Bear With Me

Bear With Me, ©2008, 5.5 x 4.5 x 1.5 (closed). Museum board, topo maps, collage, photos, handcarved rubber stamps, handcarved pencil eraser font, transfers, memories, dreams. Wire edge binding. More photos of Bear With Me here.


This book started as a quick project to do over the Christmas holidays. I wanted it to be fast, reproducible as black and white photocopies and very cheap. I planned to give them away, or sell them for under $10. How much of this did I accomplish? Zero. I couldn't give up the colors, I decided to make multiples on my color printer. I made 4 or 5 pages several times because I decided I didn't like an element already glued down and it couldn't be collaged over.


I was thinking about bears when I started the book. I dream about bears occasionally. I know bears are important in American Indian thought. And I love the idea that they are powerful spirit figures. But in working on this book, I decided for me they may represent my animus. Just as I finished the book I dreamed about a huge sleeping bear. I wanted to poke it and make it come after me. I wasn't afraid, and as I woke, I was about to poke it.


This is wire a edge binding, developed by Daniel Kelm. The page above has notches cut in the spine for the wire and strips of paper holding a piece of 18 gauge wire along the spine. I covered all the edges of the board (page) with map. I found the binding instructions in Books Unbound by Michael Jacobs. It feels a little more floppy than Coptic binding to me. The effect is similar, it works great for board or single sheet books. And it is much easier to do. I just connected all these pages with a square knot.