Deconstructing that artichoke and other bookmaking tales

Procrastinating, procrastinating

I'm supposed to have my monthly postcard done. I haven't started.

I haven't even touched my pop-up Alvar Aalto book in weeks.

But I hung two pictures yesterday and I'm going to writing group tonight. I'm finally alert enough for that.

Ah, well!

Steamrollin', rollin', rollin', rollin'

The Steamroller for SF Center for the Book was this weekend. I cruised down there and hung out for a while. It was fun, but what I really enjoyed were those long moments I spent with people. I got there early, and I hung out with Andy and Katherine and their new baby, Hunter. And then I spent a good deal of time hanging out with Steve, who is the Center's Artistic Director. And we just talked.

I saw Macy and Melissa, who both had tables, but they were busy selling their wares and didn't have much time to chat. And I saw Patricia and Pam too, but they were busy with running the event. I hope that next time we meet in a less chaotic environment, and we can share some time together, like I did with Andy and Katherine and Steve.

I'm connected!

Ok, so this post doesn't relate to anything, but I was so excited I had to post!

My internet is working! Woohoo! I got the modem in the mail yesterday and did everything they said in the instructions and on the disk. Easy-peasy. And then I went to connect to the internet and ... nothing. Aaah! So I called my service provider and they said they were having unusually high call volumes. Yeah, right, they just didn't want to talk to me.

So I called my brother, whose a whiz at this sort of thing (he actually has his own business doing computer things, if anyone ever asks what he does I tell them I'm not sure, it has something to do with computers), and he had me do all sorts of things, but none of them worked. But he's in San Diego and I'm in San Francisco, so it was tough. And then I got tired, and we gave up. Then, I went to check my email today, hoping against hope it would work ... and it did.

Getting back to bookarts

Well, I have some of my studio stuff. Key among that is my paper (and there's a lot of that)!

I was busy making my monthly postcard for Katherine and Sara. One day maybe I'll find the digital camera in my boxes and you'll all get some pictures of my apartment and my postcards. Until then you can just imagine. This postcard that I made had a lot of paper I found! I think once upon a time I had used it in a class I taught at SF Center for the Book.

My soon-to-begin project is a pop-up book about the Finnish architect, Alvar Aalto. I was really inspired by the Paul Johnson class I took in February (just before my stroke, yow, that's a weird thought) and decided I would make some pop-up books of famous architects. We'll see how this one goes, because it might be the only one. I don't know though, maybe the next one will be a Carlos Scarpa book.

Working, working...it still goes on.

So mom came up this weekend. Dad was sick, so he didn't come up. Which meant Billie didn't come up either. I was so upset about Billie that I cried when I found out dad wasn't coming.

But mom and I had a very productive weekend. She brought up lots of boxes of stuff and we had those to unpack. We went storage and had more boxes to unpack. And there's still more in storage. Argh! And then we did such unexciting things as going to Trader Joe's. But I think she convince me to get this really cute armoir at IKEA.