Besides teaching and working, I've also spent the past couple of weeks working on a new product/project that I'm calling P is for Pinwheel.
Inspired by the Altered Book show at the Marin MOCA, Kayte Terry, and the idea of how books are read and interpreted, I decided to put a letter P encyclopedia, found at a San Francisco Public Library book sale, to use.
I cut down pages from the encyclopedia and pasted them on solid color paper, did some folding and measuring, and cut them just so, so that they could be twisted and pinned into a pinwheel shape.
The finished paper wheel was stuck to a straw for a lovely twist on an old favorite. These are a bit more fragile and don't spin as freely as your standard pinwheel but I think they're more fun and informative.
Some of you may be wondering how a book lover such as myself could sacrifice a book in this way. Let me explain. This particular reference tome had been orphaned. This means it was separated from the rest of the set it came from and, not being a first edition or otherwise rare or antique, it had no historic value. Having lost its brethren, it had little to no value for resale and would have been destined for the trash or a creative reuse center had I not purchased it. I enjoyed being able to give it new life and look forward to sharing the pinwheels with others to see how they interpret this book in its new form.
If you're interested in having an encyclopedia pinwheel of your very own, I'll be selling them at my booth (neon sprinkles studio) at Patchwork Oakland on May 12 (Mother's Day).
Things have been quiet on the blog because I've been quite busy in the real world.
At the end of April I taught a session of Introduction to Bookbinding at the San Francisco Center for the Book. I say this after every class but, April's workshop was the best one yet! One of the things I really enjoy about teaching bookmaking is that it's such a universal object form that everyone can understand (even the e-reader folks). In this particular workshop I had the pleasure to teach bankers, lawyers, art students, and even a database manager!
A few days after the workshop I was back at the San Francisco Center for the Book for an evening of simple bookmaking demos at the grand (re)opening (a big open house celebrating the move to a bigger and better building).
I spent the night teaching visitors how to make maze, or meander, books. These are fun, simple structures made out of a single sheet of paper. I like them because they can open in any direction and have all these secret little spots to discover and they can also be flattened to view a single image all at once, instead of page by page (like this one, made out of a photocopied map of Michigan).
Just some of the happy folks with their aMAZEing books!
Not sure if I remembered to mention it but, on Mother's Day, I will be a vendor at Patchwork Oakland! It will be the first time I have an entire booth space to myself and I couldn't be more excited. I've made some new products for the show (just wait until tomorrow's post) and Charlie even built me a folding wall to ramp up my display.
I've been working hard to get the word out about the show (I hope you'll stop by!) and one way I decided to invite folks was by seinding out customized event postcards.
With scrap paper, washi tape, scissors, a hole punch, and some kitchen twine to tie it all together (craft pun alert!) I made these fun little invites. I have a few left over, if you'd like one of your very own, let me know!
