Anne of Green Gables

As I mentioned in June last year, I was fortunate to have two of my books accepted into the Kindred Spirits Exhibit, a juried bookbinding exhibit organized by CBBAG. The exhibit is in recognition of the life and work of L. M. Montgomery, to mark 150 years since her birth. The exhibit is travelling to various galleries in Canada and is currently at Western Univerisity. The project website has the full exhibition schedule.

One of my books for this exhibit is a full leather rebinding of Anne of Green Gables. This is a 1952 edition that belonged to my mother. She gave it to me a few years ago and suggested that I repair it, since it had some damage to the covers and part of the spine material was missing. So, when this exhibit was announced, I deicded it was time to do something with it. I also made a custom box for it. The marbled paper is my own and it is used as the book's endpapers and inside the box.


The second book is more of an artists' book, called "Summer." I used just a few lines from Anne of Green Gables as the content for this book.

Anne had the golden summer of her life, as far as freedom and frolic went. She walked, rowed, berried, and dreamed to her heart's content and when September came she was bright-eyed and alert, with a heart full of ambition and zest once more.

Each of the pages is hand-decorated with watercolour washes and ink drawings and I printed the text with some antique brass type. The book and box are covered with yellow bookcloth and have some of my own marbled paper inside. The book is a hardcover, 2-hole stab binding.


You can find more pictures of the books and order the catalog on the Kindred Spirits website.

Susan Mills exhibit "Field Books: birds, buoys, seeding, rain"

Currently at Hermes Gallery in Halifax, Nova Scotia is an exhibit of work by Susan Mills. Susan is a book artist, poet, and bookbinder from Nova Scotia and who also has lived and worked in Saskatchewan and New York. Her work is largely inspired by the space and materials around her and the contrasting environments where she works are evident in the exhibit. This exhibit is curated by Barbara Louder. This exhibit runs from Aug 10 to Sept 1, 2024 at Hermes Gallery in Halifax. Hours and location details are available on the gallery's website: www.hermeshfx.com.

Detail of Susan's piece, The Fourth Driest in 115 Years Field Notes at Hermes Gallery. See more on her Instagram account.

"The Embodied Press" exhibit, curated by Anthea Black

It is wonderful to see a local exhibit featuring book artists. The book arts are not often represented in local galleries, in my experience. Occasionally I'll see an exhibit that has a smattering of book art objects mixed in with other work, but as a general rule, the book art component is not central to the work or the exhibit.

However, the Mary E. Black Gallery in Halifax is currently exhibiting a collection of artists' books, curated by Anthea Black, who is a Canadian artist, writer, and curator. The exhibit features queer and transgender book artists and as stated on the gallery's website, "each work poses questions about difference, intersectionality and power to show that sexual, gender and racial difference cannot be easily understood or legitimized through public visibility alone." The individual works each convey important and striking messages about the issues in LGBTQ+ social history, juxtaposed with conventional and unconventional book forms.

The collection is wide-ranging in its use of binding structures, printing techniques, and its use of scale and content. There is a lot to see in this exhibit and it takes time to view because, as is often the case with books, book content can not be absorbed at a glance. The books themselves are very well executed. Using book structures in art sometimes appears to be an afterthought for conveying an artistic idea, but I thought many of the works in this exbibit were beautiful examples of structure and content working together effectively. There's a more in-depth look at the show posted on the NSBAG blog. Definitely check out the exhibit if you're in the area. The exhibit continues until May 7, 2023.

Art of the Book Exhibit

So the "Art of the Book" exhibit is happening at the Central Library of Rochester & Monroe County, in Rochester, NY. They accepted a couple of my books for the show. Ongoing til Jan 8th if you're in that area. A copy of the program is available online. Looks like I'm in some very good company in this exhibit.

Book #95

W. Rabbit Envelope Book

Since it is Easter, today's book features a bunny. Well, it features a White Rabbit. The one that Alice meets down in the rabbit hole. I used an origami structure to make the bunny envelope - using an old book page that I recently marbled. Inside the envelope, "it seems to be a letter, written by the prisoner to — to somebody" which is unfolded and read by the Rabbit at the Knave's trial.

Book #59

Roll

There have been many types of scrolls throughout history and across cultures. I already presented an example of a Japanese handscroll a few weeks ago, but thought I might explore a few other formats as well. The most basic scroll is simply a piece of paper or parchment that has been rolled up. Usually reserved for shorter works and commonly referred to as a roll rather than a scroll.

The photo above shows my work, entitled "A ship in a bottle." The bottle contains an example of a simple roll. The roll is printed with a picture of a schooner ship (Lovely Nelly) on which my ancestors arrived in the New World along with a brief genealogy.

Nova Scotia, book of photographs

I have always called it an "open edition" but this is the last available copy. I made ten of these, with the intention of making more at some time. I suppose that time is now, but I'm not going to make any more like this.

This is a small book, with official Nova Scotia tartan on the cover and it contains a set of my photographs taken of Nova Scotia's rural and coastal areas. It is a hardcover pamphlet structure.

This last copy is now available on Etsy.

I continue to save my favorite photographs of Nova Scotia landscapes so I have a whole new batch of photos that could be used for something like this. Perhaps I'll have to consider designing "Volume 2" of the Nova Scotia book.

Green

Each year there is an exhibit of artists' books at Cuesta College in San Luis Obispo, California. This year's exhibit, "Artist's Books 2011," is happening now, continuing until August 26th. Included in this exhibit is a little green book that I made. It is a small book, an edition of 7, bound using a dowel-spine structure with all materials being recycled, reclaimed, repurposed, etc. The content is also green.


This little book recognizes the achievement of Canada's Green Party, successfully electing Elizabeth May, the first Green member of parliament, earlier this year. The pocket on the inside of the front cover includes a business card (from my local Green Party candidate, Thomas Trappenberg) that lists the principles of the Green Party. The remaining content recognizes the Green Party's acheivements and also questions why green principles are not already part of other political agendas.