December 26, 2012

Seems that I have survived not only the 2012 winter solstice, but Christmas as well.  Now I shall continue with another post of one of my books from 2010. 


THE MINOAN BOOK

I wanted to try a process I had just learned of making pages from plaster gauze - the same gauze used to make a plaster cast for a broken arm or leg.  I cut the gauze to the size I wanted (making it long enough to fold into two pages when dry), dipped each portion briefly in water, and laid it on a hard flat surface, using my fingers to gently smooth the plaster into the blank spaces in the gauze.  Then I left it to dry.

When completely dry, I folded the strips in half and trimmed the edges.  Since the dried pages are fragile and need to be reinforced to hold the book thread, I glued a decorated paper to the outside of the folded page.  


I chose several images from ancient Minoan frescos and painted them on the plaster pages.  Since the finished image was very bright, I dabbed them here and there with a muddy colored acrylic, and when the paint was dry, I used a damp paper towel to rub some color off... giving them a more aged look.

  


Now it was time to decorate the side I had reinforced with decorated paper.  I cut coarse linen fabric into rectangles and glued them to the paper.  I painted the fabric with gesso, and when dry, I drew images from Minoan vases on the left side, and Minoan writing on the right (I have no idea what message the writing conveys.)



I now had a stack of folded decorated pages and needed to decide on an appropriate cover.  At first I thought I would use wood, but decided polymer clay would give me the weight and flexibility I wanted .... and I could carve it easily with iconic images.  

To make sure the finished polymer was heavy enough to hold the book, after processing the clay through the pasta maker's thickest setting (a pasta maker is a standby for conditioning polymer), I pressed two thicknesses together.  I baked the two covers before I carved them.  After they were carved, I painted them with acrylic, and when that was dry, I sanded them.  

After I sewed the pages (using waxed linen thread) onto three leather straps, I carved out areas on the cover into which I could glue the leather ends, to make them level with the surface of the cover.

And here is the finished book

Here we are on the eve of the infamous Winter Solstice of 2012... yes, infamous.  For those of us with a mystical inclination, the mind strays again and again to what all these predictions and anticipation on the part of so many diverse people could mean to the collective unconscious.  No, I don't really expect anything earth shattering or calamitous to happen - but I do hope that the gathering collective expectations will at least produce a paradigm shift in consciousness.  Don't you think we need it?  I'm ready.... are you?

Meantime, I have creative endeavors to pursue.  I have a New Year's Resolution - to make 100 books by year end 2013.  The purpose of  this blog is to track my progress with this intent.

I have a little over a week while the year winds down to learn to use this blog format, so I'll post a few images and comments on the last book oriented resolution - the one made in 2011 to make a book a week.  

One of my favorites was a Cheese Grater Book.  Among my wanderings, I like to pick up this and that, as long as it is relatively flat - and even better, if I can find two alike.  When I saw these cheese graters - of course I had to make a book.

I began by cutting light bookboard covers to the same size as the graters, and covered them with thin papers I had decorated with acrylic and stencils.  I punched holes in front and back covers to line up with the larger grater holes.  I then sewed the graters to the covers with waxed linen thread, using a Japanese screw hole punch to make holes for the thread.  

 Using the same decorated paper, I made sleeves for sheets of plain paper, and folded them into twelve signatures.  I punched 9 holes in each signature and sewed the book together using a coptic stitch. 

Then the fun part came - to fill the book with something related to cheese graters.  I Googled "cheese grater" along with "images," "cartoons," "odes," "poems," etc. and found more than you could possibly imagine.  Check out how may items come up with you Google "ode to cheese grater."

I found more than enough to fill all the pages of this book.