The Laundry Maze gets physical

The Laundry Maze is the installation I'm doing at the Portland Building Feb 13 - March 16, 2012. There's been a lot of planning (a web survey, distributing postcard/flyer with self-stamped envelopes, connecting with ESL departments and adult literacy programs throughout the Portland area, asking friends who are immigrants, collecting shirts from friends...).

And now, things are getting physical...the first shirt has rolled off the production line!

I have gesso'ed 48 shirts (although I'm pretty sure I won't need anywhere that many; I'll probably need about 35 or so). So far, I have collected enough data pairs to sew around 2 sets of tags on each shirt. I'm also still setting up appts with ESL & literacy programs for the next few weeks. I will continue to add the tags while the installation is up. Hopefully, by the end of the installation period, I'll have 3-4 tags per shirt.

The back of each shirt will be a landscape sketch that I hope people can interpret in various ways. Each will be a sketch of mountains, rivers, and/or oceans, all natural national boundaries. But landscapes can mean so much in terms of what a 'home' is.



The front of the shirt will have tags of people's professions before and after immigration. Each pair will be stacked on top of each other; the "after" tag can only be read when you lift up the "before" tag.



The serger has been a great investment. It's handy in finishing the tags so that they won't fray as people lift up the before tags to read the after tags.

I have bought the dowels that will serve as the laundry lines, and the clothespins. I just need to finish sketching the remaining shirts, sewing/writing the remaining tags, then it's install, and the show opens!

Two years and nine months later...

We have a book!

This was the book I started with an elderly WWII vet back at the start of 2009. His wife heard about the project I did at Rose Schnitzer Manor and thought I might be interested in working with him. And now two years and nine months later, I have completed the project!

The book is an edition of 26, Gocco printed on Nepal Heavyweight, a handmade paper from Nepal; each also has 5 etchings on cotton paper handmade by Helen Hiebert.

Here's a stack of a few books. The cover paper is handmade mulberry paper from Taiwan. The image is Gocco printed and then brushed with a foam brush.



The front & back covers, and the back of the accordion. The back cover is created using the same method as the front cover.



Detail on the back of the accordion. It's the melody from San Antonio Rose. If you know the song, you can follow along. Otherwise, it might just look like a landscape or the water.



The opening pages.



The first trifold. The brown paper with the etching is made by Helen and contains soil from the South Dakota farm that he was born and raised in.



The trifold opened up.



The second trifold. The blue paper with the etching contains water from the Pacific Ocean.



The trifold opened up.



The third trifold. The green-blue paper with the etching contains water from the Columbia River.



Opened.



The fourth trifold. The gray-blue paper with the etching contains water from the Willamette River.



Opened.



The last trifold. The brown paper with the etching contains soil from his Oregon farm.



Opened.



The closing pages.

Good news on the "pillow books"

Yippee! The University of Washington Special Collections just purchased all four of the "pillow books"! These were made at the beginning of my interest and work on progressive memory loss, and right before I started working with the elderly who are at various stages of dementia. I'm thrilled that they're going together to this wonderful collection. The UW collection also has a copy of all the books I created with the elderly.

So here are some images of the four "pillow books". There are more images and write-ups on all four books (and more) here.

Below, Random Cruelty



Tenuous Connections



A Dog's Tale



Cradles for Our Memories

More Relay Replay progress report

Definitely in book mode now. I actually finished all the etchings for this book back in March, and then didn't make much progress other than trimming papers. But I've been working on it in earnest now for the last couple of weeks and here are some process photos. There are 5 etchings all together (solarplate etchings) on each of the 5 sets of handmade paper made with soils and waters collected from various places (see this link for more on the papers and also some mockup pictures).

The main text block will be Nepal Heavyweight (handmade in Nepal), and the papers made by Helen Hiebert will be laminated to that. Each page is a trifold. On this photo you can see one etching (brown paper in the back) is already laminated to its trifold (already partially folded), and in the front a 2nd etching that I'm in the process of attaching to the Nepal Heavyweight.



This photo shows another etching with a topographical map gocco printed on one of the sections.



On the drying rack --



A peek into the trifold. Different images/text will be gocco printed on each of the sections.



Another page with 1 section printed.

In and Out of the Box

Woohoo, I got into In and Out of the Box exhibit with The Medium is the Baggage! You can see some process photos here. The acceptance letter started with (paraphrase) "there were so many qualified applicants and unfortunately...", so I figured I didn't get in, but then it said "I am pleased to let you know that the juror selected your work to be included..."! So woohoo!

Here's a shot right before I packed it all up:



This was the statement I sent with the piece:

The Medium is the Baggage examines the reality of product vs. the medium it is packed in by inverting the relationship between the two entities.

Practical or aspirational, the products we purchase often have limited live spans – they break down, wear out or we simply move on to the next new thing; they are, in effect, disposable. In mail-ordering, we have found something that will last generations. With the exception of biodegradable starch foam & paper packing, most packing materials are various forms of plastic that do not biodegrade and recycling is limited. When recycling is available, the materials are recycled into other forms of plastic.

In short, these packing materials are the heirlooms that we leave for future generations. By presenting 20 packing materials in a clamshell box packed in shredded mail-order catalogues, The Medium is the Baggage puts product and packing in their rightful places within the historical context.

Made mostly from repurposed materials that had previously arrived by mail - one Amazon shipping carton, various packing materials and mail-order catalogs. Other materials include recycled paper, repurposed mylar and packing tape.

Now lets work on books for a bit

After finishing the last of those 7"x7" panels, I'm returning to books for a while.

Here's one that I thought would be a fun, quick project, but I sunk 40+ hours into it, most of that time was spent on researching the various packing materials that are commonly found in mail ordered products. I tried contacting materials scientists, I looked on the web, and I called a foam/plastic manufacturer.

Now I know the difference between polyurethane, polyethylene, polystyrene, expanded polyethylene and expanded polystyrene. Phew! I wonder how long that information will keep in my head...as opposed to how long the actual materials will keep, which is basically forever.

The book is made from mostly repurposed materials that had previously arrived to me via mail — an amazon box, various packing materials, mail-order catalogs (indirectly through a neighbor); and then there's also recycled printer paper, mylar rescued from the JWSC trash bin and packing tape.

I wanted to make a sampler box of packing materials. So here I'm putting together the tray.



Here's the completed clamshell box made from the amazon shipping carton. On the left is the index to the samples, and the samples in their little cubbyholes on the right.



The clamshell box will be shipped, packed in shredded mail-order catalogs.

Bright Hill 2010 Book Arts Exhibit

This is my lucky year! Exhibits have been falling from the sky and hitting me on the head, which is good since I've been so crazy busy with Portland Open Studios board duties that I haven't had the time to put my work out there this year.

So the latest is the Bright Hill 2010 Book Arts exhibit. I got invited to submit 2 books. They chose two, one of which was not available, so I was able to choose the other (which they accepted). I think these two work very well together. Although both are earlier work, I have always loved both and have always been sorry that they haven't been shown more. So here they are, brand new photographs from this afternoon.

Pocket Atlas for Travelers:



Left & Right:



And this was what I sent along:

Pocket Atlas for Travelers is the story of a 15 year seeing the world for the very first time, and coming to an understanding of the lies that we are often told in the cause of nationhood. Voices compete and contrast in different versions of this journey.

Left & Right documents a long civil war, most of which was fought in the battlefields of the mind. Having grown up on one side of this war, I was able to travel and see the other side as an American. Two decks of cards, 104 toy soldiers shooting at each other, each side telling their version of four stories, with a surprising twist.

11th

Regularly Irregular

11th of the 7x7 panels. A slight deviation from what I've been doing with these, which had been gouache & acrylic on paper mounted board, this is acrylic, medical test strips, glass beads and blood. No, no, no, not the droplets you actually see, those are droplets of acrylic paint. The blood is in the test strips. Just miniscule amounts.

I've been accumulating great amounts of these and wanting to do something with them. The last experiment with them did not work out very well—I was trying for something more sculptural and it didn't work. Lots more test strips where these came from, so more are in the works already.

And about that book...

And I've been pretty silent on my current book with my senior, but I'm happy to report that some progress has been made. Here's a fairly full mock-up of the book. A lot of the content has been decided, I have all the papers, I know the final size. I'll probably start trimming the paper sometime in the next couple of days. I even went out and bought a much larger cutting mat in preparation. Now I have a 24”x36 ” mat and won't have to struggle with the larger sheet sizes. Tried it out yesterday, what a relief!



On other fronts

Lots of things have been happening—wrapped up one collaborative project, researching/discussing another for next year, working on a video with a friend, and thinking and writing about future solo projects. Nothing is set is stone yet, but hopefully some of them will wrap up or gel in the next few weeks or so.

Washing the dirt

What a strange concept, huh? That you need to wash dirt. But the Sauvie Island soil has a lot of organic materials in it—bits of half composted leaves, needles, roots of weeds, etc. And remember those 2 worms I rescued out of the soil before I baked it?

So that's what you see floating on top there, all the half composted vegetation. As it turns out, I have a serendipitous tale here. When I went to the Vietnamese grocery to get a mortar and pestle set for grinding the soil, I also picked up a set of wire mesh sink drainers. Ours didn't work so well and the Good Prince's solution was simply to not use it. Which of course causes the sink to be all plugged up which then means I get to clean it out when I come along to use the sink next.

So I used the largest drainer in the sink and had 2 small drainers that I had no use for. And of course, today, they were just the perfect tools for scooping out the organic materials that floated to the top!



So here the vegetation had been scooped out. There were several iterations of stirring up the slurry, letting the vegetation and minerals separate, scooping, and repeat.



As it turns out, although I got a huge amount of the Sauvie Island soil, it was so rich in organic materials that, after washing and grinding (and removing small rocks), I only got a little more usable amount than the South Dakota soil, which surprisingly had little organic materials in it. Nor rocks. I wonder if the person who got me the South Dakota soil had already cleaned the soil?

The other surprising thing was how different the two soils feel—the South Dakota soil created a very creamy, very dark paste, rather like a dark chocolate sauce. The Sauvie Island soil resulted in a lighter and grittier paste, which I suppose makes sense, as there's probably a lot more sand in it.

And Helen Hiebert, the artist who's making the papers for me, sent this photo the other day. These are the Pacific Ocean sheets, made using water from the Pacific. Here it looks really bright—the sheets are wet. Once dry, they'll be a much paler blue.

More pop-ups

The pop-up cards have been very popular with the seniors that I work with, so we're doing another pop-up tomorrow. And naturally I waited until today to make a model. So this was my model...not as 'gardeny' as I really would like, almost looks more like a fish tank. Maybe that's what I should have them make tomorrow, a fish tank. The individual flowers are attached to a cut and folded base so that they open up when you open the cards.

This came out of a book model that I made years ago but never developed fully. There's way too much tension and the pages do not open fully, neither will they stay open. Here I'm holding it open with my feet while I take a photo. The card above has a similar problem, but maybe because there aren't quite as many flowers pulling the pages closed, it's not quite as bad.



Here it is again, but not fully opened:



"Someday, I'm going to be a REAL book," says the model.

Baby's first drop-spine box

The Guild of Book Workers requires that the books you send for exhibition be housed in a drop-spine box. The last time, I got Andrew to make me a box for Fatherland, this time, Andrew isn't around for me to take advantage of, so I actually had to learn how to do this. So behold:



I downloaded a couple of sets of instructions, one of which claimed that it would take about an hour to make one. Well, I can't tell exactly how long it took me, but it was probably 3-4 hours, excluding having to go Art Media to get some book cloth. Not having a board shear, I had to cut all the boards with an exacto knife (and then cut some of them again). But overall, I think it went pretty well. The two sides fit exactly, although the inside is just a smidgin too wide for the book, which I can fix with a small strip of some board. The box just needs to be functional, it doesn't need to be pretty. And since the book is deeper on one side than the other (and plus the extra height of the mah-jongg tiles), I'll need to make a plinth or insert anyhow.

A new book model

OK, after much struggle and a chat w/ the organizer for this weekend's class, we decided to just do one book rather than two. We could've done two, but it would've been super stressful; I mean I was stressed out just thinking about doing those two books in two days (plus dying the paper and gocco'ing).

Doing one would be much more relaxed and would allow them time to decorate the book as well. So I reworked the version of the pocket book that they'll be making to fit the new agenda (ie, give them more space to personalize and decorate). Here's the model:



A spread with the inserts. My inserts are just blank, but they'll be gocco printing on the cards and then trading with each other in the class. There are 12 participants, so they should get a nice collection of inserts.



A spread without inserts. This would be space that they can write on, collage on, draw on, etc.



Oh yeah, and Esther got into the GBW's Marking Time traveling exhibit. Yay!

Oh my, oh my, oh my

Yes, there's been more of that top secret stuff going on, and also prepping for my class this weekend. I'm teaching my 2nd bookbinding class this weekend. As it turns out, the class is completely filled (12 people), they want to do 2 books, they want to gocco, and my materials budge is only $100! !! !!!

Now that's pretty tough, since the gocco supplies alone is $3.5/person (=$42), which leaves me $56 to spend on paper for 24 books. I spent 1 afternoon just looking at a variety of paper, trying to figure out how to do that. Ended up going with Tyvek & Canson Mi-Teintes for the pocket books, and Tyvek and just basic text paper for the Japanese stab binding. And even at that, the inks, paints, and linen thread will just be coming out of my own pocket.

[Oops, upon reviewing all the emails exchanges, looks like I have $100 plus the $50 gift certificate, so yay, I have a bit more room to maneuver. Good thing I checked!]

Plus, I've spent a whole afternoon trimming paper—they'll barely have enough time to gocco & dye the paper on the first day, and bind 2 books on the 2nd day, that I have to pre-trim the paper.

So I'm learning more and more about teaching book binding. That's fine...it took me a couple of gocco classes before I figured out what could really be done in a reasonable amount of time for a reasonable amount of fee.

Oh yeah, I tried this new brand of gesso, Art Boards gesso, which Art Media now carries because of request from icon painters. I figured, hey, if it's good enough for icon painters, it's good enough for me. I tried it, sanded it, and it looks absolutely gorgeous! Now I just have to paint on it too.

Openings, events, demos, or my!

Well, I thought this was going to be a relatively easy week, and it was, but not as easy as I had thought. (Read: I didn't get as much done as I figured I would.)

Lets see, I'm in the Book + Art show at the Collins Gallery at the Central Library, and the opening reception was Wednesday evening. Got to meet up with a bunch of artists that I don't see often, so that was wonderful. It was also the new haircut's debut! Afterwards, the Good Prince (I originally typed 'Good Prints') and I headed over to Ping, the new fancy pants pan-Asian restaurant in Chinatown, in what was the old China Council office, where I spent a lot of my time years ago. Well, I have to say that it was somewhat disappointing, given the amount of press they've had and the pedigree (connection to Pok Pok ) and all. But maybe it's just the 'getting it up and running' usual bumpy beginning, I'd certainly try them again.

Thursday—worked on my professional development grant application, and went to Art Spark, a monthly art gathering that I've been meaning to go to for a while but only made it for the first time this month. The format—short presentation by an arts group in the middle of the evening, but mostly just a networking/social scene, which I'm not terribly good at. I think I also managed to mount Prosperity Soup on board.

Then Friday (yes, this is the laundry list) was a pretty long day of preparing for my demo at Contemporary Craft, prepping a board with a new gesso that I want to try, working on my grant some more, and prepping for Portland Open Studios jurying.

When I taught the class at Springdale las week, they asked to keep the models for the school, so I figured Saturday's demo would be a good opportunity to make myself some more models. There was really quite a bit of traffic through there but I did get the 2 important models done (the two that I will need for this coming weekend's class), and I got started on a 3rd model that I want to have on hand. I have a 4th model I need to make for the collaboration my critique group is doing, but I don't need to have that done until next Friday.

Then today was the Very Top Secret meeting which of course I can't talk about, so that's that.

Found some extra time

Hey, after bemoaning that I wasn't going to have a relaxed couple of weeks as I had previously thought, I got some extra time today. Looks like my class with Jobs Corps won't happen until March 13, so that gives me an extra week, and my volunteer gig at the library was cancelled today because Jim is on vacation.

I caught up on some errands that I was late on, and I sent out more books to Vamp & Tramp. They've been doing a GREAT job selling my books. They've sold 19 of my books since the start of the year. And this box I sent today was my 4th box to them in about 2 months. The Good Prince says "if I ever decide to make a book, for sure I'm going to send it straight to them...I'm not going to be shy and wait years before I contact them."

Had a couple of hours to catch up on some Portland Open Studios email and my secretarial duties too.

A productive week

My cohorts (Anne, Helen, and Diane) and I went up to Seattle for a couple of days. It was a whirlwind trip of visiting a binder, an artist, an antiquarian/rare books dealer, art galleries, the SAM's Sculpture Park, and the UW Special Collections. Wow, I can't believe we fit all that into 2 days, and that included driving up and back.

Visits to the binder and the UW Special Collections were just overwhelming, in a good way. There were SO MANY amazing books to absorb. Most of which will soon slip my memory, I know, but it was still a pretty amazing experience. The binder we visited keeps a copy of each book she has worked on, and has an incredible collection of books, some by pretty famous artists. What a gig!

And some good news—the UW Special Collections bought a copy of each of the books I took up to show, that includes one each of the Relay Replay books, Calypso, and S/N. And even more good news—I heard from Vamp & Tramp that they've sold 6 copies of Martha, which means Martha is now sold out (other than the 3 copies I'm keeping for myself). I'm both very happy & excited, but also wondering if that means I underpriced the book? Heck, pricing is an impossible task.

I was pretty out of it the day after we got back from Seattle, I think it just took me a whole day to decompress, there was so much to absorb. I did manage to make it to the Clemens-Tobias Lange talk at 23 Sandy—fabulous books, and even more inspiring, he does all the prints with photopolymer plates. And since I've been talking about getting a baby etching press and learning how to use solarplates (I'm pretty sure this is the same as photopolymer plates), I now have much to look forward to and learn.

And on finishing Superfoodland!

The backs of the cards:



The Fortunes:



The Fortunes are supposed to look like little chocolate squares. I printed on both the foil and paper, just in case the foil doesn't stick.

I'm definitely getting there. I've printed the booklet cover, too. I'm pretty close to finishing the rule book. I do need to print up the scorecards, but I think I'll inkjet those. So tomorrow, I laminate & trim the cards, add the '!' to the embroidered napkin, pack (and don't forget the die for the game!), and deliver the package to Anne in the evening.

Better get cracking on that game board...

Yes, now that's it's January, I best get going on this. We need to ship out Feb 1. So here I have a mockup of the board with some of the positions drawn in. There are 7 decks of cards to draw from, 3 decks of Market cards, 3 decks of Eatery cards, and 1 deck of Circumstance cards. Except I had to spell it 'EATFRY' since I had only 1 'E' and I wanted to stamp all 6 letters at the same time; and 'Sircum stance' since I only have 1 'c'...well, you get the picture.



Even though I hadn't been working on my game, I have been working on other projects. Helen and I are planning a combined workshop—participants make paper with her one weekend then gocco on the handmade paper with me the next. We hope it will be a smashing success!

And I've also been writing down project plans and such for 2009, reading about xhtml, and I admit it, goofing off too. I think it was during one of my goofing off periods that I suddenly realized what else I can do with sculpey. I did this book a few years back—



Those are rose thorns attached to the book cover. I've always wanted to another where the entire front and back are covered in rose thorns. I don't know if I got lucky that year where the thorns were unusually large and beautiful, or if I've just been unlucky since, but I have not been able to harvest thorns as lovely as these ever since.

Another problem with using actual rose thorns—after drying, the bottoms of the thorns become concave, which makes attaching them to the book cover very difficult.

But now that I have my new found medium of sculpey/preemo, I can make my own lovely rose thorns, with flat bottoms for easy attachment! Here's another shot, there are two circles of thorns—a small one at the top and the large one at the bottom. This shot is rather washed out: