Deconstructing that artichoke and other bookmaking tales

Almost finished!

I finished printing the tarot cards yesterday! I still have to cut them down and print the cases, but the tarot cards themselves are done. I started them in 2007, and now I'm finally done. It's been a huge project, much bigger than I anticipated. I'm glad I did it though. I especially like working with Judith, the poet who wrote the poems. I'll take some pictures of the project, once I get the cards cut down. Yea for finishing something, especially such a gigantic project!

Getting there!

I finished setting type for Judith's tarot cards last Friday! Yea! It's been a long (long, long) project. So now, Judith has the last copy to read over and check for mistakes, and then I'll print the cards (We went to the Dodgers-Giants game last night; the Dodgers won. Yes! I was happy, Judith was not.). I also have to make a simple case for the tarot cards. I think I'll probably print the title of the cards, Days Without (Sky), on the case. It's going to be finished by end of the summer (well, at least a few of the decks will be finished!).

Not going to finish...

...the Tarot cards before the Printer's Fair. For a month, I was going out to Betsy's on both weekend days to print. I was starting to go to bed before 8 to get up at 6 for work. I was so tired. 

I was getting very close to being done, but I was going to have to take an entire week off work to be able to finish. That wasn't going to happen. So now the target date is sometime in earlier summer.

California Job Case

My type setting on the tarot cards is coming along nicely. I think I might get the tarot cards done by the Printer's Fair!

One thing I've noticed is that I set type with my left hand faster than I do with my right hand. I used to be right handed, but since my stroke I've become more and more left handed. I've always been somewhat ambidextrous, but now I'm even more so. I eat with my left hand now; I write with my right hand. It's very strange.

I think with setting type, the link between my brain and my hand is stronger with my left hand. You have to visualize where the letters are when you're setting type. And I think my right brain has the typecase memorized (or at least almost), while my left brain doesn't. Or maybe it's the links in the brain. In any case, I realized this late in the process for the tarot cards, but now that I've realized it, I'm setting type faster, which is making the project go faster.

 

It's very weird. It's been a strange process figuring out how my body works now that I've had the stroke.
 

It's a monster!

I've finished the body of my book for the show. I still have to attach the covers and cut out certain spots on each pocket to reveal the postcard, but it's almost there! These pictures are taken on my kitchen table, and boy, the book is a monster. It's huge!

   

 

 
  

Keep on printin'

I've been out at Betsy's every weekend day, printing. Last week was my spring break, so I was out on many of those days too. My goal is to get my tarot cards done by the Book Arts and Printers Fair on May 15. (The tarot cards are a project I'm doing with my friend, Judith. She wrote the poems, and I did the drawings and the printing.) As of right now, I think I'm going to finish!

Last Monday, I was out at Betsy's, happily printing away, hanging my completed prints on the "clothesline," when, all of a sudden, there was a scrabbling of feet, and a raccoon darted out of the storage area and around the type cases. Yikes! So there I was, printing with the raccoons!

A day of bookmaking...

Katherine and I got together today to work on our books for the show we're in in May. All three of us are calling our book, 39 Postcards.

Katherine's cover

Gluing pocket from my book

The materials for my book

The triple pocket accordion

So I came up with this structure for my postcard book (Katherine, Sara, and I are making books of our postcards, which I talked about last post.). I just finished the second dummy (the first was very simplistic) for the book. It's probably the last dummy I'll make of the whole book. Although I might make another dummy of the pocket; we'll see how it goes. The interesting part is the "spine." It's cut from one piece of paper: one side has 6 "fingers", two for each pocket; and the other side has two "fingers." And each "finger" is woven into a slit.

P.S. I'm teaching a class on this structure this summer at SFCB: July 20

 

Trying a new book structure

So I'm trying a new book structure that I invented.The book is for a show that Katherine, Sara, and I are entering at the Abecedarian Gallery in Denver. The book is for our postcards that we did a couple of years ago. We're each going to do a separate book. The book has to hold a little over 36 postcards (Sara did some extras.) I think I'm going to do a woven accordion structure. Each "accordion" will have three pockets for each of the postcards. The pockets will be made out of some transparent Japanese paper, and then I'll make some cut outs in each pocket. Probably, the cutout will be of the part of the postcard I think is the neatest looking. I've posted some very bad pictures below (one day I'll be able to get a new camera.) This is only one of the accordion folds though. I was working on the woven part--the part in the middle, which you can't really see that well.

New year...

Well, it's a new year, and I'm going to try to be better about blogging. My typing is getting somewhat faster, so I don't have an excuse anymore.

I have lots of exciting new projects, like my calendar and a project for a show I'm in later this year and, of course, my tarot cards. I'm also hoping to start a book I'm calling Dodger Blue. Oh, yeah, and then I have more chapbooks I'm going to do. Phwew!

Last year I learned how to make these buttonhole books from my friend, Carolee. She used it to make a calendar, and so I'm doing the same thing this year.

The show I'm in later this year is going to be a show with the postcards that Katherine and Sara and I made. We're each going to do a separate book. More on this later.