La Napoule, France

This past April I went on an amazing journey with 16 like-minded book art enthusiasts.  We were there under the tutelage of Rebecca Goodale's University of Southern Maine Travel Books Arts Class.  We were there to make books inspired by the surroundings at the La Napoule Art Foundation.   Mary Clews turned the ancient structures into a living studio and art center in the early 1951 in honor of her husband and sculptor, Henry.  His sculpture is everywhere in the gardens, on the outside and inside of the buildings.  It is a fascinating history.

What can be better than to live in a castle not 20 feet from the azure blue Mediterranean Sea for a week, and make art?!!!  It was heaven.


We made art in the gardens, by the sea, in the small village at the Boulangerie, or in a bar!

Thesis In The Works

Work on the MFA thesis continues.  In conjunction with the final 7-tiered mandala book, I have been designing and constructing a few more mandala book structures that will house some glass pages incorporating mandalas.  This is not part of the final book.  These additional book structures are helping me get to the final piece in a more complete way.  I was feeling that more work needed to be done before the final glass portion of the mandala book was started.  

I'm finding a real passion for combining glass and book arts.   I know each medium can stand on it's own as I've done dozens of each component.  Putting them together is both a huge challenge due to the limitations of attaching glass to glass and exhilarating to think I can actually make it happen in a way that will stand the test of time.

The outline for my thesis proposal is nearly complete and will be sending that out in a week or so.  I continue to read and review the history of mandalas, The Heroine's Journey, and much of Carl Jung's interpretations and discoveries regarding mandalas.

Some of the tools used to start construction of what will be a coptic bound glass mandala book of seven pages and front & back cover.

Cutting by hand a total of 14 six inch circles in 1/8th in book board took some doing.  Thankfully I had purchased a hand held circle cutter (you can see the yellow and black cutter through the right circle) at the RISD art store recently.  (The RISD art store is a dangerous place for the pocket book!)

Here are seven sheets of paper that I made using a gel-print method of adding surface design.  These papers are to cover the book board sleeves, or pages, that will house the glass mandala inserts.

Here you can see the paper is covering the book board.  A constructed 3D sleeve was made using 6 pieces of book board, PVA glue and the paper.  There was a lot of 'mock' construction needed to get the steps down in the right order for construction.

The individual pages or glass sleeves are taking shape. 

Here are all seven pages done and awaiting the glass inserts.  There will be a front and back cover that I think will be book board without glass.  Once the glass is inserted, the final piece of book board will be glued in and the tabs glued down to secure the glass.  The binding will be a coptic binding on the left side of the book.  When the book is closed and sitting on a table it will measure over 4" thick.

This is the end of April!  It seems we have extra time this semester before our presentations are due.  I hope to have 2 or 3 of these smaller glass books ready for that weekend as well as being pretty clear about the nature of the final glass mandala with drawings ready and maybe even a page or two of the glass itself. 

Bingo!

The last couple of months I've been working on two artist's books that deal with reusing, redeeming or reviving something.  So, in memory of my mom, Cathy, who loved to play bingo, I'm reusing and reviving some old bingo cards that didn't win the jackpots.  I am fortunate enough to be in two wonderful shows that start today.  Both are attributable to the Kate Cheney Chappell '83 Center for Book Arts through the University of Southern Maine.

The first book, "Bingo", incorporated over 100 pages of bingo cards that have been folded and inserted into one another.  No glue was used to hold the pages together in this book.  There was glue used to hold the spine on, that's all.  I did play around with other titles like, 'loser' but thought being positive was better.

"Bingo!" Blizzard Book with over 100 pages using bingo sheets, 11"x5"x7" 

The second book, "B 42", is a book designed specifically to hang on a wall.  There are 25 book spheres that are attached by magnets to the wall.  Again, no glue was used.  I am assuming that everyone knows how bingo is played, thus the reason B42 is pink.

"B 42", Magnetic book pages that hang on a wall using bingo sheets, magnets, and metal clasps, 15"x15"

Rescued, Revived, Redeemed
Artists' Books made by The Center for Book Arts Critique Group at the Pope-Cheney Art Studio located on the 1st floor of the Wishcamper Center, 34 Bedford St., USM, Portland Campus  (Hours: 8 a.m.-10 p.m., Monday-Thursday, and 8 a.m.-6 p.m., Friday)  This show goes up March 13 and runs through May of 2014.


Bound Together
This exhibit will be composed of approximately 30- 50 artist’s books
created by USM students from Art 341, The Visual Book 2 and books made
by community members from the USM Kate Cheney Chappell’83 Center for
Book Arts Critique Group.  The exhibit will be shown in the Lewis Gallery in the Portland Public Library in April.  Opening reception is April 4, 2014 from 5-8pm.

Thanks for looking!

Mandala

As part of my MFA proposal last semester, I made a series of 7 books depicting aspects of Tibetan Buddhist Mandalas. This book is an accordion dos a dos book that has 5 pop-up features. The features are lotus flowers that pop off the page upon opening.


The book also folds back onto itself to make a type of star structure. Many techniques and materials were used including calligraphy and a type of paper batik that I came up with.