Exhibit: A Castle On the Ocean

It took Wataru Itou, a young art major at a Tokyo university, four years to construct this amazing castle, complete with electrical lights and a moving train, made completely of paper!

Exhibit: Once Upon A Book

Wish I lived close by and could see this exhibit. The San Francisco Center for the Book exhibit, Once Upon a Book, May 4 - Aug 07, 2009, is their second in a series of children's book exhibitions. This show explores the creative process in the work of six critically acclaimed illustrators: Elisa Kleven, Remy Charlip, Maira Kalman, David Macaulay, Chris Raschka and Brian Selznick.

I love these videos in which the illustrators talk about their creative processes. But, be careful, they might lead you to other YouTube videos on the bookarts.

Exhibit: Hand Bookbindings, Plain and Simple to Grand and Glorious

The craft and art of binding books by hand was vividly chronicled in an exhibition at Princeton University’s Firestone Library. Entitled Hand Bookbindings: Plain and Simple to Grand and Glorious, the exhibition ran from November 10, 2002 through April 20, 2003 in the Library’s main gallery. While conventional wisdom holds that books cannot be judged by their covers, visitors had a chance to do just that from the most humble of volumes to the most luxurious; from the monastic manuscripts of the twelfth century to the special editions of the twentieth.

Now that the exhibition has run its course, it has been turned into an online display of over two hundred beautifully photographed bindings, divided thematically into twenty-six categories. All the photographs can be enlarged and for even closer inspection, there is a magnifier (the square in the lower right hand corner of each book). Simply click and move it over the area you want to view.

The twenty-six categories:

Introduction - The Early Codex and Coptic Sewing - Early European Sewing and Board Attachment - Later Sewing And Boards Labor-Saving Methods And Materials - Endleaves - Endbands - Edge Decoration - Clasps, Furniture, and Other Closures - Blind Tooling - Panels And Rolls - Gold Tooling - Binding Waste - Aldines - Italian Bindings - German Bindings - French Bindings - British Bindings - Temporary Bindings - Onlays - Bindings For Collectors - Binders' Marks - Modern Conservation Binding - Large And Small, Fixed And Portable - Embroidered Bindings - Bindings From Early Americ - Twentieth Century English And American Bindings

Exhibit: Bookworks 8 (LitChick Blog)

The Cincinnati Book Arts Society (CBAS) is holding its 8th annual exhibit of traditional and contemporary handmade books in the Atrium of the Main Branch of the Cincinnati Public Library from May 2 to June 25. Check out this blog for more photos: LitChick: Art of the book celebrated in new exhibit.

Pictured Artist: Margaret Rhein

Exhibit: Bookworks 8 Opening

Family and friends turned out today, for the official opening reception for Bookworks 8, Cincinnati Book Arts Society's (CBAS) annual book arts exhibit. It's a highly recommended visit and, if there is a copy of the artists' statments around, I encourage you pick it up and read it. It will enhance your enjoyment of the exhibit.

Dr. Sylvan Golder and his wife, Faith, study daughter-in-law Margaret Rhein's See Me, See You, one sheet books created from prints of primates made during a monoprinting workshop.

Cecie Chewning's Too Much Information, is her creative and humorous response to the piles of unsolicited catalogues she receives in the mail on a regular basis.

Karen Hanmer's Bluestem was inspired by Willia Cather's My Antonia: Everywhere, as far as the eye could reach, there was nothing but rough, shaggy, red grass ... And there was so much motion in it; the whole country seemed, somehow, to be moving.

Beth Belknap Brann, London Underfoot: A Pure Photographic Alphabet. In the summer of 2001, Beth spent a month in London, much of her free time walking through neighborhoods photographing random letter forms formed by accidental arrangements of materials on sidewalks and streets which she printed and assembled along with ephemera and notes collected and written during her stay.

Alice Balterman's Little Black Book is made from her storehouse of African-American Collections. Using only black and white prints, she collaged and assembled them in an old children's book originally entitled Seeing.

Cody Calhoun, Imagine. The whimsical imagery and text reinforce the belief that "when nothing is sure, everything is possible." Polymer clay and ATC's (artist trading cards), rubber stamped, collaged, and bound with coptic stitch.

Penny McGinnis, While I Slept. Inside each of the four pockets rests a soft cover book of the artist's poems on the four seasons. Handmade paper, Japanese 4-hole binding, embroidery.

Inventing Kindergarten: Early Concertina Books

Kindergarten was created by Friedrich Froebel in the 1830s and grew to become what is now one of the most familiar shared milestones throughout the world. Froebel's kindergarten involved play with so-called "gifts," a series of educational toys, including building blocks, parquetry tiles, origami papers, modeling clay, sewing kits and other design projects, intended to foster curiosity and teach young children about art, design, mathematics and the natural world.

For more teaching aids and early concertina books, visit The Institute for Figuring’s online exhibit, Inventing Kindergarten.

photo: Astonishingly intricate paper weaving workbook by Ms. F. Wegerich, Germany, c. 1880. Very fine strips of paper woven into complex patterns- 19th century predecessors to the digital revolution.

Flag Book Bind-O-Rama Winners

Have you been wondering who the winners of the Flag Book Bind-O-Rama challenge are? Wonder no longer. The twenty-eight winning books are being featured in an online exhibit on the Book Arts Web. And, as promised, the exhibit also appears in the latest edition of the Bonefolder (Volume 3, Number 1), which I highly recommend downloading and reading, even if it takes a long time for those of you with dial-up connections.



It was hard to chose which books to feature here, they are all wonderful in different ways. Content, materials, and structure are important elements in all but what I found is that usually one dominates and because it does the book makes a statement.

Starting at the top and working down, Hedi Kyle, originator of the flag book technique, uses the traditional structure that she developed, but the very untraditional material of mica to capture the play of light and shadow that has captured her interest. “I often envision the flag book as a movable screen to define space,” she says in her statement. Marcia Ciro’s book compares the man-made car environment with the natural environment. As successful as the comparison may be, the placement of the car side mirrors and their repetition reminds me of clasped hands and interlocked fingers with the mirrors representing fingernails. In Esther Kibby’s book, the Native American story, How Porcupine Got His Quills, is used to explore flag shapes that become a sculptural book. Finally, I could not resist, Sheila Cunningham’s book, Shut Your Mouth. It’s funny and visceral. Makes me want to laugh and tremble at the same time. I'm sure if I get close I will feel the air reverberating.

Top to Bottom:
Hedi Kyle, Philadelphia, PA, USA
Marcia Ciro, Watertown, MA, USA
Esther Kibby, Dallas, TX, USA
Sheila Cunningham, Dallas, TX, USA