BOOK ARTS
But what is book arts?
"Book Arts" is the field of art that involves the creation of works that use or refer to the structural or conceptual properties of books. It also refers to the creative and craft disciplines used to create books, such as printmaking, letterpress, papermaking, printing, typography, bookbinding. In other words, IT'S MY JAM.
i already knew I loved bookbinding, ever since I took an intro course for fun while an undergrad at BYU. I've been keeping up the craft on my own ever since, making all sorts of books and... well, books. So when I saw that there was a BOOK ARTS course being offered my last semester of grad school at BYU, I knew I had to take it! Because, ya know, I thought it was just an advanced bookbinding class. Leather n' stuff.
hah. Wrong. And I'm so glad I was wrong! YES it's bookbinding, but it's so much more... it's pushing the limits of the structures we define as a 'book' (e.g., not just a codex), and there is so much cleverness and creativity and PROBLEM-SOLVING and CRAFTSMANSHIP and precision and ... ARTISANRY in book arts, that saying it's my jam is an understatement! Throw into the mix that it combines or utilizes all those other things I love-- screen printing, letterpress, papermaking, paper marbling, sewing, and yes, you could add leatherworking... and SO much more... (could I forge an iron clasp for a clamshell box? sure thing), that it really is the craft of all crafts. AND-- it's books. It's BOOKS. Books tell stories. I'm a storyteller. I can't gush about this enough.
And it is the craft that I get so deeply into, that hours will pass and I am the happiest of all clams, figuring out the way to embed that magnet just right into the board so that it will be flush and the polarity will be strong enough once it's covered with a half millimeter of bookcloth plus a teensy layer of PVA glue. Sigh. I want to snuggle up with it, I love it so much.
"CRAFT IS PERFECTED ATTENTION"
Robert Kelly
i didn't say it doesn't get chaotically messy mid-creation
and obviously this one gets annoyed when i'm in the zone for hours
THE PROJECT(s)
There's a lot to show. Let's start with this one, because it might be the coolest of all my Book Arts creations. Definitely the one I'm the most proud of and I'm not sure where I found the time to do all that work, my last semester. And bonus, you can just go HERE to get the full story (literally), plus some behind-the-scene-scenes... [spoiler alert: I might have almost cut my thumb off]
THE TAKEAWAY
I don't just keep my love of Bookbinding/Book Arts to myself-- I've incorporated both into the high school Design class that I teach, and it's been a fun success! And based on this other grad school Book Arts project... the TUNNEL BOOK!
CLICK HERE for project descriptions, lesson plans, resources, and more!!