Books in an Exhibition

I was excited to have two of my handmade books juried into the show at Washington State University...so excited I almost forgot to post about it! The show will continue through August 20 and you can read more about it here.

The book above is etched copper. The sun face was riveted onto the base cover with copper nails. The gate was etched and cut out with a jeweler's saw. I soldered the bezels and brass hinges onto the book and set the bezels with turquoise. The pages are bound with a coptic stitch and each signature has a cover sheet made from marbled paper a friend brought me from France.

This book started with a 1/4" pine plank cut in two. I carved the bird into the cover with a flexshaft and wood carving bits.and colored the cover with liquid acrylic rubbed into the wood. I used scrimshaw to carve the piece of bone. The mica window and centipede stitch I learned in class with Daniel Essig. The pages are bound with a one needle coptic stitch.

Making books is an act of meditation for me. And when they are done I rarely write in them. The book speaks its own story of creation.