Book Arts Jam 2009

A few photos of my "Simple Wire Edge Binding" demo for the Book Arts Jam. Taken with a Brownie Hawkeye camera. It was also World Toy Camera Day.


Jim stood on a table to take the first two shots. The film is Tri-X, respooled onto 620 spools. Processed in D-76 in my garage.


Before the demo - looking at the samples.

Peninsula Art Museum Opening

Some photos from the opening, taken with a Brownie Hawkeye camera. Ilford Delta 3200, developed in D-76.

A box, a hole, some photo paper - Magic!

Tyrannosaurus photoventris, ©2009, 7 x 4 x 6.5 inches. That's a lens cap/shutter on his navel. He takes pinhole photos of the late Cretaceous using paper negatives.

My two brass pinhole cameras, some of my old snapshot camera collection, my funky pinhole cameras and one of my father's cameras will be shown in the collections room of the Peninsula Art Museum until November 22nd. You can also see photos from some of the cameras. The funky pinhole and snapshot cameras are the inspiration for my brass pinhole cameras. My childhood memories of my dad's darkroom are the beginnings of my interest in photography.


A photo of the late Cretaceous, taken by Tyrannosaurus photoventris. This photo is groundbreaking in many ways. It is, of course, one of the first photos of the late Cretaceous. And it also reveals a surprising first sighting of Godzilla!


The Memorycam is the first pinhole camera I made. It uses photo paper as film and takes photos of memories.


Memory 436, taken by Memory cam.


A few of my snap shot cameras and one of my ttv contraptions. From left to right: Baby Brownie, Sabre 620, an Anscoflex with a gutter pipe contraption, Ansco Shur Shot, Traveler 120.


A photo from the Traveler 120. When I get a new camera I put film in it and rush out into our garden to try it out. This was also an experiment in creating sepia toning in Photoshop. I develop the black and white film myself, then scan it into my computer.

The show is up now, and runs through November 22nd, 2009. The opening is September 13, from 1 to 4. You may know this museum as Twin Pines. It is located at 10 Twin Pines Lane, Belmont, California 94002. Hours are Wednesday-Friday 12 - 4, Saturday, Sunday, 1 - 4.

Open Studios Part 2

Bird Life ©2009 - 2.75 inches high. My original drawing was scanned and resized in Photoshop. I used a Canon Pixma inkjet printer to print it on either Wassau Cottonwood or Balsa. The cover is museum board and Thai banana paper. $10. Click on either book title to see more views of the book.

As part of the BABA book share meeting, we exchange simple books. The only requirement is that they are (sort of) under 3 inches in any direction. This has inspired me to think about making fairly quick, paper books. Of course, nothing I make is really quick. Whether I spend many hours in Photoshop or actually cutting out parts, they seem to be time consuming. I will have a few of these books for sale during Open Studios this year.


Where Am I? ©2009 - 4.25 inches high. This book was inspired by my 64th birthday. I used a Canon Pixma inkjet printer to print it on 100% cotton paper. The cover is cardstock. $5.

In my previous post I omitted the most important piece of information: a location. So here it is:
A map to Studio 19 is here.

Photos of our previous open studios here.

And check out the Zymoglyphic Museum curator's blog entry for Open Studios. I love his poetic writing.

Open Studios and Free Stuff

The members of Studio 19 (myself and the Zymoglyphic Museum) will be participating in Silicon Valley Open Studios May 16 and 17, between 11am and 5pm.

I will be giving away 20 copies of my one sheet artist's book, "My Studio" (shown above) to the first 20 people.

We will also have some interesting stuff to give away: old books, found objects, old comic books, magazines, basically the kind of junk artists collect.

Added 4/27: You can find a map for Studio 19 here. And photos of our previous open studios here.

Neo-Vintage Photography workshop

Karen takes a digital photo.

The first Sunday of this month, Linda Stinchfield and I presented some techniques and gadgets -- ttv (through the viewfinder), Gameboy, Lensbaby, and zoneplate/digital pinhole -- to the Bay Area Book Artists. It was a fun day, and I think we piqued some interest.


Karen, Meggie and Diane working on a set-up.


Part of the enthusiastic BABA group.


Joanne is an accomplished photographer. On the left is a contraption I made from expanding gutter material.


People brought treasured toys and objects to photograph. They seemed to say a lot about their owners.


All these toys have both obvious and more subtle meanings.


Isn't he sweet?


An Ansco Panda. It has a medium sized viewfinder, isn't it nice looking?

BABA book share meeting in gameboy camera photos

Thursday we met for the bimonthly book share meeting.




Lots of interesting discussion, before, during and after the meeting.


There is always a little time for socializing.







We meet in a Foothill college classroom, this one seems to be a geography class.




The hallway. Cubberly is a typical California grade school (now decommissioned). The halls are covered walkways, but open to the air.
You can view larger version of these photos here.

Added January 24: Actually Cubberly was a high school, the grade school is nearby.

Happy 2009!

The new year starts with some grey and gloomy weather here at Studio 19. But it's cozy inside. I'm surprised how many people tell me they read (and enjoy) my posts. Thank you. I hope you all have a Happy New Year, with plenty of time to make art and plenty of time with the people you love.

Book Arts Jam 2008

I did an artist's talk. The audience was nice, lots of questions. I love giving my opinion, I guess that's why I have a blog.


My books on display in the member's exhibit. It was hard to take photos, or I'm not an accomplished photographer. But it's a nice setting.


More of the member's exhibit.


The dramatic book with the prayer flags is by Lark Burkhardt.


The crowd in the member's exhibit. Everytime I tried to take a photo of people admiring the books, they walked quickly out of the shot. I need to get stealthy.

Here's where I'm like your grumpy Aunt Sarah, who complains about everything: Most big hoity toity crafts fairs charge big bucks for a booth. You have no idea if you will make your money back, much less if you will make any profit. And of course the attendees pay at the door, and that's not really cheap. But the Jam is is so reasonable, for both the artists and the attendees. I believe it's $40 for a table. And it's $2 for parking. Period. There is no admission charge. It's a wonderful place to meet other artists, to get ideas, to share what you have learned. The energy and enthusiasm are incredible. There aren't many places where you can start talking to a stranger in the restroom about making an artist's book with random junk attached to the pages. It's wonderful that Foothill College is willing to host us.

My only complaint? I'm a serious introvert, these events exhaust me. And I never get to see it all.

If you want to be on the baba mailing list to be notified of the Jam, go here. Note there is a read-only list that has only official Bay Area Book Artists announcements.

CB3 Panel Discussion and Opening

Last night I went to the Mohr Gallery for the panel talk and opening for Conceptually Bound 3. Each artist determined the subject of their talk. We each had 8 minutes. Slides were projected on a screen. There must have been 35 or 40 people in the audience.

Nanette Wylde, the curator, talked a little about the series of CB exhibitions. "The theme, Conceptually Bound, refers to the idea that the content of the book is in part expressed by the form the book takes." She plans to do more shows with this theme, and is hoping to have a retrospective eventually.

Peng Peng Wang told us how her experience as a Taiwanese-American influences her books. She was amazed by the money culture in Silicon Valley, so the first books she made have $100 bills as covers. Practical Chinese Conversation for Beginners contains cell phones that can be flipped open to reveal text messages in Chinese. They open to reveal an English translation. The book reflects her surprise that relationships begin and end with text messages.

One of Kent Manske's earlier books came out of his reaction to the disaster of 9/11. His more recent work has been more spontaneous and experimental. He uses "picture narratives" to explore things that spark his curiosity.

Melissa Kaup-Augustine talked about Uppercase Collective, the projects she does with her students at the Art Institute of California, addressing issues like war and global warming. If you look through this blog you can see she is giving her class assignments in the blog, and part of the project includes leaving information in the comments.

Lark Burkhart gave a moving talk on combining words and imagery to make books that "say" what she thinks about war on many different levels. Her book Peace Will Grow Through is a plea for people to "release the anger, hatred and fear that make war reasonable, desirable and then inevitable."

I spoke about my sources of inspiration. Basically they are: dreams, childhood memories, a phrase from an article, a wish to create tools to help me through life, and death. I plan to post a "beefed-up" version of the talk to this blog. Stay tuned.


Diane Cassidy, one of the artists in the show and Nanette Wylde, the curator/organizer/catalog creator, at the opening for the Conceptually Bound 3 exhibit.


The show is fantastic. There are a huge number of books, some can be handled with white gloves, which are provided in the gallery. It's a real treat to be able to pick these books up and turn the pages.


I loved seeing so many people standing around wearing white gloves. They are, inexpensive, loosely woven cotton. From a distance they remind me of going downtown shopping in Cincinnati when I was a little girl. Thank goodness we don't have to dress like that anymore.


And the required photo of me, in front of The Findings of the Expedition to an Unknown Land by Ludmilla Paulsdotter.

I was so struck by the range and quality of books in this show. So many different materials, techniques, approaches, and ways of thinking about books are presented. Nanette is very good at picking books. I wondered, looking at the catalog, how they could work in a show. But they do. As you walk from book to book and especially when you can turn the pages, there is so much to experience. You can get a little glimpse into so many different worlds which are unified by a love of books.