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.

Sunday, June 12, 2011

Book 135 - The Beers of Mexico - Cardboard Coptic Blank Journal

Well, ummm... this is yesterday's book. I worked on it a lot yesterday, but I realized that the covers needed to lie flat under heavy weight overnight before I stitched the signatures in.

This is a beer box book. The covers are cut from the cardboard box of a case of Mexican beer. The challenge with a book like this is to use materials that are really cheap and low-quality and definitely not archival and make them sturdy, attractive and as acid-free as possible. The covers of this book were cut from the cardboard box. The front and back were sealed with mat acrylic medium. The edges were bound with red duct tape and the inside was lined with red paper. Then the whole thing was given another coat of the acrylic varnish. Glue often tends to warp cardboard, and these two pieces bowed quite a lot. I hoped that sealing the other side would even out the bend, but it didn't. Thus, the heavy weights overnight. After some hours more under bricks, the covers are relatively flat, but still not completely.

This hand made blank book has 8 signatures of 5 sheets each. 80 pages (160 both sides.) It is sewn with red cotton thread in a single-needle coptic stitch,

Even though I managed to improve them a lot, the covers will never be anything but cardboard. But it's a cute book and would be fun to write in.






4 comments:

  1. Donna,
    I just discovered you yesterday and am LOVING your blog. Thanks you for being an inspiration. I'll enjoy reading you daily and hope to make some books of my own. - Karen

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  2. Guess I'm not the only one who discovered you yesterday--hehe! I went back through the blog and looked at all your books. What an imagination! I've only made a couple of simple coptic stitch myself quite a while back. Now you've got me thinking about getting out my bookbinding supplies again. Can hardly wait to see what you create next! :)

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  3. Would make a nice Beer Logbook or sketchbook. Everybody needs one of them. :-)

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  4. To our newcomers--welcome aboard! I love knowing more and more of you are out there. It really keeps me going. As for what comes next, most often I have no idea myself until I actually start to make it. But my BF told me I was starting to get "boring" and "predictable" so I'm looking for a few more offbeat ideas. Anyone got any?

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