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Call for Submissions: Star 82 Review
For the new year, I'm starting a magazine. Star 82 Review is a new online and on-demand art and lit quarterly publication that is coming soon! Please pass the word and consider submitting your work for...
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Always the Same: Rules of Bookmaking
We are pattern-seekers. The calendar rolls over for the new year, but we notice that some things don't change. Gravity, for one. Step sock-footed into a puddle and your foot gets wet, for another. In...
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If It's Out, I'll Eat It: Accessibility
The future is often portrayed in films as sleek and clean, with no stuff visible. In the streamlined house of The Jetsons (animated cartoon from the 1960s), you see rounded chairs and a giant screen as...
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Ezra Jack Keats and Bookmaking
When I heard that an Ezra Jack Keats exhibit was opening at the Contemporary Jewish Museum in San Francisco, my first thought was: was he Jewish? It seems that I, along with many readers, had always...
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More Matjames: Comics and Assemblage
I'm revisiting matjames metson this post as part of my interest in living artists.A recent purchase in the comic department was issue #2 of the magazine, Slake that has a comic called "Survivor's...
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After being compelled to read A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickins, it took me decades before I picked up another book by same author. Mr. Freisinger, my ninth grade English teacher, the almost...
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Book Artists and Chronicle Books
Being invited to speak at Moe's Books last night as part of an event called "The State of the Book Arts" reminded me why I wanted to make books in the first place: I wanted to be published, have my...
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The Story of Telltale Marks
I photograph telltale marks. I'm interested in indicators that someone or something was here before me. Marks can be actual lines or they can be objects. You can see examples in the photos on Sidewalk...
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A Game of Artists' Dice
One of my favorite introductory classroom activities to kickstart a writing process or bookmaking project is to make artist's dice. We might do a short writing exercise first. Or talk about words that...
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Twelve Necklaces
Our language seems limitless, yet we use certain word combinations repeatedly. They aren't clichés exactly, but pairs and groups of words that are familiar, like majestic mountains or winning smile. I...
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Make It Bigger
As part of the art education at the college where I teach, students in their third year go through a process called Junior Review. Three to five faculty members are encouraged to volunteer to be on a...
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Insecurity and the Third-Person Bio
Having just written about how bigger is better, I want to say that longer is not. Something possessed me to start an art and literary magazine, which I am excited about, and an unintended benefit is...
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Objects & Their Stories
What if a person purchased an object that s/he wouldn't normally buy because it had a wonderful story attached to it? That is the premise behind the project encompassed in the book Significant Objects....
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We {Heart} Books: Codex Book Fair 2013
Another Codex International Book Fair swept into the San Francisco Bay Area, this time in its new digs at the Craneway Pavilion in Richmond, California. I saw many treasures and talked to many...
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Painting Calm
I've spent a large portion of my life making art to sell, which can be gratifying on one level, but anxiety ridden on another. More recently I've been taking the time to make art for myself. In my book...
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Formatting Magazine Submissions & Cover Letters
When submitting work to magazines, you will want to read the specific guidelines for each publication. If you are unsure how to format your work and the publication does not explain, consider using...
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Mistake Vs. Happy Accident: Technique Vs. Art
Oftentimes, a student begins to print and the inking is too light or too heavy, a linoleum carved image is coming out with stray marks, the hand set type contains letters that are wrong or upside down,...
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Arielle Coupe's Senior Printmaking Show at CCA
Although I teach in the Printmaking Program I do not always have the opportunity to meet and work with all of the printmaking students. I do try to see their senior shows, though, and am often...
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Aimee Lee: Korean Papermaking Journey
The creative impulse is mysterious; why we do what we do often eludes us, but looking back our actions may appear quite clear. It seemed so for Aimee Lee. In a talk at Mills College Library she...
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