Paper Cutting

Pistoles PressPaper cuts seem to be all the current rage — from Kara Walker at the Whitney in NY to shops on Etsy including Mister Rob, to traditional Chinese designs from jinshanghai, to Pistoles Press (image to left) where Lana incorporates her paper cuts into books.
While I’ve done a fair amount of hand cutting when making pop-up books, I’m a beginner to these more intricate forms. There are quite a few books on paper cutting techniques on Amazon. Online, Lana at Pistoles Press writes about her methods for making paper cuts and wood block prints on her blog. And check out this nice online tutorial on Skinny Laminx’s blog.

Ghost Books

v25no1cover.jpgIn addition to running Green Chair Press, I’m the current editor of the Pacific Center for the Books Arts (PCBA) quarterly journal Ampersand. PCBA began as a regional (San Francisco-based) organization 25 years ago, to support professional development of book artists, but we’ve grown to have many members across the US and beyond. In the issue that came out this week, I’m excited to have three articles about artists from California to Florida using fabric and fiber in their bookworks.
Mentioned in several articles is Santa Cruz-based Jody Alexander and her ghost books made out of mull (a stiff muslin open-weave fabric that is used by bookbinders to cover the spine of books). Deborah Kogan, who interviewed Jody for Ampersand, says “When I saw the books … they exploded my preconceived ideas about fabric books. I had been thinking of fabric books as fluffy and plump. Alexander’s books are exactly the opposite—they remind me of skeletal remains after every shred of flesh has been boiled away or removed after long exposure to the elements.”
I got to see Jody’s ghost books this week in person as part of the current exhibition at the San Francisco Center for the Book (through the end of April). They are indeed quite ethereal and eerily beautiful! The photograph below is of Jody’s Signs of Life I,II, & III. You can see more of Jody’s one-of-a-kind bookworks on her website.

Jody Alexander’s Signs of Life I, II, III

Hand Debossed Panels

One of the first classes I took at the San Francisco Center for the Book was to make an accordion spine book with a hand-debossed (recessed) panel in each page. For that class (taught by Howard Munson) we made collages to put in the debossments. I’ve used this debossing technique many times since then, mainly for cards but most recently for my newest set of broadsides. It’s a much more elegant way to display artwork or photographs than just gluing them onto the paper.
To make a hand-debossed panel, you’ll need a bone folder and a piece of davey board (or something that is about 1/8″ thick) cut to the size of the panel. The paper to be debossed should be thick and soft (for instance Somerset or Rives). I make a jig by cutting a piece of card stock to the size of my paper, figuring out where the debossed panel should be located, and attaching the davey board there using double-stick tape. (You can see the jig in the photo below.)

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Now I lay my paper over the jig, lining up the edges at the top and side. I put a piece of double-stick or rolled tape on the davey board, so that once I’ve lined everything up, I can tack the paper down so it won’t move. To start the debossment, using my fingers, I carefully press the paper against the sides of the davey board. Then, using my bone folder, I work the paper against the davey board. This molds the panel into the paper. Do this slowly at first, as it’s easy to tear or mark the paper. Pay careful attention to the corners.

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When all the sides and corners have been worked equally, I’m done.

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Learning to Draw

Famous Artist’s School matchbookI’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.

Broadside Project Report

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When I started this blog last year to record my attempts at making broadsides, my thought then was to play with combining typefaces, letterpress, text and maybe images on paper. Looking back a year later, “images” turned out to be abstract patterns, shapes and letterforms. And a lot of my broadsides don’t have text (a surprise to me!), rather I used wooden type in nonsense patterns. I’ve been calling these later prints “wood type collages” (you can see them all here.)
Since the beginning of this year, I’ve been experimenting with another type of collage using paper (wonderful Japanese stuff called moriki), and I thought I might combine some of them with poetry for a new set of broadsides. These have a hand-debossed (recessed) panel for the collage, and a haiku is letterpress printed below them. I’ve handset the type — which made for a very lovely, meditative morning recently. I’ve printed the same haiku on about 15 sheets of chewy Somerset, and debossed the panels. Then I’ll make a unique collage for each one. I’ve done four so far (see photos at the top of this post). A finished broadside is shown below. See them all here.

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