Big Ideas, Little Art

My favorite diminutive book artist, Jody Williams, has finally launched her own web site. Jody is fairly tiny herself, but the diminutive adjective mostly refers to the scale in which she works. Small is the first thing you notice about her books and boxes, but I don't think it's the most important thing in what she does. For me, it's her extraordinary ability to combine text, visual images and structure into a conceptual whole that makes her one of my favorite book artists.
Some of my personal favorites from her gallery (photos used by permission):

Science Experiments (1997)

Science Experiments is designed to be similar to the 3 boards so many of us set up for our 7th grade science projects. But this book captures with gentle humor the many unusual observations of the 5th grade class she observed.

Condensed Creatures (2000)

An accordion permanently attached to the inside of this tiny, tiny box (1 1/2 inches!!) and printed with creatures from her own imagination. The yellow and white check paper on the outside began life as chiyogami from Japan, but Jody ran it through her etching press to add letters and symbols, making it even more integral to the content in the box.

Some Specimens (2005)

Perhaps my favorite of all her books. Some Specimens contains sketches, poems and an actual sea shell from her trip to Ireland in 2005. Yes, the book is only 2 3/4" by 2 1/4" but she has managed to encapsulate the tiniest shells imaginable in the cover of the book. (Her secret is microscope slide covers.)

Jody was the first person to receive the Minnesota Book Artist Award this year (and deservedly so!) and for the occasion she actually wore a dress (I'm glad it was documented as I would never have really believed it.) She is currently on the faculty at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design and has a loyal following of students who would take any class she came up with from her at MCBA. Thomas O'Sullivan has written a wonderful essay on her work...well worth reading!

The Exhibitionists

Carmencho Arregui (she of the fabulous Crossed Structure bindings) has posted a fascinating new section to her web site entitled The Exhibitionists. Using some ingenious folds and rolls she demonstrates a number of ways to exhibit flat art or images.

Commissioned work

I'm lucky to have picked up a few commissions this summer. So far I enjoy that way of working: I know the individual is excited to have the piece (or pieces), they understand the work and time that goes into the box or book so the price is fair and it's a great motivator for me.
A friend brought her daughter over a few weeks ago to see my Penland work and she asked me to make two boxes: one for her daughter and one for her daughter's best friend. They chose paper that has the same pattern but two different colors and wanted the box structure with the "secret page." For the secret part of the box, she sent me an absolutely adorable picture of the two girls, totally best friends! It was so fun to make (her daughter loved it) and it gave me a chance to work on the secret page structure a bit more and improve the hinge.

She also asked for a journal for her husband to celebrate their anniversary. We went into my paper stock and she chose some great lokta paper for the cover and a print of bugs for the fly leaves (the book block is a lined paper). I'm not sure I ever would have thought of that combination, but I really love how it turned out (another fun thing about doing commissioned work!). The structure is a Belgian Secret Binding. Since the book is quite tall (8" high) I increased the number of times that the cover threads ran through the book block threads (the "secret" in the Belgian Secret Binding) to increase the book's overall stability.

A small but important detail: A few weeks ago I was teaching at MCBA and one of my students used the beautiful deckle edge of her lokta paper as a design element in her work. In my mind that deckle edge is one of the loveliest parts of the paper but I usually cut it off when I'm working (generally to get a "square" edge). For this book, I used the deckle on the front and back covers and gave a mental thanks to my student for reminding me how much I love that part of the paper.

Counting to Four

I never get tired of Sesame Street. Who writes these lines? ("Chickens just back from the shore.")