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Pocket Sketchbook with Elastic Closure
In my Bookworks class at CCA last week, my students and I made the full-sized sketchbooks with the rounded back, as shown in Making Handmade Books. One student asked "What about the elastic that holds...
View ArticlePoetry on the Ground
I've been reading a lot of poetry submissions lately that are lovely, really, well put together, crafted by someone who cares. I am sure of this, but the poems lift and float off the page in search of...
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The Value of Time in Writing
Make sure the stove is turned off before you leave the house. Wipe your feet on the mat. Don't comb your hair in public. Each phrase may be familiar, but its emphasis is different: safety, hygiene,...
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Variation on Hedi Kyle's Fishbone Fold
The Fishbone Fold, whose design is attributed to Hedi Kyle, has been around for several years, it seems, but over here on the left coast I hadn't seen it until just recently. It is an interesting...
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Echoes of Books in Nature
After playing with the Fishbone Fold from this post, I took a walk and found echoes of the structure in nature. Took some photos and brought the images back to the studio to replay.ProcessI measured...
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Star 82 Review December Issue 2.4 is LIVE!
The eighth issue of Star 82 Review, the art and literature magazine I design, edit, and produce is now available online and in print. We are looking at humans in nature, and nature in the city, among...
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Book Art Lives: Annie Bodelier
At some point in life it feels like we are constantly losing people. Sometimes the loss of someone we don't know affects us more than other losses, sometimes that loss just taps into our accumulated...
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For the Love of Painting, Texture, Light, and Place: John Zurier
At a memorial gathering for a colleague, I met another colleague: a charismatic painting professor who said he was on leave this year and wasn't teaching."Sabbatical?" He said no. But when I pressed...
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Fishbone Fold and Fibonacci
After posting about the Fishbone Fold here and here, I got a comment from reader Susan J, who mentioned a book about Fibonacci numbers "and, among other items, their relationship to botany." I asked...
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Oddlinks and Endlinks
On my winter vacation, I am back in the studio, sewing, setting type and printing, cutting and folding, working with the fishbone fold, but also writing and reading. Several of my poems and stories...
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New Letterpress Book: Words Collide
Inspiration lately has come from Hedi Kyle's Fishbone Fold (I've posted about it here and here and here), creating poems searched for and found in dictionary definitions (more examples here), and the...
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Set up a Four-Page Chapbook in Word
A chapbook is usually a single-signature pamphlet that contains a small amount of text and/or images, often poems. Here is a simple example of how you might arrange two pages, front and back, to print...
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When You Need a Template
Some years ago, I was surprised by a comment about my first instructional book, something like, "This book doesn't teach you how to make anything." I was puzzled because the book was full of...
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The Art of Written Objects: Three Novels
I don't know if this is a coincidence or popularity, but in the past three months, three of the 2014 novels I've read have an alternating chapter structure and some interesting similarities: they are...
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What We Make: Artifact
ar-ti-fact n.1. An object produced or shaped by human crafts,especially a tool, weapon, or ornament of archaeological or historical interest. 2.Somethingviewed as a product of human conceptionor agency...
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Book Art from Alisa Golden Now Available on Etsy
I'm very excited about doing a trial run and posting some of my book art and a subscription to Star 82 Review on Etsy under the store name nevermindtheart. I'm happy to report that credit cards are...
View ArticleMusing on Poetry: Can a Computer Write Art?
An article, "The Poem that Passed the Turing Test" popped up recently online about a young man who modified a computer program to write poetry. He submitted a suite of poems to The Archive, Duke...
View ArticleDictionary Valentine for You
love(luv) n.1. A deep, tender, ineffable feeling of affection and solicitude toward a person, such as that arising fromkinship, recognition of attractive qualities, or a sense of underlying oneness. 2....
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Flexaccordion?
Several years ago, Bonnie Thompson Norman excitedly sent me a book she had made and designed. I included the instructions for it, which I sometimes refer to as "Bonnie's Ladder" (featured as Woven...
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What I Bought at Codex Book Fair 2015
The Craneway Pavilion in Richmond, CA is a huge, high-ceilinged, room with nearly floor-to ceiling windows on two sides and skylights. It is bright in there, and when the sun shines at a certain angle,...
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