It started with the paper. I had purchased some eco-printed botanical paper from Velma Bolyard at the Codex Book Fair, and was so delighted with it I made a box for a friend and a miniature Linked Hinge bound book. Knowing I wanted to work with it some more, I contacted Velma and she sent me a few more sheets, agreeing to trade. I did not know exactly what it would become, what it would be about; the only thing I knew was that it would be in the form of the Linked Hinge Binding, to show off both the backs and the fronts of the papers.
When I trimmed the smoke bush in my front yard I took down two abandoned California towhee nests, and I kept them on my work table for several months. Once my yearlong Birds of the Bible project was complete and NaNoWriMo was over, I turned my focus to Velma's paper. Nest paper!
I had a direction. It took a little to figure out who or what, and ultimately I wrote a prose poem that linked two true incidents about eggs, connecting ideas of attentiveness, presence, transience, ownership, joy, loss, and acceptance. From there, the book asked for a box, and I cut a stencil of eggshell pieces to stencil on book cloth to cover the box.
Then it wanted a composition gold leaf wooden egg, a platform of some kind to hold the book, and a well for the egg. I prefer a window on my boxes these days, a way to draw you in, but the glass microscope slides I thought I had turned out to have little depressions in them (for pond water and such, I imagine).
I took a walk to think and the glass dilemma went like this: I could go to Arrow Glass and have them cut me some glass. Or, I could break an old picture frame glass. But those might be too thick. The microscope glass is nice and thin. Oh! I could break up the slides I already have. Which is what I did. Carefully. With a mallet. And wrapped each slide in paper towel first. So each box has a different pattern on the lid. What we do for art.
I had imagined I would construct the platform and compartment from folded board, but that didn't look so good and there was a technical problem, so I went back to the old standby: layers of foam core board. I covered everything with the book cloth.
The egg needed some nesting material, but raffia was too coarse, and too literal; birds actually use this kind of plant material. I pulled out my handmade felt scraps and coiled them on their edges, a translation, of sorts. Again, each is different.
The book came together well, after figuring out the color of ink that would work best (dark blue-purple). The miniature book is three inches square. The box measures 6.45"w x 4.25"h x 1.75"d.
But after I collated the pages for the five copies I discovered I was missing a page. Not five of one page. One of one page. Which meant I had to set the type and print just one single lonely little page.
Quite a lot of fanfare for that one little page, so I printed some cards to make use of the ink on the press. See this post.
And I happened to have an engraving of a nest that my sister-in-law sent me, years ago. Perfect for the cover of the book.
When I trimmed the smoke bush in my front yard I took down two abandoned California towhee nests, and I kept them on my work table for several months. Once my yearlong Birds of the Bible project was complete and NaNoWriMo was over, I turned my focus to Velma's paper. Nest paper!
I had a direction. It took a little to figure out who or what, and ultimately I wrote a prose poem that linked two true incidents about eggs, connecting ideas of attentiveness, presence, transience, ownership, joy, loss, and acceptance. From there, the book asked for a box, and I cut a stencil of eggshell pieces to stencil on book cloth to cover the box.
Then it wanted a composition gold leaf wooden egg, a platform of some kind to hold the book, and a well for the egg. I prefer a window on my boxes these days, a way to draw you in, but the glass microscope slides I thought I had turned out to have little depressions in them (for pond water and such, I imagine).
I took a walk to think and the glass dilemma went like this: I could go to Arrow Glass and have them cut me some glass. Or, I could break an old picture frame glass. But those might be too thick. The microscope glass is nice and thin. Oh! I could break up the slides I already have. Which is what I did. Carefully. With a mallet. And wrapped each slide in paper towel first. So each box has a different pattern on the lid. What we do for art.
I had imagined I would construct the platform and compartment from folded board, but that didn't look so good and there was a technical problem, so I went back to the old standby: layers of foam core board. I covered everything with the book cloth.
The egg needed some nesting material, but raffia was too coarse, and too literal; birds actually use this kind of plant material. I pulled out my handmade felt scraps and coiled them on their edges, a translation, of sorts. Again, each is different.
The book came together well, after figuring out the color of ink that would work best (dark blue-purple). The miniature book is three inches square. The box measures 6.45"w x 4.25"h x 1.75"d.
But after I collated the pages for the five copies I discovered I was missing a page. Not five of one page. One of one page. Which meant I had to set the type and print just one single lonely little page.
Quite a lot of fanfare for that one little page, so I printed some cards to make use of the ink on the press. See this post.
And I happened to have an engraving of a nest that my sister-in-law sent me, years ago. Perfect for the cover of the book.
Thank you, Velma, for the paper and the inspiration!
Comments