A Book a Day? What's Up With That?


Hi, and welcome to this year-long project. So what's this all about and how did it happen, you might ask. In mid 2007, artist Noah Scalin decided to make a skull out of anything he could find, every day for a year. It stretched him in ways he never imagined, as an artist, a writer and a person. His experience turned into a blog that went viral, and then a book.

Others have picked up on the idea: 365 Hearts, 365 Masks, 365 Bears drawn on a cellphone, 365 paper napkin mustaches.
I wanted to play, too, and I chose books. I love books, I know a bit about making books (thanks to my talented book-maker sister, Marilyn Worrix), and they're broad enough in definition to give me a lot of creative leeway.

The whole point is not really the books. The idea is to stretch myself in many ways as an artist and a person, to set up a discipline, stick with it and see what that teaches me.

I hope you'll join with me and follow along on the journey chronicled here, and let me know what you think.

Friday, March 11, 2011

Day 42-Miniature Tied Binding Book

I found this structure today in Alisa Golden's wonderful book, "Making Handmade Books: 100 Bindings, Structures & Forms." It's a very simple binding, but I'd never seen it before. Basically, you just fold the pages in half, slide a thread or cord into the fold, then glue the folded page closed. You stack up all these glued shut pages and tie the protruding threads one to the next using square knots.

The binding came out looser than I expected, so I tied more knots at the top and bottom to help pull the pages together a bit more. Since there's a lot of knot tying, making this book could be a sort of meditation. I'll make more like this, in different sizes.

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