A Passion For Handmade Books

Book Artists are alive and well

They live everywhere. They work with a set of utensils that, to the unknowing eye, appear to be unusual torture tools. They're book artists, and there may even be one living in your neighborhood.

Some book artists specialize in one of a kind books, while others produce small editions. Ranging from "objects" to scrolls to printed & bound editions, the art of the book has been around for some time. Experts on the subject credit English poet & artist William Blake with the origin of the form. Together with his with Catherine, Black wrote, illustrated, colored and bound his pieces, and in addition to inspiring potential book artists everywhere, he integrated the world of self-publishing & self-distributing with the world of text, imagery, and art form.

Book artists today work with many different materials, styles, techniques, and purposes. Because we're such fans of journals, and of excellent craftsmanship, here are a couple of book artists making beautiful pieces, and giving all of us bookbinders a good name.

photos courtesy of Teo Studio

photos courtesy of Serena Olivieri

 

As for us, we're happy we get the chance to create One of a Kind Leather Journals, as well as Leather Photo Albums, Fine Leather Wallets & Accessories, and the like, every day. We even carry a collection dedicated to the father of book arts himself; view our William Morris Paperblanks Journals.

 

Big thanks to Etsy & Design*Sponge for bringing these talented artists to our attention!

Paper Art by Carlos N. Molina

Carlos N. Molina is a self-taught artist born in Puerto Rico and living in New York. He creates ethereal sculptures of paper, in sizes ranging from teeny tiny to enormous. 

Says Molina, "My favorite medium is paper. I have been working with paper since I was a child of five or so. I would wake up in the middle of the night and choose papers to create with from a box of magazines my mother kept for my brother and me for school projects. I would spend hours looking at the colors, textures and patterns on those printed pages.  I would meticulously choose what pieces I would use for my child-creations. 

When I was about eight, my aunt Titi Yita, gave me my first origami set, which introduced me to paper as an artistic expression.  Although, I am not an origami artist, their work still inspires me.

I have studied art and design in Puerto Rico, Los Angeles, Paris, South Korea and New York, but in reality I am a self-taught paper artist and graphic designer."

The origami influence is obvious, but he goes much further than folding with his paper sculptures. Some are electrified, to become lanterns, he incorporates fasteners, paper cutting techniques, and engineering to bring his ideas to life. I especially like his white on white pieces, which call out the textures, shadows, and interplay of shapes.

Molina's current work features shoes...lots of shoes! They aren't wearable, but any shoe-lover would agree that they should be - they are simply stunning!

His large-scale installations have been enjoyed around the world. The lanterns below were displayed at the APM Shopping Mall in Hong Kong. The artichoke lantern at right measures about 5 feet in diameter. 

Check out more of Carlos' work at www.carlosnmolina.com 

He offers a series of tutorials and downloadable templates that will enable you to begin creating your own paper sculptures. Molina is also the author of a great how-to book on Kirigami.

The chair you should be reading (in)

Bench of Thought (Banco del Pensamiento) 

by ALVARO TAMARIT, JÁVEA, Alicante, Spain

 

A sculpture and a piece of furniture at the same time, Bench of Thought has been carefully constructed using recovered books with wood as a structural reenforcement. Finished with a gloss varnish. Available with or without wooden arm-rests.

You could own this one of a kind original sculpture. Consider it at Saatchi Online

Mysterious Paper Sculptures, A Book-Arts Whodunit.

Those of you who don't keep up with Edinburgh's literary world through Twitter may have missed the recent spate of mysterious paper sculptures appearing around the city.

One day in March, staff at the Scottish Poetry Library came across a wonderful creation, left anonymously on a table in the library. Carved from paper, mounted on a book and with a tag addressed to @byleaveswelive - the library's Twitter account - reading:

"It started with your name @byleaveswelive and became a tree.… ... We know that a library is so much more than a building full of books… a book is so much more than pages full of words.… This is for you in support of libraries, books, words, ideas….. a gesture (poetic maybe?)"

Periodically, other book sculpture gifts have been popping up all over Edinburgh, at libraries and book festivals.

I love the anonymity of these gestures, and of course, the work itself is wonderful, full of charm and imagination. In a world where digital words flicker across our screens, I believe we are sorely in need of this kind of homage to the printed word.

So, who is the mystery artist? I'm not sure I even want to know.

read more at Central Station

CAKE: BANDmade and Bound Away

This article originally appeared on Imprint  By Nicole Torres

It looks like CAKE is going far beyond the distance. The Sacramento-based rock band, known for their unique sound and front man John McCrea’s recognizable half-spoken vocals, not only released their sixth studio album early this year, but they also got their hands a little dirty with some handcrafted graphic work.

CAKE has been collaborating with BANDmade Books in San Francisco since June 2010 to publish Bound Away, an artfully handmade and visual book that will be released in mid-September. The small but ambitious Bound Away is actually from CAKE’s most recent album “Showroom of Compassion,” turned into a book, combining text (McCrea’s lyrics), illustrations by R. Stuhmiller, and music (as it also functions as a seriously cool CD case for the single).

CAKE met with Pam DeLuco and BANDmade Books to discuss the layout, storyboard and design for Bound Away.

BANDmade Books founder and creative director Pam DeLuco thought up the idea to work with musicians and turn songs into beautiful books about two years ago. She approached CAKE with the idea, after a year of trying to select the first band for the project.

“Musicians really are our modern day poets and I thought it would be an interesting project to take one song and turn it into a book. It would make you look at the song differently and it would make you notice the book as a form of communication,” said DeLuco. “I am familiar with CAKE's music and lyric sense and I knew that most of their songs could work as a book, so that's why I chose them.”

Xan McCurdy, the guitarist for CAKE, was arranging the wood type BANDmade Books pulled out to show as an example of what was possible to print. BANDmade Books noticed the word 'AWAY' arranged in an interesting way. They kept Xan’s arrangement and used it to print the covers.

The band chose “Bound Away” as the song for the book, because the process of making books the old fashioned way seemed to work well with the old fashioned feel of the song (which McCrea said had a “matte finish quality” that lent itself to the texture of handmade paper).

All of the band members worked with BANDmade Books during production— from making paper to hand carving linoleum to letterpress printing. Gabriel Nelson, CAKE’s bassist who was really involved in the design and print creation of the book, was the only one in the band who already had experience making paper by hand.

“I had never made paper before this project," said McCrea. "I really enjoyed it. I like the recycling aspect of the whole thing. Our music is handmade music that happens to get mass produced and distributed in various ways, but it is still a craft,” said McCrea. (Although he's had his share of experience with printing from printing up all of CAKE’s t-shirts and posters.)

Left: The band’s old cotton clothing. Right: The clothes were cut into 1-inch squares before put into the hollander beater where the fiber was beaten into pulp.

Left: John McCrea making paper from the band’s clothing. Right: The formed sheets are put under a hydraulic press to remove most of the water.

McCrea double dipped to make a two-toned sheet of paper using a mould and deckle.

Stack of finished handmade paper.

“When I retire from music, I plan on making paper again. In terms of finding a link between CAKE and making books by hand, I would say that since CAKE has always been a DIY band, this project was in keeping with our aesthetic,” said Nelson.

Bound Away fits well with CAKE’s go green advocacy (they even give away a tree at every show). The band used their clothing to hand make the cover paper for the book, and BANDmade Books collected jute coffee sacks from a local roaster to make the paper for the endsheets. And the interior was printed letterpress on 100% PCW paper that was manufactured with wind power. Stuhmiller’s illustrations were hand-carved linoleum, which, along with the metal type used for the text, seemed to fit well with CAKE’s other album covers that look like lino/wood cuts. DeLuco even handspun hemp herself for the binding thread, using beeswax from her San Francisco beehive.

“The book was always going to be completely handmade because as a craftsperson I make everything.  CAKE was definitely an inspiration for the choice of materials and processes used,” said DeLuco. “I knew they'd appreciate making a book with as many recycled/reclaimed materials as possible.”

Left: Close-up of the lock-up on the press. Right: Gabe Nelson showing off a sheet he just printed.

Once printed, the pages were trimmed down to size and collated according to ink saturation.

 

As far as the band’s hopes for Bound Away, McCrea said that they’d like to use a portion of each edition to help raise money for 826 Valencia, an organization that helps kids learn to write, and The Hamilton Wood Type Museum. And Nelson hopes that “people will enjoy the book and be inspired to look into doing something creative in their lives.”

There were 1,000 books published, and the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Library Archives also has a copy for those of you who can’t get your hands on one. “We realize that not every CAKE fan will get to own a copy of the book but we're hoping to get it into special collection libraries across the country and possibly abroad so at least people can have a chance to hold and experience the book,” said DeLuco.

 

Left: They aligned the book board that would become the front and back, along with a piece of recycled heavy card stock for the spine. They applied glue to the paper around the boards and carefully turned in the edges and corners to form the case of the book. Right: A sewn text block is being glued to its case.

The stack of finished books.

All images and captions courtesy of BANDmade Books.

Read more: CAKE: BANDmade and Bound Away — Imprint-The Online Community for Graphic Designers

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