This Friday, I am ridiculously excited to announce that one of my book art heroes is coming to Tucson, Julie Chen. I think this must be what regular people feel when they find out they’re meeting … the Kardashians? Or someone else.

Julie Chen, True to Life (detail)

Since 1987, Julie has published limited edition artist’s books under the imprint, Flying Fish Press. Her work is not only meticulously crafted, but seamlessly combines interesting writing and concepts with lovely, often abstract imagery and a sense of play.

Julie Chen, True to Life (detail)

Anyway, the Book Art Collective is hosting an artist talk this Friday @ 4pm with Julie at the University of Arizona’s Poetry Center.

To promote the event, my friend John designed some posters and we letterpressed them yesterday on one of our trusty Vandercooks. The style sort of parallel’s Chen’s use of games in her work. We printed the posters on various French Papers, this one their Pop Tone Whip Cream, Cover #140. It’s pretty. For ink we mixed some metallic copper with brown and then violet. It was…experimental, to say the least.

If you’re in Tucson or nearby, come to the talk and reception after. Meet Julie. Meet the rest of us. Eat food. Hera are the details, yo:

Artist Talk with Julie Chen
Friday, November 5th @ 4pm
Poetry Center, University of Arizona
Reception to follow in Book Art Lab

[Note: I'm cross-posting this on the Book Art Collective site.]

This weekend, I had the pleasure of meeting the master of Vandercook letterpress machines, Paul Moxon. Paul was in town for a week or so, offering demos, workshops and a lecture to the Book Art Collective. I’m posting the main article on that blog, but wanted to give a shout here too, since a lot of us like letterpress.

It’s basically understood that Paul knows everything there is to know about Vandercooks, proof presses made by Vandercook & Sons beginning in 1909. In addition to working as a printer and artist, he maintains a website, VandercookPress.info, where anyone can access information about presses.

In the 59 years the company was in business, about 30,000 presses were manufactured; there are currently about 1,500 Vandercooks documented in existence. And what do you know, 23 of them are in Arizona; 4 are kept by the Book Art Collective. Last year was the Vandercook’s 100th birthday and Paul orchestrated a Centenary Print Bundle with lovely prints from shops throughout the country.

The workshop this weekend covered basic operating procedures of the presses and we brought him in not just to teach, but also to fix up our new machines. This summer, the Collective acquired three new presses, one of which seems to have been outside for, well, years.

Paul was gracious enough to travel here from Alabama on the weekend of his birthday. So happy birthday, Paul! Thanks so much for spending some time with the Book Art Collective. We hope to have you back soon.

Pastepaper making is a technique developed by bookbinders about 450 years ago, according to some accounts, in which pigmented starch paste is designed on paper to create decorative pieces which act as book covers or end sheets. They can also be used in greeting cards, wrapping paper and boxes…or anything, really.

Initially, I sort of thought of pastepaper as a kind of esoteric craft. But actually, this is a really interesting and rewarding technique of making your own decorative papers rather simply and beautifully. And today, I had the pleasure of participating in a workshop led by book artist and paper ninja Curt Dornberg. He spoke briefly about the history of the craft, then showed us – the Book Art Collective – what to do.

Basically, all you need to do is mix paste with pigment (as in, Golden Acrylic Paints). There are many, many recipes to make paste so here is a simpler one from Curt:
- 3c boiling water
- 1c cold water
- 1/2c cake flour
Mix flour and cold water with wire whisk. Gradually pour boiling water into mixture, stirring constantly. Bring mix back to a boil, reduce heat slightly and cook for ten minutes, stirring constantly to prevent paste from burning. Cool completely; then whisk again. Paste will keep for one week or so.

With the mixtures mixed and supplies at the ready, Curt demonstrated for us the basic techniques of pastepaper making. Or designing. Or whatever one might call it. A most basic tool to lay pigment to paper is a brush, which, if I do say so myself, renders this craft a lovely way of combining gestural techniques with design. Note, the paper is first dampened with a sponge before working.

In addition to the brushes, you can use other tools, anything really, like stencils, hand carved burnishers, plastic grout spreaders, rubber spatulas and popsicle sticks. Dough rollers also come in handy. You can carve shapes from sticky-backed foam and paste them onto cardboard rolls. Then you can insert them onto the roller and make patterns.

After watching the demonstrations, we spent the next several hours working on our own sheets that Curt had generously prepared for us.

We then laid them to dry. One of the exciting possibilities of pastepaper is that you can layer the pigments. Once your first layer/pattern dries (usually 24 hours is the wait time…but Tucson is a pretty dry place) you can add a second pattern, creating a really interesting sense of depth and texture.

Another spontaneous way of creating patterns/textures/designs is to paint them on, or literally remove the pigment using objects like the back end of paint brushes. This can also be a way of illustrating the canvas.

We were in the Printmaking Studio for this workshop, and laid our papers wherever we could find space. The equipment in there is so incredibly beautiful. Here are some of our final results!

In the next week, we will make many of our papers into book covers of notebooks to display at the Tucson Festival of Books, where we have a booth! So, if you’re in town, come check us out (Booth 108), and if not, visit us in the digital world here or on our site, which will soon have a blog. Soon.

Lastly, here are some sources to inspire your bookmaking practices:
My Handbound Books
Paste Paper Patterns
Sage Reynolds

Happy painting/making/pasting/book-covering!