365: Make a Book a Day: Book 364 - "She Works Hard For the Money" - Work Gloves Book of Working Women

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.

Tuesday, January 31, 2012

Book 364 - "She Works Hard For the Money" - Work Gloves Book of Working Women - Accordion Fold/Concertina

And now for something completely different.

I've had these work gloves sitting on my bench for a couple months now, waiting for me to make magic with them. Finally, I realized I wanted to use them to point out how much work in this world is done by women. According to a Report by Richard H. Robbins, called "Global Problems and the Culture of Capitalism," women do two-thirds of the world's work, receive 10 percent of the world's income and own one percent of the means of production. I had a theme.

The book is an accordion fold/concertina fold book with 16 images of women working. From Rosie the Riveter, to seamtresses in a 19th-century sweat shop, from African women carrying baskets to soldiers, cops and crossing guards, Oprah Winfrey to Judy Garland, a Muslim Wal-Mart clerk to a doctor, PBX operators to Hilary Clinton, these women are the workers of the world.

To make the structure, I painted the insides of the gloves with several coats of acrylic medium to stiffen them and keep the fingers together. I left the thumbs unpainted for flexibility. I folded a long strip of Arches Text Wove paper into accordion sections and glued the printed photos to the pages. Then I glued the first and last pages to the palms of the gloves, under the thumbs.

I stitched the gloves together at two points with a chain stitch cord in two colors of cotton thread to match the color of the gloves.

OK, so I think this book is pretty damn cool.