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A 50-Word Story Zine: Blink-Ink
Blink-Ink, a friendly little quarterly literary magazine, was introduced to me when I announced a call for entries for Star 82 Review's 50/50-word story special flash issue last spring. Lynn Mundell,...
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Color Wheels & Concept Wheels
Here's a content development exploration that utilizes color theory, analysis and imagination. We're probably all familiar with the color wheel and the primary colors for pigment: red, yellow, and...
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New Print for Autumn: Scare Crow Dream
Sometimes, the crow wins. From one block grows this multicolored image in glowing yellow, carved and then printed in straw gold, pumpkin oranges, autumn red, and night dark blue/black. Like a batik on...
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Fiction, Nonfiction, and More: You Decide
Nonfiction is a strange catch-all term. In a library visit, looking at the section of new books, you might notice that fiction is alphabetized by last name, nonfiction is numbered. Poetry, art books,...
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What Can Artists Do with Their Art?
We see the effects of repeated images in advertising, in politics. As printmakers (or other makers) we are in a unique position: we can make multiples. We have the power to create images that show the...
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Instructions: Interlocking Double Accordion
This fall, in addition to teaching bookmaking and letterpress at my home school of California College of the Arts, I've been teaching the Introduction to Bookmaking class at California State...
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So, You Have a Question about Letterpress Inks?
I got an email from a book artist who recently bought a press. She had a question about inks.So, can you let me know what kind of inks your books are printed with? I'm wondering if oil-based is best...
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Coptic with Single Sheets (or Boards) and Paired Needles
A student wanted to know how he could make a book with wood pages, so I got out Keith Smith's Non-Adhesive Binding, Vol. 4: Smith's Sewing Single Sheets to study and see if I could finally figure out...
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2016 Small Books for Gifts
Here is a look back at the book art I made in 2016 that might make nice little gifts for someone you know. Details, ordering info, and more artwork at this link: nevermindtheart. Here are some...
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Sewn Board Models from Scraps: Coptic Again
After spending several hours learning this Coptic with single boards so I could teach it, I became addicted and began rummaging around the classroom for leftovers. It is an interesting design problem,...
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Star 82 Review Winter Issue 4.4 is LIVE!
The sixteenth issue of the online and print magazine I edit, Star 82 Review (also known as *82 Review), is now available! This time we find people in groups and people alone, needing the company, but...
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Coptic Bound Journals at nevermindtheart
Every semester I bind books as models for my classes. This causes a surge of books to flow into my studio. To share a few, I'm offering a selection of Coptic bound models as journals at...
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In the Shadows
It's hard to get one's bearings as the landscape changes daily. I'm trying to look for and provide a tiny measure of sustenance, if possible, for myself and others who are in despair. Perhaps some...
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Letterpress Printer Amos Paul Kennedy Jr. at CCA
I found out about a week ago that Amos Paul Kennedy Jr. would not only be in town from Detroit, but would be giving a Sunday workshop in the letterpress studio at CCA, the room in which I teach. In my...
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Amos Paul Kennedy Jr. Workshop at CCA
When I arrived at the workshop, students were already sitting in a semi-circle around Amos. They would be printing a poster for TAP (Trans Assistance Project), and TAP had sent him an email with some...
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Chinese New Year Haiku Cards from Katherine Ng
I believe I first met Katherine Ng through the Pacific Center for the Book Arts. She had won a purchase award from the organization in the 1990s for her book Banana Yellow (which I'm including in an...
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Writing, Teaching, and Organizing
Union organizing and negotiating have similar goals to writing and teaching. In writing we ask: who is the character and what do they want? We look at how challenges bring out the character's true...
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Inside the Box: A Creative Practice
Every now and then I set up a challenge for myself to draw every day in a datebook (like in this 2013 post) or to write the story of the day for a month, or some such thing, and I almost always fail. I...
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Outside the Box: Door or Trap?
By chance, out of the flurry of news and information, a phrase that delighted me, by artist Grace Hwang: "Which of these leads to a door and which of these leads to a trap?" Underneath, a list of...
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