Category: Bookmaking

One of the most famous and earliest artists’ books is Prose du Transsibérien et de la petite Jeanne de France, with a poem by Blaise Cendrars and pochoir illustration by Sonia Delaunay from 1913. I got to see a copy, with all its spectacular color, once at a museum in San Francisco. (See a much larger image here.)
I’ve been working on a mobile recently, which I thought I might pochoir, and I remembered Delaunay’s piece. Turns out there was a recent exhibit of her work at the Copper Hewitt in NYC. The description of the exhibit says, in part, “a trademark of Delaunay’s work is the sense of movement and rhythm created by the simultaneous contrasts of certain colors.” Seems like a good place to look for inspiration for a moving piece like a mobile! Since the exhibit is closed and I’m not in NYC, I had to settle for these happy pictures of Delaunay’s use of color.

I’ve always been partial to miniature books — probably because my studio is small and making large books isn’t very practical. So I really liked this little collection called minibar for the mind. It was designed for a hotel, to provide “an intriguing and thought-provoking alternative to the usual minibar fare.” It includes “a box set of 250 cards featuring questions, quotations and provocations to start tongues wagging… An open book and a blank page to write down your dreams and fears… A set of three pencils with quotes from authors Mark Twain, George Orwell, and Laurence Sterne” and more.

Until 2009, I was webmaster for San Francisco Center for the Book. When they redesigned their website, the pictures and other material for past exhibitions at the Center disappeared. I’ve resurrected them on my website. (To the left is Laura McCarthy’s
Hibernation, from the exhibit Book Arts 2001: A Student Odyessy.)

	Book Arts 2001: A Student Odessy Celebrating a spectrum of booksworks inspired by teachers + classes at the San Francisco Center for the Book.
	Celebrating Teachers as Artists An exhibit of works by SFCB instructors.
	Artist’s Books: Unlimited Engagement This exhibit marks the culmination of a year-long class dedicated to sustained inquiry into the nature of the artist’s book.
	Show Me a Story: Children’s Books & the Technology of Enchantment This show explores the intangible workings of children’s books, with a focus on design and structure.
	Revealing the Mysteries: The Development of the Artist’s Book in the Bay Area This exhibition pays homage to the development of book arts in the Bay Area over the past half century.
	Inside Cover An exuberant and witty exhibition of international artist’s books.
	Photo Books Now Photo artists imagine myriad new possibilities for the book.
	New West Coast Design: Books This exhibition presents some of the best book artists on the west coast, with a high level of craft being the common denominator.
	Livros do Cordel:Books on a String An exhibition celebrating the famous livros do cordel, the printed folk literature of northeastern Brazil.
	Bartkowiak’s Best Book Art from the Hamburg Archives
	The Hand Bookbinders of California’s 29th Annual Members Exhibition
	2008 Pacific Center for the Book Arts Triennial Members’ Exhibition

The Book: A Contemporary View is a exhibit of bookworks up at Towson University (in Maryland) until April 11. It’s a nice on-line catalogue with essays about the state of the artists’ book, and enough information about the artists to make me look for their other work. One artist I found in particular was Andrew Huot. His book A Guide to Dogs is shown below. In the catalogue it says

A Guide to Dogs was made while the artist and his wife were searching for a dog. He did not have experience as a dog owner but his wife wanted his opinion, so he wrote a guide, using what knowledge he gained from movies and TV

It’s printed letterpress with handset type, linoleum cuts, and photopolymer plates. See Huot’s other bookwork here.

The sixth annual Art of the Book exhibit takes place at the Donna Seager Gallery in San Rafael, CA from March 18 – April 30. She has the exhibition online if, like me, you can’t make it to see the books in person. Below is Granden Press’ Point Plane Solid, described as

A visual meditation on some of Euclid’s definitions. Nine leaves, 12 x 3 inches, bound in a palm-leaf structure with wooden boards, strung on yellow cord held by a red wood cube. The pages unfold to reveal typographic or sculptural illustrations of geometric concepts. There are 3 small pop-ups or assemble-it-yourself structures within the pages.

Grandon Press is a collaboration between Barbara Mauriello and Barbara Henry. You can see more of this book and their other work here.