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.

Saturday, March 12, 2011

Day 43-Route 66-Coptic Binding

I should have posted this book yesterday. I did finish it then, but because it is partially glued, it needed to spend some time under weights so it would lie flat and I could photograph it.

This idea sprang from a Route 66 vinyl sticker we sell in our store. I used the stickers on the front and back and it also provided the template for cutting out the boards for the covers and the pages. Now that was tedious! I kept thinking "Die Cutter. Die Cutter!" first I tried cutting the pages with scissors, but they were just plain ragged. I finally ended up using an Xacto knife and cutting them in piles of 4-5 pages at a time. As a result, the edges are not perfectly uniform as they would be using a die cutter. But they're really not too bad, if I do say so myself.

The binding for this book is the single-needle Coptic stitch. It's a binding where the stitching is exposed on the spine. It enables the book to lie completely flat when opened. This little book measures roughly 3 1/2" square.

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1 comment:

  1. cabbingroughMarch 17, 2011 at 2:09 PM

    Oh, this one is cool!! I'm so excited you waited so long to tell us about your challenge, now I ave lots to look through, and I'm loving all of your creations of the year!!

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