Over at the
Book Arts Forum, a group of us have swapped handmade books and all the books were to be based upon the structure of the Nag Hammadi codicies. I have written
about the Nag Hammadi codicies here before. I was fascinated by these books the first time I heard about them so the opportunity to participate in this swap was exciting.
Of course, the most exciting part of a book swap, is that I get a new book that somebody else has made! Yesterday I received a package from
Hilke - with two books! The main book is this truly up-to-date modern iterpretation of the Nag Hammadi codices.
The cover is, obvioulsy, made using a combination of computer parts and leather. And
Hilke was also interested in exploring the content of the Nag Hammadi books. The original texts contained religious writings and a small excerpt has been included in this book here. But to juxtapose the old and new again, Hilke created a cuneiform-type alphabet using small wedges, and printed the passage using this invented alphabet! Holy macaroni, Batman.
And the cherry on top, was this second Nag Hammadi style book. This contains a description of the main book, the materials, the process, etc as well as an explanation of the alphabet that was created and how it was stamped, etc.
Fabulous work, thank you so much,
Hilke.
When I made my book for the swap, I stuck with the conventions and did more of a replica than a modern interpretation... but I wanted to stick with what I knew best. So I sent this book to Astrid and she has documented it quite nicely
on her blog if you want to see better photos.
Over at the Book Arts Forum we just did a Pamphlet Book Swap so I made another for the swap and sent it off for Jackie. (Still eagerly awaiting my return book, I think it is coming overseas so I must sit patiently!) Jackie's book has two fabrics on the cover and again a mixture of different papers for the pages.
Then, just for fun, I made four more in different colours, available on Etsy.
The second one: it also uses found images for the flags. There are a few lines from the Frost poem "Birches" printed on the backs of these flags. The book cloth on the cover was hand-painted then backed with paper to make book cloth. I did not do the painting, though, it was a friend with whom I swapped some book cloth several years ago (thank you Leah, if you ever happen by here and see this!).
The third one: this was made in preparation of the fourth since I had an idea for the fourth, but wanted to try it first. I used more found images for the flags (somehow I manage to collect a lot of images in triplicate or quadruplicate or quintuplicate and this turns out to be handy when playing with the flag book structure). So I wanted the silly bobkitten (or whatever sort of beast that is) to pop through a frame.
After successfully getting that bobkitten to pop through his frame, I was ready to do it again with real flags. So, this very literal flag book is made with Canada flags, obviously. And it worked, the maple leaf pops through nicely. Some of my own marbled paper is on the cover. This is the book that I submitted to the B.E.S.T Book Swap and you can check out all the flag books on the team's blog if you are interested.
Fun, eh?! This garden journal was made by Peter Zillig (Vuscor). Unusual material, indeed! The album itself is wonderfully made with a colourful spine created by using multi-coloured spacers between the pages. Then to top if off, the fake gardens certainly add an element of whimsy and surprise. Thank you Peter!
One more! The Bookbinding Etsy Street Team just completed another book swap and I got this wonderful casebound journal from Celine, at AlternativeJournals. It is a perfect combination of fabrics and colours. You can check out the rest of the BEST swap books on the team's blog.
I have a couple of items in an exhibit at Abecedarian Gallery in Denver, Colorado. The exhibit is called "Boxy Books". There are two of my items in the exhibit and both are made with papers that were painted and scribbled on by my son when he was two and three years old. One is an origami cube full of origami cubes and the other is a book inside a box. This exhibit runs until July 3rd. If you happen to be in Denver, be sure to check out the show.
