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, September 23, 2011

Book 228 - Brown Leather Blank Journal w/ Obsidian

Here's another of my long stitch binding leather journals. (This binding is also called the medieval limp binding.) I found this nice piece of leather in my sister's stash. Then I found a box of polished chunks of mahogany obsidian that I knew would look great with the heavy pebbled brown leather.

I used the natural shape of the leather skin for most of the right side wrap-over and cut the cover fore edge clean. For the stitching, I used a light moss green waxed hemp thread. I wanted to try a new pattern. I planned to leave all the exposed stitching straight, but when it was done, the very long stitches worried me. It seemed inevitable that they would catch on something and pull--or even break. So I added a center stitch that brought all four rows together and created the sort of elongated starburst design. And I decided I really liked it.

After I cut a long thong to tie the book shut, I covered the top of the roughly teardrop-shaped chunk of beautiful mahogany obsidian with epoxy, then wrapped the end of the thong around it and tied a knot. Then I added a bit more epoxy. This baby is not coming off.

The paper is a really nice 70 lb. felt finish cream paper. A very nice journal, definitely good for a man.





1 comment:

  1. Yes, has a masculine feel to it. Very nice! Love the stone. :)

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