beautiful waste of time

hey y’all. I’ve been making these photographs of book covers I made this winter for the spring line at anthropologie. This was an interesting group of work to make and then let go of because even though there were 1000 or so made, every cover was completely one of a kind. I found myself making lots of images and scans of these books because I think on some level I didn’t want to part with them. Each drawing made led me to another I wanted to persue. I kept feeling like I needed to record them all, take notes, in case I was missing something I would need later on. There were even a handful of books I physically kept this time around because I couldn’t let them go. I just made more to replace them. Each one was individual and I couldn’t have replicated it if I wanted to (thank goodness I don’t). These little guys just are what they are and that’s why I always come back to making them. They force my brain to make all these tiny little decisions that lead to millions of other ideas. They open up the way for ideas to come in.

It was nice to make so many of these drawings at once though, to see such a huge group of them together. I love the idea of 1000 different ways to see the same thing. The books are online now here and here.

hey y’all, happy new year. I love the beginnings of things. I also love the ends.. The middles, well not as much, lol
Just a quick, albeit, tardy happy new year to everyone from the studio here. Still keeping my head down working til mid-jan. After that, be back with lots of updates and stuff. 2012, here I come. My friend POB says it’s gonna be a good one, in fact she always says that every year. It’s one of my favorite traditions because every year I believe her and every year she is right. Here is what I had to say at the beginning of last year..reflection is good.

Hey there y’all, I hope the holidays have been good to you thus far. A new year is almost here and I do love the possibilities that always brings. Clean slates on which a million and one new ideas, choices, thoughts and decisions can be made and experimented with. It’s kind of thrilling yet exhausting even thinking about it.

I have been working on a new series of small books for spring. In my head I have been referring to them as 1000 little decisions. In my everyday life, I usually hate making decisions and of course like most humans, have to make 1000 or more a day. But when making things I am a natural. I move through them so fluidly, like someone who really knows what she is doing. My brain doesn’t have much to do with it I think, it’s every other part of me that just knows. It’s nice to be good at this in some tiny area of life. The choices are small, manageable, perfectly appropriate and don’t affect anyone or anything but that one small space. Before they go out into the world I will document a few favorites to share, because once they are gone, who knows where they will land…

Hi yall. The holidays are upon us and I am working feverishly to keep up. Here is a pretty one I just did for a lovely customer on etsy. She wanted a book for her sister Bruna. These are the covers I finished painting…And happy belated thanksgiving by the way. I’ve been so busy I haven’t had nearly enough time to talk about all my crushes, and let me tell you they are piling up..

Check out Poppytalk’s lookbook if you can. There is a great array of beautiful hand made wonders in there. It just feels lovely, like autumn.

hello there! Every year as autumn hits the east coast, it seems my world tends to speed up in huge degrees. School starts, volunteer stuff increases, holiday prep work for books goes into full blast, you name it. So in an effort to write something, here are a few amazingly good small things I’ve been working on these days.

ONE: I wrote a guest post for Poppytalk blog which went up today. Super duper fun. It is a step-by-step DIY post showing how to make a fun, simple book form called the Star Book. It is always the book my good friend Muther and I start off our book classes with because it’s simple, sculptural and manageable for first time book makers. It also is multi-faceted in it’s uses. My dear friend Kara and I made about 100 of these for her wedding to be used as wedding favors/place cards. They were the most beautiful additions to her autumn wedding place settings.

TWO: I’ve been working feverishly with a crazy diverse talented group of good men and women to finalize the 2nd annual TEDxPhilly conference happening in Philadelphia at Temple’s Performing Arts Center on November 8, 2011. If you don’t know about TED, you should check it out here, and if you are in Philadelphia, please come. The list of speakers gets more and more inspiring by the day, so much so, you’ll have enough to think about and act on for a whole year!

THREE: I am a member of the awesomely inspiring Philadelphia based artists collective, (no name) art group and we have also been working like mad to get ready for our annual wine exhibition called the Art of Giving. 50 artists are participating this year by designing wine labels that are put onto actual yummy Chaddsford wine bottles for sale at our day long exhibition at B Square Gallery on October 29, 2011. All proceeds for the day’s wine sales goes to Philabundance so come round and buy some wine, look at some art. And thanks to Chaddsford Winery for always helping us out so much with this event. Rock on.

FOUR: And lastly as a small crush aside, I just could not be more in love with neko case right now. She definitely deserves her own crush post here on the site, but man isn’t she just the best? I can’t stop listening to Middle Cyclone. And this was a great NPR set she did as guest DJ. She has a way with words. Every time I think I have picked a favorite song on this album, it changes and I can’t decide again. It’s just that good. Crush.

This lovely neko case image was taken by Jason Creps.

“Inelegantly, and without my consent, time passed.”

In 2005 I came across learningtoloveyoumore & instantly fell in love with miranda july. I felt like I had found a kindred spirit. That was when I was in grad school and sorely in need of one. I was trying to figure out what on earth I was doing there and how my artistic intentions and sensibilities would ever fit into a digital world. I wanted to tell stories on an intimate level and I wanted people to interact with the stories in some way but I didn’t know how to do that in this new medium I was learning. But somehow Miranda did, or she was trying to figure out some of these same theories. And she was experimenting all over the place which was so liberating to see. Since then, I am not sure if any of my own questions got answered or if more just took their place but one thing is for sure, the love for miranda july’s work has only grown deeper as she has made movies, written short stories and basically just become more of the artist I was always so enraptured by.  miranda july is a crush that keeps on giving and I am so happy she is in the world.

“What a terrible mistake to let go of something wonderful for something real.”

she has a new film out now, i haven’t seen it yet. sometimes i like to save experiences i know will be good, like books, or movies or places for days when i will really need it. i think that is what i am doing with this..

look at this & this

and read this

and go here

“This pain, this dying, this is just normal. This is how life is. In fact, I realize, there never was an earthquake. Life is just this way, broken, and I am crazy for dreaming of something else.”

pretty cool people interviews

“You always feel like you are the only one in the world, like everyone else is crazy for each other, but it’s not true. Generally, people don’t like each other very much. And that goes for friends, too. “

click on the oracle and get your future sent to you a few times a week..
some of the favorites I’ve recieved so far include:

The Future: Your sentimentality softens all the edges, you’re misremembering. Take a moment to recall it as it really was: fucking hell.

The Future: I see lots of Bs in your life. Could be people whose name begin with B, or Boston, or a bee. Or maybe you need to let it BE.

The Future: You are insulting yourself in ways I find insulting. Insult a hat like that and I promise the hat will cry. Today you stop.

“Look at the sky: that is for you. Look at each person’s face as you pass on the street: those faces are for you. And the street itself, and the ground under the street, and the ball of fire underneath the ground: all these things are for you. There are as much for you as they are for other people. Remember this when you wake up in the morning and think you have nothing.”
— Miranda July (No One Belongs Here More Than You)

crush.

p.s. all the quotes are from miranda july and the pic is a screenshot from her first movie, Me and You and Everyone We Know

The summer started off with me buying copious amounts of paper, board and glue while also trying to line up interns and helpers. I knew most of my juniors would be busy with internships so luckily as fate would have it, Sara Lenton, graduating senior + foodie extraordinaire  (shown below amidst the 12 boxes she packed full of 2,000 tree books), came into my life and asked to be an intern! We were both so excited until low and behold she went and got herself a great full time job. She couldn’t work as much as we thought but she still came on weekends to help all the way from Lebanon, PA. With an intern slot to fill I started hitting up my new friends, the sophomores at Moore College of Art and Design. There were a few (Erika, Lauren, & Tania) who were staying in the city on their summer vacation so they made for great support.

People came from all over to help. And by help, I mean folding endless reams of paper (I think 27 was the final count), piercing holes for sewing, collating into small batches, hand sewing, gluing, stamping, bagging, and packing.

The list of people who came to help in the studio is endless. There was Aunt Gladys who came every tuesday night without fail to sew with me on the sofa while we watched the song stylings on The Voice and then a little cult fave, Twin Peaks.

They came on weekends: Ariane, Kate and Nancy (after pancakes at Sulimays), from DC and beyond (Andrea and Mom! who came twice!) and nearby (Anne, Muther & Lysander) too. Roz and Monica even came by one morning to keep me company, give me great business ideas and fold paper.

They came before work (K-fai), in between other jobs (Angie), on their summer vacations (Marka), and in the midst of huge projects of their own Jenny (editing a feature film!). Kara (shown below with Eli and Tim) came all the way from NYC and Joy, my dear sweet twin managed to fold paper while taking care of twin baby girls.

They let me sew in their summer houses when I needed a change of scenery (Ali + Dave) or in their gardens on sunny days (Sandy), they let me sew on road trips (Nancy) to beautiful places. They even started offering up their relatives to help (thanks Sherry Berger!) And more than anything, they fed me (Cathey White, bless her) constantly.

I got to meet new friends (Bethann and Tessa), as well as hang out with current friends & students (Rachel and Cara).

Yuka cut boards even as she was posting her thesis show from grad school, and Roman, in the midst of all his graduate work, managed to print the entire run of front and back covers over at the awesome Space 1026.

The best parts of it all? The conversations! It was like we were beckoning the age old tradition of, get this, talking to people. What a revolutionary thought. It was like a new school sewing circle complete with revolving members coming in and out and no computers, emails or texts. It was a blast. Sara, Ariane and K-fai, were by far the great conversationalists! I couldn’t wait for them to show up each time knowing they would have these amazing things to talk about.

My good friend Father made me this amazing piercing machine (pictured above) that allowed me to pierce more sheets of paper at a time than doing it by hand. Genius. Genius I tell you.

And then there was my life saver,  Anna (above). It was fate that I went to my cousin Grace’s (who also helped out) graduation party and there was my other cousin Anna. Having just graduated high school she had the time and I definitely needed the help. Anna came in and single-handedly saved the day. She touched almost every book we made, she glued almost every book we made. I couldn’t have been happier to spend the summer with this amazingly whip smart, funny girl. She is at college now but I hope she knows how much better she made the whole experience. And I know I drove her crazy with the early morning fruit smoothies and the endless netflix watching of Psych and Monk all summer. And oh god, the podcasts we got through, (God bless This American Life, the Splendid Table, NPR, Pandora, KCRW, and books on tape!)  There is much entertainment needed when sewing 2000 books by hand. One day we literally sat on my couch for 6 hours straight and did nothing but sew book blocks and watch Netflix. Anna never complained once and she loves Indian food. best. girl. ever.

It was a good summer. Thank you everyone. I’ll never forget it.

xoxo

Happy first weeks of school y’all. This means summer is over. I really did have the best summer. I look back and I think wow, I can’t believe it’s over and I can’t believe I got to spend it with so many amazing people making art. If every summer could be this way, I couldn’t ask for anything more. To review, this summer I made an order of 2,500 handmade books for Anthropologie which I told you about earlier. What was even exciting about this is that I actually finished the project, what was remarkable was the actual process and the amount of people who helped. Bookbinding is usually a pretty solitary activity and taking on an order like this for a one-woman shop is no easy decision. When I said yes to this sweet job, I knew it meant basically the summer would be filled with just this one project. I have to say it was really nice to have the luxury of focusing on just one thing if only for a short while.  One thing at a time is just fine to me, or one book at a time.

Below are some images from the summer, a collection of photos taken while in the throws of making and sewing and gluing and stamping and printing and painting and coordinating. It was a really good time and I wasn’t nearly as good as I wanted to be about documenting the process so it is spotty but there are some nice shots of the poet books while they were being made.. Next post up will be shots from the tree books and their own road to completion.

This was a smaller edition of 425 books so I decided to hand stamp these front covers myself using stamps I got made. I liked doing this because I could really keep some of the uniqueness of each cover. They got better and better as I got used to what the paint would do after a first second or third impression with the ink.

After painting the boards with the background color it was time to add the turquoise to the edges. Painting the edges of over 800 boards proved to be more tedious than I thought. I did not like it one bit.

I like seeing them all standing at attention like this as we allow the inside stamp to dry before putting them in their little plastic sleeves.

The book blocks had to be wrapped with the blue and pink papers on the edges before I could get to gluing and pressing the books.

Stacks and stacks waiting to be stamped and bagged.

The books in the actual store on 18th and Walnut Street in Philadelphia.

The books online, yay!

About a month ago I had the pleasure of attending a blog workshop at Moore College of Art & Design hosted by the AIGA Philadelphia chapter and the blogger Oh Joy! Now for most that have visited this space, you already know I am not the most prolific blogger, sometimes my presence can be a bit scarce to put it mildly. And honestly I sometimes find it very hard to wrap my head around what I am in fact trying to do with this space anyway, artistically, thematically, etc..

But I guess when it comes down to it, I want to share. I want to somehow extend to the world a small piece of what I am making, thinking, loving. I also love to write. But on the other hand I am an extremely private person. I love stories but I also cherish brevity and need silence in the most profound way. It takes me ages to process things into words which isn’t a good trait for blogging either. So all these things fly in the face of one another as most of my traits seem to do which ultimately results in a constant push/pull effect inside the small space in my head. But let’s step back to Joy’s blogging workshop again. She made some really good points and was extremely kind and attentive to a room full of questions. What I ultimately walked away with was a need for consistency on my part. I need to write on a regular basis if I want folks to come round my playground again and again.

All this to say I am implementing a few new series on the blog here. Some will be collaborative in nature, Sandy get ready, and some will be more random. I still don’t know what I want to do with this space artistically, thematically, etc.. but I love to write so I will write and let the rest just happen.

The first series number is called Crush. Why? Because I love a good crush, wish I was constantly in one, enjoy them immensely and love love love being in love with something, someone, some new amazing theory or idea. I get them all the time, mostly on inanimate objects like Bucheron cheese or my lip conditioner but sometimes it is actually about actual people. This recurring series of posts will just be about excitement, adoration, sheer joy. It’s about being overwhelmed by the awesomeness that is “fill in the blank.” To me crushes are sweet, pure and full of all the phrenetic energy that could probably be turned into electricity if some smart person could bottle it. It’s good fun people, so buckle up here’s my first installment.

Alice Smith. Alice friggin Smith. Let me say it one more time, Alice Smith. Seems like lately I’ve only been listening to artists whose names begin with the letter A. Alice (smith), Amos (lee), Adele (no last name needed), Amy (winehouse). And yes all these folks are mad crush worthy but today it’s just about Alice. For one her name is Alice, and I’ve never met an Alice I didn’t like. (alice Neel, alice, Munro, alice Walker, alice Trillin, alice from Mel’s diner)

I think I’ve seen Alice Smith four times now in concert and every time she comes to Philadelphia I will be there. She has the most amazing voice and when she sings live, well it just sends chills. She only has one album so we band of Alice devotees wait patiently until the new one is released. Until then, well we must take our small doses when she does tour and save it up. Here are a few places on the wonderful web where you can hear her sing.

Gary Song
Love Endeavor
Desert Song
Forever Yours

P.S. the debut album is called For Lovers Dreamers and Me.
Get it. Seriously. Happy crushing.

image taken from amazon’s alice smith artist page