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, August 20, 2011

Book 200 - Candy Apple Red Vinyl Journal - Limp Medieval Binding/Longstitch Binding

Jeez - 200 books! Feels like sort of a milestone. Just 165 to go!

OK, here's today's, a basic journal with an upcycled cover sewn with the longstitch binding--also called a limp Medieval binding when it's put together like this one. I've had this bright, shiny, candy apple red vinyl placemat tucked away for who knows how long. It seemed like a likely character the minute I laid eyes on it today, ready to be recycled. All I had to do was trim it to size to fit some regular text paper folded in half. The book has eight signatures of eight sheets each, folded to  make 128 pages (256 counting both sides). the sigs are stitched with thick white waxed linen thread and I crossed the stitches on the spine to make the pattern.

The vinyl is really shiny (hard to see in the photos, I think) and a very bright red. If I sewed it with green thread and gave it a green end paper and tie wrap. it'd be a Christmas book. I thought about trying to gussy up the cover in some way, but I actually like it very clean like this.

I'm mostly into natural stuff--twigs and bark, hand-made paper and bark paper and real leather, stuff like that. I'm not really much of a vinyl type. But I actually like this very much. It's clean and bright and just plain fun.




3 comments:

  1. Thanks for the support, Noah... AND for being the inspiration to get me started in the first place. One to #201.

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  2. Yes, goodness, 200 is a milestone. Although it is also one day at a time. (I am at 28 Ink Sketch days)

    Like you, I usually like natural products, but this looks gorgeous and sometimes vinel is pretty hard to tell, or is good as itself.

    I also enjoyed the past two days. Busy getting ready to give stuff away this morning and not up to dealing with the blogger comment thing. But great work all along.

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