Festschrift for Hedi Kyle

Hedi Kyle, Penland, 2004

A "festschrift" is a collection of essays written in honor of an individual's work by that person's colleagues. (It's from the German fest for festival and schrift for writing, sort of a festival of written articles...a nice concept, especially when it is about one person or their work.)

I was really delighted to learn last week that a festschrift has been published for Hedi Kyle. Hedi was, until recently, the Head Conservator at the American Philosophical Society in Philadelphia and is a founder of Paper Book Intensive. To say that she is a major influence on many book artists and binders is a significant understatement. I don't imagine that there is a single binder or artist currently working who hasn't learned from her directly or indirectly, a notion supported by the 27 contributors to the book. In this festschrift you'll find essays by Julie Chen, Carmencho Arregui, Claire Van Vliet and a number of other artists, binders and teachers.

In all my work with musicians and artists, I don't think I've ever met anyone as naturally creative as Hedi. Or as generous. Most of her original structures come from her experience and observations as a conservator. But she is also constantly folding or manipulating paper, thread and/or glue to try new things. One of her most famous book structures is called a Blizzard book, one long sheet folded into a self-bound book with pockets and pages. The book was created one morning a number of years ago when she was socked in at home by a blizzard. She spent the day folding and unfolding simply being curious, until she unexpectedly had the Blizzard book. The structure has been a staple of many of her classes and is now in the general milieu, often being taught without appropriate credit to her originality. I was at a workshop with her a few years ago and someone asked her about that problem. She simply shrugged it off with this comment: "When I teach someone one of my structures, it just means that there is room in my life for a new one to come along."

You can order the Festschrift for Hedi Kyle here. I'm thrilled that the original response was overwhelming enough for it to go into another printing.


An update: I just did a google search for Hedi and found some pictures from the presentation of the Festschrift here. She cut her hair!

Further googling: I found a wonderful audio interview with her here, as part of Steve Miller's podcasts with poets and artists.

My Box making Pedagogy

As I start to have completed boxes ready for the sale this weekend, I've thought a lot about the teachers who helped me learn this craft. I'm an oldest child and am usually the person to read the directions on a box or the instructions with a new game...I usually like to have just one way to do things. But after working with 6 or 7 box making teachers, I now have a process of box making that's unique to me and uses little bits from all of them.
It's sort of amazing that I even like making boxes as my first teacher was so horrible. The class was a typical 2-day weekend class at MCBA but the teacher treated it like a final for a graduate course. She judged us on our detail work and told us that our boxes would earn a "C" if she was handing out grades. We were using book cloth to cover our boxes and being beginners, they were riddled with spots of glue everywhere so that our boxes looked slightly speckled. I left that class and thought "well, there's no way this can ever be fun."
A year or so later, MCBA brought in Mindy Dubansky to teach box construction. Mindy is a book conservator at the Metropolitan Museum in NY. Her class was a rare opportunity to meet her in MN so I signed up even though I was wary of the subject. And she changed everything. Mindy is that kind of wonderful teacher who, when a student has a problem, sees a teaching moment. I came away from that class feeling that any box problem could be solved with a little creativity. One of the boxes that she taught was a "magic box" or "Jacob's ladder box"... a box with a lid that can open from the front or back and reveals different sections in the body of the box. I was completely taken with the charm of this box and ended up making 5 or 6 as Christmas gifts that year. And nothing will teach you how to do something well as repetition.

Jacob's Ladder box with lid flipped both ways

In 2003, I spent a few days at PBI with Barbara Mauriello and made 4 different boxes in 4 days. Barbara is also a gifted teacher who has a delightful sense of humor. From her I learned two important lessons: The first is the wonder of rice paste. When she brewed a batch for us to use in class, I reacted silently: "Yeah, I'm never going to bother with cooking paste." But then I used it. Do you know the section in Harry Potter where Hagrid strokes the spine of the Monster Book and it behaves? That's what using rice paste is like. You spread it over your paper and it just does exactly what you want. (I should note that PVA is the best adhesive for gluing your book board.) The second lesson was the joy of mixing patterns and colors. Barbara's own work is a riot of color and pattern and she nudged us into that world on at least one of our boxes in that class. And I've been a convert ever since.

Sliding door box with Barbara Mauriello

I've studied with Julie Chen twice at MCBA and once at a wonderful 10-day session in Haystack. It is her technique of covering boxes that I use for most of my work. There is a bit of cutting and clipping that can be confusing at first, but once you get it, your boxes look beautiful at the end.

A box with drawer and magnetic lid from Julie Chen's class

Artist Jody Williams teaches regularly at MCBA and is famous for her "not empty boxes" (boxes with meaningful content) and working very, very small. At MCBA, she teaches "Little Boxes," "Box Making Made Easy," "Box Making Made Hard" and in one memorable class "Extreme Box Making" (we joked that that was making boxes while sky-diving). Her technique for covering boxes is one that I haven't found anywhere else. It's my opinion that it works best on small boxes and what I love about it is that it allows you to have an interior to your box that is different than your exterior (usually you use one piece of paper for your interior and exterior). Even an empty box has a surprise for you when you open it.

Small boxes from Jody Williams' class

I have a lot of gratitude to these teachers for their encouragement and generosity. I'm also reminded that there is not just one way to do things and that it's always useful to consider how else something can be done. Pretty useful lessons from a box class I believe.

Feast Day Blues

OR
Today is my feast day.
It doesn't mean that much anymore...typically I hear from my parents that they remembered and prayed for me (thank you!) and that's about it. But I always feel like it's a secret birthday. My real one falls just days after Christmas...one of the worst periods in the calendar. However September 8 in Minnesota is beautiful and today was one of the best. Cool, crystal clear blue skies, and a Saturday on top of it. A friend was coming over in the morning to tackle the last of the Ikea projects and I was planning on taking my niece to lunch. A lovely day. Ha.
First a little back-story. Thursday night we had a brief storm. It didn't seem like much of anything until I let Bella out before going to bed. One of the long branches from my enormous silver maple had cracked and was lying on some power lines (though I still had electricity). I called the power company and they said someone would be over soon. The next morning I alerted my neighbors (the branch was on their line as well) and waited.
This morning it had been 3 days and I had heard through the neighborhood grape-vine that my next-door neighbors were quite upset that the branch was still there. I gave the power company another call and this time they told me that since the branch was still partially attached, it was my problem, not theirs. This seemed like splitting hairs, so to speak, but what really bothered me was that I'd been waiting for 3 days and could have taken care of it in the meantime if they'd given me the right information in the first place. So I had to cancel my niece's lunch and try and find a tree service which answered calls on a Saturday. When one finally showed up, the dollar figure they gave me to cut the branch made me lose my breath. But the branch is up at least 25-30 feet and no one else can get to it. The sun began to shine a little more dimly.
Then began a day of errors and small accidents: grease spilled on the floor (ycch), I tripped over Bella's water bowl, the fresh Mozzarella I had planned on for dinner had spoiled.
Now here's the absolute worst thing about today. I just learned that Bruce Springsteen is coming here in concert on November 2. Wonderful, right? Except I'm supposed to be in New York that night to take a weekend class with Hedi Kyle. How am I supposed to make that decision? Sometimes life is just too cruel.
(I wonder if my parents forgot to pray for me?)