Book #035 - Black and White and White and Black

A four signature case-bound book. (What some folks call a "real" book.) The covers are made from some topological maps of the Skagit Valley; pages are cut from a tablet I bought at SightConnection.

SightConnection is the retail store of the non-profit Community Services for the Blind and Partially Sighted. They have a brick and mortar store near Northgate (in Seattle) and also a website here. Even if you don't have diminished vision you'd probably like some of their products. I go there for tablets and notebooks and really nice, functional calendars. They also have a big selection of magnifying glasses that always tempts me. Lots of other stuff, too. Check them out.

Book #030

Here's a picture of the cover of today's book. Unfortunately I am having some infuriating problems with my computer. Can anyone explain to me what to do when my scratch disks fill up?

The inside of this book is the interesting part; the pages are kind of unusual. But it will have to wait. Silly scratch disks.

OK. Scratch disk gods have been appeased and here is a picture of the inside of the book. The pieces of paper that make up the pages are all the same size but are folded in different places, so the pages are graduated in width. They are arranged in a single signature, so (in this example) the light colored paper is both the shortest first page and the longest last page. The dark brown is the next shortest and next longest...and so on. At the center, the light paper has been used again, and folded in half, so the centerfold pages are the same size. I think it would be fun to put an image on each page, and plan for the exposed parts of the images at the edges to combine to make a different picture when the pages are lying flat.

All of which makes me think of fore-edge painting. Fore-edge painting is an old art, still practiced by a tiny handful of artists, in which an image is painted on the very edges of the pages of a book. I don't mean that the edges of the book are decorated in a way that can be seen when the book is closed. The painting is done on the face of the pages, and the image is visible only when the pages are fanned - it is invisible when the book is closed. Here are two examples. I appropriated these images from the website of fore-edge artist Martin Frost so I could show them to you, and I'll remove them in a few days. Do go to Frost's website - and prepare to be wowed.

Book #021

Here's a book with a Coptic binding...sort of. I've done this binding before and thought I'd remember how, but in the end I had to make it up as I went along. I'm a great believer in improvisation; the first person who ever made a Coptic bound book, almost 2000 years ago, didn't have directions, and look how that turned out! Really, if it holds together and opens and shuts and the pages turn, what more do you really need? A book is a book is a book.

One cool thing about this binding is that anything slab-like can be used as a cover, as long as you have two slabs the same size and can put some holes in them.

Another cool thing about this binding is that Coptic books, and Coptic art in general, are beautiful and fascinating and there is a lot of information to be had. You could start here, or here.

Book #003

Book #3 is a simple hardcover book with 2 sewn signatures totaling 32 pages. (They're kind of clumped up in the photo. Once the glue is all dry I'll go back through and spread them out. )

After yesterday's rather clunky endeavor I wanted to make something small and compact and foolproof. Plus, I had been waiting for a chance to use the pretty ginkgo leaf paper. I'd like to fill it with something: poetry, a story, drawings. Any suggestions?