My friend Kate recommended that I read this interview with Australian-based artist Nicholas Jones about his book sculptures. (That’s one of Jones’ books to the left.) Kate says “Granted he’s destroying while he creates, but the forms are incredible.” I have to agree — hope you enjoy the interview too — if for nothing else but the pictures of his work and his studio!
Last summer, Drew Matott of the People’s Republic of Paper gave a class in 17th century paper making at the San Francisco Center for the Book. My friend Pam met Drew while he was in SF, and later met him at Columbia College in Chicago to learn to make paper herself. She brought back with her a huge pile of the most beautiful paper — and many of us have been watching excitedly as Pam finishes the paper and puts it to use in a book she’s writing. While in Chicago, she got involved with the Combat Paper Project — a group of Iraq war veterans who have cut up their uniforms, turned them into pulp and paper, and then that paper into books of poetry, broadsides and works of art. Pam has some of the paper they’ve made — with visible bits of uniform — that is quite moving to see. Even more moving is this short documentary of the project, showing the veterans making paper and using the act of making art to transform their war experiences.
Every year in April, in honor of National Poetry Month, I pull A Poem A Day from my bookshelf. It has 366 poems, organized seasonally, that are mostly short and, according to the anthologists, examples of poetry that is worth memorizing. One editor says “To memorize a poem is much more than a mental exercise. Indeed, it is the only way to truly know a poem.” I’m not particularly good at memorizing entire poems — or songs or movie dialogue for that matter — I know lots of first lines, but never get much further. So every April I open the book and wonder if this year will be different and I’ll memorize one of them. Probably not, but I always enjoy reading one or two before I go to sleep each night. Here’s last night’s selection:
To Daffodils
by Robert Herrick (1591-1674)
Fair Daffodils, we weep to see
You haste away so soon;
As yet the early-rising sun
Has not attain’d his noon.
Stay, stay,
Until the hasting day
Has run
But to the even-song;
And, having pray’d together, we
Will go with you along.
We have short time to stay, as you,
We have as short a spring;
As quick a growth to meet decay,
As you, or anything.
We die
As your hours do, and dry
Away,
Like to the summer’s rain;
Or as the pearls of morning’s dew,
Ne’er to be found again.
Upcycling, taking something that is disposable and transforming it into something of greater use and value, has become a popular pastime among crafters. And noone makes a more creative use of something that gets discarded with abandon (books) than the shelves and “book art” made by Jim Rosenau. And on top of that, his web site is witty and full of great photos of his work! Here are 2 of my favorites, Pandemonium and Eat Fat:
March is Small Press Month in the US — an annual celebration of the small independent publisher. I’m celebrating by buying my friend Carol Peter’s first poetry chapbook, Muddy Prints, Water Shine from Finishing Line Press (Carol’s poetry was published as part of the New Women’s Voices Series chapbook competition.)
I also bought a letterpress printed zine from artnoose to add to my small but growing collection of letterpress printed pamplets and chapbooks. There are lots more zines for sale on Etsy, check them out!
For free, in San Francisco tonight, City Lights hosts a group reading by authors and poets from six local independent presses. And the Small Press website has a list of other events around the country.
I’ve never learned to draw very well, and that usually hasn’t been a problem as I’d rather use abstract shapes like letterforms, rectangles, dots and circles in my broadsides and books. But last week I needed an image of some fireflies in a jar, and my attempts to draw them were just too sad. It’s at times like this that I remember the matchbooks lying around the house when I was a kid that had ads for art correspondence courses. Usually there was a picture on the front and the caption ”Are You an Artist? Find Out FREE! Draw Me.”
My friend Cathy, who teaches book arts to kids, claims she can only draw frogs. But recently she decided to add to her repertoire when she found this how to draw a hedgehog by children’s illustrator Jan Brett.
A quick look at the online catalogue for my local library produces a long list of “how to draw…” books. I have a book to return, so I’ll be stopping in to take a look at those how-to books, as well as trying to draw a few hedgehogs.