A Beginning... Again

    A new year rings in and one cycle of time passes to reveal an open path. 2024 is here! I have been thinking about paths lately.. About the archetypical heroes journey, and where each of us stand on that path. As one chapter ends it's common to think back to all that has happened. 2023 was a year of great change for this artist. Significant loss.. with the passing of many dear friends. How does an artist (or anyone) deal with that? It's different for everyone. For my friend Alice (who supported my first teaching gigs and so many others in a thousand ways) we had a gathering under a shelter at a local park where 100 of us made handmade pamphlet books, collaged cards and tiny boxes, while listening to a mix her favorite (cool) music, watching a slideshow of photos of her 75 years on this earth,  and sharing our own Alice Stories.. To each who have lost someone this past year, may your memories be sweet and comforting with many of your own loved one's stories.

Paper flowers made for Alice's Celebration of Life, May 2023

   As the new year rings in, new book classes are on the slate at Blam! studio here in Raleigh. We've already spent 2 weeks immersed in the marbling baths (in some cases...literally!), moved the furniture all around, spread out plastic drop cloths, strung lines all across the studio... since warm but windy North Carolina didn't make it possible to hang our newly marbled papers outside... Frankly, this 7-person shared artist space was ALL ABOUT THE MARBLING for 2 weeks and I am grateful to my fellow studio mates (photographers, printers, painters, glass artists, and writers...) for their generosity and patience...

The walls at Blam during a marbling class this January 

What's coming up in the next few months?? As I explore the theme of journey I will have a series of classes based on the structure of a door titled the Double Door Series. The first class will be making Tunnel books with a double door on the front of the case. 

'The Art of Living' birthday card tunnel book... for Cynthia, March '23

"The Doors of the Castle" tunnel book, June '23

The next in the series will be 'The Book of Doors' class. Where students will include imagery and text in a stiff leaf book with double door fold-outs on each page.. Tranfers, collage, sketching, stamping, and paints will be included in the creativity for this class, but imagine the fun in viewing the final results!

page from "A Poem" using letterpress, acrylic paints, Citrisolve® transfers... as specified by the drawing of Julie Chen and Barbra Tetenbaum Book Artists Ideation Cards

The next in the series will be 'A Double Gatefold Book'. This delightful folded structure was shown to me by a fellow book artist who had received one with her grandson's burger meal at a certain fast food restaurant several years ago. We took it apart to see how we could make it as a book, and Voila! it became a new favorite book structure. The transformation aspect of this book is perfect for what happens in all heroes' journeys. The example below is a silly ditty that goes around and around, with a never ending quest: 

"Welcome to the City!

Have you lost your way? 

This Way! That Way!

Don't ever give up! Just Follow the signs!

Go Right Go Left

Welcome to the City!   

Have you lost your way?...."

Fold down, fold up...

rotate and fold in... 

rotate and fold again.... and repeat.. and repeat...
Letterpress, stamps, and a map were used to create the story about being lost...

    The last class in the series is a box structure based on a cigar box I had for years and was using as my traveling bookmaking tool box. The box had a unique locking board clasp which my teacher Julie Chen noticed and brought to my attention. Eventually I took the cigar box apart to figure out how to make the unusual clasp. Now it is a favorite box structure ..and many boxes later has also become a favorite class too.

The Double-Door box with a board clasp (silk book cloth & Kathy's marbled paper)

Peeking in...

In every heroes' journey there is always some unexpected surprise, some pot of gold that was hidden until just the right moment. Despite the work and struggles along the way, it's these unexpected treasures that always make me love this style of story.

I hope your year is full of a thousand unexpected treasures!

 The Definition of Summer.... studio time, garden time, kitchen time, family and friends time, beaches,  rainbows, travel, flowers, fruits, vegetables, heat ....long days that somehow are lazy and also full.

A tunnel book and lino block of a house on Geer St. Durham, NC

Bread and Butter pickles from extra cucumbers

Harvesting oregano and cucumbers from the garden

A book teaching gig at Emerald Isle, NC starts with a rainbow

A trip to see friends in the mountains at Penland

Zinnias in bloom by the studio

Finished a piece, 'The Bowl, the Book, and the Box' for the October show at Campbell House in  Southern Pines, NC

Quiches and casseroles... still trying to use up all the squash from the garden..

A morning coffee with mug from one of my favorite potters;
RIP Marsha Owen, Sept. 1954-July 7, 2023
We love you!

Edition watercoloring of woodblock prints: The Bowl and the Book

The garden out back just gets wilder and wilder... beans, tomatoes, squash, onions, peppers, kale, okra, cucumbers, rosemary, oregano, thyme, and chives, and milkweed, butterflies, bees, weeds, mosquitos

Hallie's Garden, paste paper painting for the Campbell House show
A wild garden of my past, my Great Aunt Hallie always planted her garden by the phases of the moon... and was said to be able to remove warts.. which she did for my Mom the summer I was eleven...

Diary

I found out in December that I will be teaching a Journal Making workshop in May '23 at Gray Bear Lodge in Hohenwald, Tennessee. The immediate reaction to the news was total elation. What had recently become a scary path of medical diagnoses, tests, more diagnoses, more tests, and uncertain findings was sidetracked buy the anticipation of gathering around the book arts table with a group of likeminded bookartists making our own unique handmade journals. I imagined being at the paste-painting table, dollops of colored paste-paint moving around the paper as we joyfully brushed, stamped, combed and scraped patterns and images onto large once-blank sheets of drawing paper. Folding and assembling the variety of colorful pastepapers around more blank pages for the text blocks. And then the meditative piercing of the sewing holes in the coverboards and text blocks. Then, the final step... an ancient style of sewing the binding.. poking the needles in and out of the sewing holes, criss-crossing inside each section, then linking each section to the last in a beautiful waxed-linen-thread chain of symetry and strength.

Journals bound with the exposed ancient Coptic chainstitch binding are wonderful journals, sketchbooks, and registers because each page opens flat so there is no skewed markmaking due to an uneven page. When things are smooth with no bumps, sometimes it's just easier.

But life is always filled with bumps, curves, dips, dives... from the first breath to the last gasp. In May, I'll tell my students that journals are a wonderful way to record a tiny bit of their life. Not much of a journaler myself, I usually like making the journals more than writing in them. But this past November, with the recent unexpected news of a new health concern I began a new journal. These are a few pages from that journal...

 

 Dec. 13:

 "normal"

 "normal" 

 “low” 

 “intermediate” 

 “abnormal”

 ........... 

 Korean dramas in bed all day 

 'drink water' (as if that will help) 

 'be positive' (I don’t feel like it)  

 Jan 13, 2023:

 

Red String Game

 a skein 

 of red yarn 

 spun out over time 

 and draped 

 across chairs and tables, 

 beds... 

 through doors 

 around corners 

 down paths. 

 crossing over 

 and under itself 

 wrapping like a

 misshapen package 

 or some mummy 

 what is 

a life.

I first played The String Game at my 7th birthday party. A surprise party, I opened the door to a room of my friends and a criss-crossed tangle of red yarn. Each child had a piece of yarn with their own name at one end and a surprise gift hidden at the other end. All of the strings were taped to a spot on the floor near the entry. The game began with each child finding their string, then winding it up inch-by-inch... following it over and under chairs, tables and all the other tangle of strings, slowly and carefully rewinding it into a ball without separating it from the anticipated prize... until the end was found and the prize revealed. I don't have any memory of what prize I found that day, but I will never forget the image of all those criss-crossed red strings and a dozen 2nd graders carefully navigating the maze of threads as they wound up their own balls of Red String...

Art is Everywhere...

"Sam's Art For Sale...$5"

 It's been a busy Fall. The window frames inside Blam! and the trees outside are strung with lines to hang all sorts of artwork, marbled papers, paste papers... Students have been busy learning all sorts of book arts...

Romanesque Binding books...

Nag Hammadi Books...

Carousel Books...

Stiff Leaf books...with windows and pockets..

Coptic Books...and Belgian Binding books..

Books with weaving warps in the pages...

One page.. what should I weave in it???

Traditional Cord-bound and Sewn on Tapes books...

Marbling...Marbling... Marbling!

     At home, the family came together from near and far on a warm sunny day in mid October. As we cooked a Brunswick Stew in a big black iron pot over an open fire in the backyard we played flag football, roasted oysters on the extra coals, played dolls in the treehouse, sat in the fall sunshine and reminisced of the old folks who started the tradition 70 years ago... Here is an excerpt from the 'zine' I wrote that includes that story...and the recipe my mom gave me in 1977 for our family's version of Brunswick Stew.

The Brunswick Stew

Back in the 60’s my parents didn’t have a lot of extra money to entertain their many friends, so Mom & Dad began making a yearly Brunswick stew using the free vegetables Mom got from her parents’ farm in Caswell County. Mom would spend days doing the prep work for the stew: shelling butterbeans, steaming & pealing tomatoes, shucking and cutting corn off the cob, and precooking the beef & chicken. Then, in the early hours of the day of the party, Dad would start a fire in the backyard to have hot coals for cooking the stew. He’d dig a pit beside the wood fire and build a simple brick structure to set the big black iron pot and the charcoals he'd made in the big wood fire. As the day passed, he’d take turns feeding the charcoal fire under the pot with small sticks while stirring the stew simmering in the big black pot. This would take about 5 or 6 hours. Below is the recipe that Mom wrote for me in 1977. It has been changed over the years to reflect the tastes of the eaters or the availability of ingredients... as it also was done was during those early years. For me, this thick, tasty stew is full of the love of family and friends...

Bob Carver’s Brunswick Stew

Precook Meat: Boil, and skin, debone, & discard fat and gristle. 5-6 pounds chuck roast
5-6 pounds chicken
Vegetables:

15 pounds white potatoes: pealed (or not) and cubed 1 1/2 bushel butter beans (or 14 pounds): shelled
18-24 ears corn, cut off ear (or 4 qt. cans)
5 pounds onions, chopped

1/2 bushel tomatoes, chopped (or ten 32 oz cans)
5 pods hot pepper (remove before eating)
1 can pork & beans; 1 pound okra (optional)
*Add corn in the last hour. Use 3 parts tomatoes/potatoes to 1 part corn,butter beans,

Seasoning: 1 cup sugar
3/4 cup salt (too salty! reduce to 1/2 cup)

black pepper to taste (Taste for additional)

Cook in 10-12 gallon iron pot on charcoals until thick and done. Will take 4-6 hours cooking on VERY LOW fire with CONSTANT watching and stirring. Cool before eating (or not!)

Sammy stirs the stew.. almost done!

Lily says, "No Georgia, no oysters for you"

At Blam! Studio... 

Headlines: Artist Studio Explodes! Lost Paint Set and Precious Earrings Found! For Sale: Artistic Masterpieces, $5 each!

A tornado passed through Raleigh today! It only hit this table...

...

It's Labor Day at Blam! studio. This book artist was busy working on an order of 10 handmade boxes for the Raleigh Arts Commission... After the first 10 boxes were finished last week, it was discovered that the measurements were one inch too small... A week later, Set Two is almost complete. The work table at Blam! at mid-day today was a jumble of papers, boxes, tools, and a few unfinished books from earlier days. Actually, though it looks like a tornado went through, many artists create this way.. in all the chaos there is an order.. but step too far away and it all becomes a shifting mass of black holes in which all sorts of things get lost.  

The For Sale corner

Beside the work table are a series of book shelves, cupboards, and cobbled-together shelves where this book artist displays many of the artist books, boxes, letterpress editions, and assorted ephemera that are FOR SALE.  Though many guests are immediately drawn to this corner of the workspace.. not that many works are sold actually... oh well. When taking the photographs for this blog, the artist suddenly saw her long missing round portable watercolor paint kit! There it was!.. right beside the tiny tea set and apothecary bottles and the snow-globe (made last summer when the grandkids came to the studio for a Blam!-Camp day). Can you see it? There are also a pair of missing pearl earrings.. What was the book artist thinking that day?... leaving that stuff around like that... Anyway, it's a relief they're found.

What doesn't belong here????

Across the studio there is a window of drawings by the young grandson of this book artist. On that day, earlier in the summer, while spending the day with his grandma, the 8-year-old finished his third drawing and on hearing they were 'very wonderful!' he asked if he could sell them. The answer was "Sure...?" The next question was, "How much will they pay?" A price was decided and a bunch more drawings were quickly completed. They are now hanging in the window awaiting an avid collector. 

Artwork for Sale: by artists Sam and Lily, $5 each

The young man's Aunt Rachel has already purchased one to hang in her new house. It's a pair of cheetahs.

Cheetahs in a Red Desert, by Sam 2022

Carousel

It's 2022 now. Hello! Where did the time go??? 2021, 2020, 2019, and 2018 have rung out, and the past years have spun out like a colorful carousel whirling around.  But remembering back to the past 4+ years, the perception was more of a colossal elephant lumbering across the sandlot, filling the space with its majesty and stature, heavy and full of...something significant. It was a time of conflict, for sure, and the unprecedented, but also of common, ordinary things that in the moment felt like blessings. It's been a time of drama, sadness, challenges, a lot of change. As life always is, though maybe not so pointedly. For this book artist, the time has been recorded in creations of books and boxes, and life. Since the book-a-week activity on this blog was postponed many years ago, here are some photos of the bookish events of the past few years...

Jan. 4, 2018: Carving a linoleum block

'Peace Flags' (yellow flag): letterpress poem, block print, atlas page, vintage stamps, bandaids, mica, gold & linen thread

Papermaking Workshop at Blam! studio; June, 2018

Gutenberg press at Plantin-Morteus Museum, Antwerp; Aug. 2018

Panel set 'Pavillion' carousel book and
inspiration postcard (1920's Angers, FR) 

inside 'Pavillion' carousel book
for TRAC (Toe River Arts Council) show 2019

'Pavillion' carousel book in etui (drop sides) box
with paste paper board cover paper; July 2019

Bubblewrap prints of plexiglass
covers for 'Fun House' in 
"The Library" box; Penland Auction 2019

Letterpress illustrations 'The Tale of the Blueberries' for 
"The Library" box; Penland Auction 2019

"The Library" 4 original books in a box,
letterpress, print, paste papers, marbled papers;
edition of 10; 2019

Blam! Studio Print class; Collograph prints;
March, 2020

Blam! Studio Print class; Polyester plate lithographs of 
1800's French Natural History book; March, 2020

Masks; April, 2020

Paper; April, 2020

Watercolor illustration for "A Day in the Life of Corey & Zack",
letterpress edition of 10; April, 2021

Box order for City of Raleigh Arts Commission Awards;
May, 2021

Installation for 'A Book is a Space' show at 
Pullen Arts Center; July-Sept. 2021

Halloween haunted house pop-up cards event
at Pullen Arts Center, Oct. 2021

Paste paper holiday wrapping; Dec. 2021

Postcard exchange with Bookarts group;
January card; 2022

Word Table for Pop-up book class; Feb. 2022

Marbled paper; 2022

Paste paper class at Blam! studio; June, 2022

Derive' poem books, based on Fluxus concept;
6th session Penland Sch. of Craft; 2022
(found mica, kozo, file folders, Penland clay as paint)

Inside a Derive' poem book;
imagery painted with Penland clay; Aug. 2022
Fluxus criteria: non-traditional materials, muted color, abstract; frantic

Mail art from Penland: Sam's Day 3;
August, 2022

Mail Art from Penland:
Lily's Day 2; 2022

Mail art from Penland: Day 6;
2 letters a day for 10 days; 2022