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A Void: Book without the Letter E
After I wrote (in an earlier post) about OuLiPo and constraint-based writing, I decided to read A Void, a translation by Gilbert Adair of the French novel La Disparition by Georges Perec (1936-1982),...
View ArticleWhat Does It Mean When They Say "Read the Magazine?"
If you submit work to literary magazines, you will note that the guidelines almost always say something like, "To get an idea for what we like, read the magazine." And you read a few pieces and you...
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Sparks: Inspiration
What is that feeling? Malaise? Depressing news? Hormones, again? Don't feel like doing anything? This happens to me often when I am between projects: a restlessness sets in. I have a studio full of...
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Chinese-Inspired Stick Scroll
A friend was traveling in China this summer and sent me a picture of an ancient almanac from the Han Dynasty (206 BC - 220 AD). Bamboo strips were inscribed vertically and joined with strings woven...
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How to Tackle Six-Word Memoirs
Three years ago, in 2011 (!), I wrote about six-word stories in the post "Writing Tiny Stories." At this point, many website are devoted to them. The first, from SMITH Magazine, is linked to the 2008...
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Presenting Felt
I've been making felted books and flat pieces and sculptures since 2008 or so, and I pulled them out recently, wondering if I had enough for a show. Indeed! They fill up four big plastic bins. The...
View ArticleAn Unexpected Argument for the Book (IKEA's BookBook)
Certain things just won't go away, and I'm happy to say that the paper book is among them. I know that there is still moaning and groaning and gnashing of teeth around this subject, but actually,...
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Mainstream Novels I Was Able to Finish This Summer
I like reading short stories and certain kinds of poetry, and I love a good novel, but I often lose interest. This summer (and I'm counting up until the Equinox as summer), I plowed through several...
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Star 82 Review Fall Issue 2.3 is LIVE!
The seventh issue of Star 82 Review, the art and literature magazine I started in 2013, is now available online and in print. We have a diverse array of poems, stories, and art featuring things broken...
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A Brief Musing on a Verb-Change Operation
In short prose or poetry, precise words are needed to convey the mood or message. The shorter the piece, the more precise the words need to be. Verbs choice, in particular, can change a banal sentence...
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Handmade Paper Love
I used to make paper, had moulds and an old Cuisinart dedicated to the process, learned from Don Farnsworth years ago. But in an attempt to streamline my art possessions and not having made any paper...
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Collagraphs on a Sign Press, Letterpress & By Hand
A recent posting on the Book Arts ListServe prompted me to think again about what some people call "Sandragraphs," but are typically known in the printmaking community as "collagraphs" (a way to print...
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Montages from the 1970s
Maybe it was my introduction to mandalas in elementary school. Maybe it was the artist Peter Max or the animation in the Beatles'Yellow Submarine, designed by Heinz Edelmann (I did have a Yellow...
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Marie Dern's Big Book
Last Spring there was a retrospective of Marie Dern, Jungle Garden Press, at the San Francisco Center for the Book. The title of the show, and the title of the centerpiece of the show was, "Printers'...
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This Is Not My Type
At California College of the Arts, we still teach letterpress the traditional way: by setting individual pieces of metal type by hand. When I was a student and then a teacher's aid there in the 1980s,...
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Freedom and the Book
I've been thinking about power lately. And the kind of power that exists in book publishing. And our choices and what they mean to our freedom to read.If you want to continue to have the freedom to...
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A Symbolic Book: Cultural and Social Identity
My colleague Tomoko Murakami is teaching a 2D First Year class and invited me to demonstrate bookbinding to her students in preparation for an assignment she is giving:Create a mixed media book that...
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Accidental Experiments with Paste Paper
I mixed up a batch of cold-water paste this week to show my students how to back cloth with mulberry paper (DIY book cloth) and offhandedly told them that the wheat paste mixed with acrylic paint can...
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A Pen and a Water Brush: Pumpkin Tutorial
Artist, Tim Sharman, also known as the proprietor of the Doof Museum, is filling in at school for a few weeks. I found him drawing and painting in the main printshop. Except he was using an inexpensive...
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Persimmon Walk
We get teased about not having discernible seasons in California, but in Berkeley the persimmon tree is quite distinctive. I found it interesting and exhilarating to walk while looking carefully for...
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