My friend Lucy Childs started Another Room Book Arts about a year ago to sell artist’s books. She’s got quite a collection of work, in all price ranges and from all over the world. She’s having a trunk sale in a San Francisco home this Saturday, November 1st from 11 am – 4 pm. Peter Thomas, of Peter and Donna Thomas Miniature Books, will do a presentation at 1 pm. (Peter is always funny and entertaining, and maybe he’ll play one of his ukulele books!) The trunk sale takes place at 128 Precita Avenue, San Francisco, near the 24th Street BART. Lucy says she’ll have artists’ books, paintings, and sculptures and “low-priced goods just right for our new economy.” It’s a great chance to actually “read” and handle the books.

One of the things I look forward to when attending book fairs is catching up with Elaine at Blue Chair Press. We see each other about once a year & she always seems to be working on something totally different, and recently at the BABA Book Jam was no exception. Her newest project is chairs made from vegetables and fresh flowers — that’s one of my favorites to the left. Many of the chairs last only the few hours it takes to construct and photograph them. With the images she’s made cards and a small book of only green veggie ones. So of course, being partial to green chairs, I bought the book. It’s now on the “chair” shelf in my office — along with my small but growing collection of chair art.
You can see all the chairs here.

I wrote about Marion Bataille’s elegantly simple pop-up book ABC3D last March (see the video showing a mock-up of the book). It’s now available from Amazon (there’s another video there too).

I grew up crafty — as a kid we made our own Christmas tree decorations, painted intricate patterns on blown eggs at Easter-time, and learned how to sew. In my first house as an adult, I couldn’t find shades I liked for the windows, so I made my own. When I discovered Etsy, I found a world of people like me who loved making things. And I’ve acquired art for my walls, as well as some great unique purses (my own sewing skills have always been lousy), a bit of jewelry, and, best of all, silk screened t-shirt dresses to wear over jeans. My husband has never liked store-bought soap (too waxy) so after trying a few different soapmakers, now we buy lovely fragrant handmade bars from a woman here in the bay area.
Often the connection to the maker is as important as the piece itself. At the BABA Book Jam last Saturday, I meet in person some of the people who’ve bought my books and artwork online. One woman said “I have your calendar, and I’ve been careful not to look ahead, so when I get to the next month I’ll have a surprise, a new haiku to read.” Another woman told me she’d bought my reader diary, put a gift card for Borders in the pocket along with the bookmark, and gave it to her daughter for her birthday. I could go on and on…
Getting ready for craft & book fairs can be stressful — do I have enough of this? should I take that? did I get all the labels made? — but at more and more shows I come home at the end of the day completely satisfied from meeting so many people who’ve bought my things and been excited about their handmade uniqueness.