaking instructor, Bob, brought them along for inspiration (for us, not for him...he's clearly inspired enough!). I'm pretty sure, however, everyone in class would have loved to have tried to make all those. Once we were in bookmaking mode, there was no stopping us.
The second half of the week was spent making books using the wonderful marbled papers we made the first half of the week. Our marbling instructor, Pat, had us marbling on all types of papers (heavyweight, lightweight, colored, textured) so we had a wide variety of materials to choose from. Bob supplemented with some lovely Japanese and Canson papers we could coordinate with as well as embellishments (beads and things) to decorate the books with.
The first book we made was a simple pamphlet stitch notepad. It was called a "dressed book" and was in the shape of a kimono. Totally cute. And you should have seen how people embellished their works (photos coming tomorrow!). While this was quite easy to make, it was the perfect starter book since the pamphlet stitch is the foundation to making many styles of books. The next book we made was an accordion book with a concertina inside. Again, the accordion fold is a foundation technique in bookmaking. Once we knew how to pamphlet stitch and accordion fold, we were off to the races.
We proceeded to learn how to make a "spine surprise book" (my FAVORITE...I love, love, love this book), a four-signature longstitch book (also top on my list of favorites), a box book, an origami book (FUN!), and a book brooch (yes, jewelry!) as well as piano hinge and cigar band closures and paper beads.
One of the huge differences in the energy in the room between our marbling and bookmaking sessions was that marbling is physically exhaustive and bookmaking is mentally exhaustive. In marbling, there is a lot of walking and moving involved...moving around the tank, walking from tank to sink and from sink to drying rack. And then there's the pushing and the pulling of the tools to the laying down and lifting of the paper in and out of the tank. With bookmaking, there's constant measuring (and obligatory double and triple checking); the need to "see" how something is going to work before actually making it; making sure you have all your pieces/elements cut out, lined up, and ready to go before even embarking on the actual assembly of the book; and trying to interpret wicked technical directions into actual action. I'm not saying the mental and physical differences of the two practices is harder or better...just that it was very much a SHIFT in how we approached the day.
I took a ton more photos of people working, measuring, cutting, measuring, gluing, cutting, measuring, embellishing, and stitching but the photos above pretty much tell the story and I think you get the point.
Tomorrow, I'll post photos showing off the results of all our marbling and bookmaking. Stunning stuff, I tell you. People in the class were so talented and creative...it was just a week filled with artistic gems!
Why does it make me so happy?
