P is for Plants

The complete book and an image of each page can be found on my website

The Marin MoCA's annual Altered Book Exhibition and fundraiser opens tomorrow and this year I have a book featured. I'll be one of 150 artists with a piece up for auction with the proceeds going to support the museum. It's the first time I've exhibited book art with content since college and I couldn't be more excited. 

As you know, I'm quite fond of upcycling, or taking something old, used or worn and turning it into something new. With this in mind, I jumped at the challenge of creating a piece for the exhibition. It all began with an orphaned volume of the Encyclopedia Britannica that I found at a SFPL book sale a few years back. I had been using it sporadically for collaging and wrapping paper but wanted to do a larger scale project with it. 

The volume I had was PLANTS to RAYM and, given my obsession with plants, it naturally seemed that that should be the subject for this book. 

I started out by making a list of plants I wanted to include. I won't lie, I chose ones that I liked, but also tried to have a mix of flowers, green plants, and fruit bearing plants. Then, with a decent amount of Internet searching for models, I sketched each page out in my notebook before moving on to the actual pages. 

I really love the botanical field journals of the 18th and 19th centuries so while researching, I took short notes about each plant I was drawing so that I could add notes, making the final book have a bit of a field journal air to it.

It was quite laborious given that I'm not known for my penmanship, drawing isn't my strong suit, and neither is coloring, but I wanted to push myself so each page was sketched, inked with Micron pens, and colored with colored pencils. I'm rather pleased with the results.

The final structure is an accordion, hinged with Lokta paper, with hard covers that have a mock half binding appearance. The backside of the book is lamented with un-altered encyclopedia pages. The book is unique and not editioned. More images, and artist statement, and the complete book layout can be found on my website. 

P is for Pinwheel

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).