Elissa R. Campbell | Blue Roof Designs

Paper and Book Intensive 2012

May 7, 2012 (2 weeks ago) - by Elissa

I’m in a total state of shock.

On Sunday morning, I’ll be flying out to Michigan for the Paper and Book Intensive. I’m actually going.

I had convinced myself that I was never going to go. I applied two years ago and wasn’t accepted – that’s the kind of thing that sets the Brain of Doom in motion. The Brain of Doom sucks.

But I’m actually going. To Ox-Bow.

I’m attending the following workshops:

Album Alter­na­tives with Betsy Palmer Eldridge:

The recent pop­u­lar­ity of albums has led to an increased inter­est in the vari­ety of album struc­tures avail­able and in the dif­fer­ent ways mate­ri­als can be attached to the album leaves. This ses­sion will intro­duce and show exam­ples of many of the his­tor­i­cal meth­ods. In addi­tion, it will show two lesser-known but use­ful meth­ods. The first is how to include folio mate­r­ial with­out a thread inter­rup­tion in the gut­ter mar­gin: the sec­ond is how to bind stiff leaf mate­r­ial using the 1865 Philadel­phia Patented method. The advan­tages and dis­ad­van­tages of each will be dis­cussed. Par­tic­i­pants will make take-home mod­els of as many of these meth­ods as the time allows and their inter­est dictates.

I received an Email from Betsy a week ago that said “Just found your name on my PBI participants list and look forward to having you in my class.” [insert Elissa's faint here] Yes. I’m a geek.

Cus­tom Bone and Steel Tools for Book Working with Shanna Leino:

Dur­ing this class you will be work­ing with two very handy and ver­sa­tile mate­ri­als: elk bone and steel. First, stu­dents will be intro­duced to the tools and tech­niques needed to form and fin­ish bone fold­ers of ones own design. Smooth, pol­ished to a shine, and fit­ting per­fectly in your hand—there is noth­ing like the feel of a bone folder you’ve made your­self. You will then cross over to steel, learn to make a chas­ing tool and a stamp for mak­ing an impres­sion into most met­als and use­ful for adding orna­men­ta­tion on your book cov­ers. Sim­ple meth­ods of adding adorn­ment to your tools will be demon­strated. No pre­vi­ous expe­ri­ence is nec­es­sary, how­ever this class is demand­ing on the hands and arms. Expect to leave with two or three bone fold­ers and one chas­ing tool that will be beau­ti­ful to look at and won­der­ful to use!

I’m psyched to meet Shanna for many reasons, one of them being that she’s from New Hampshire. It’s great to have such a wonderful resource close to home and I plan to talk to her about doing a workshop for the Book Arts Guild of Vermont.

Using a Cat­a­lyst for Artist Book Creation with John Car­rera:

The Pic­to­r­ial Webster’s was always intended to be used as a cat­a­lyst for cre­ative writ­ing. Stu­dents’ main instruc­tional assign­ment will be to write a story based on one page of images. Using Pic­to­r­ial Webster’s as a source for cre­ative input in a class will be excit­ing, as what one makes from the book is never about the book, but what is inside each per­son. Because each stu­dent is using a com­mon ref­er­ence, under­stand­ing what has tran­spired within the cre­ative engine of each student’s mind can be more read­ily under­stood and dis­cussed. The goal will be to find new meth­ods for inspir­ing the cre­ative process. An intense four days will begin with cre­at­ing three books in an hour. You will then be given three dif­fer­ent meth­ods for using Pic­to­r­ial Webster’s as a source for your own new artist book. Each par­tic­i­pant will cre­ate at least one work­able dummy for a future edi­tion of your own or a fin­ished one-of-a-kind. Stu­dents will make use of addi­tional sec­tions from the off­set ver­sion of the book.

John’s Pic­to­r­ial Webster’s was the set book for the New England Chapter of the Guild of Book Workers‘ juried exhibition deFINEd BINDINGS: 26 Bindings of the Pictorial Webster’s Dictionary. So cool.

There’s internet access at Ox-Bow, but I don’t know how accessible the access is. I hope to blog at the end of each day so you can see what I’m up to at PBI. One way or another (if not daily), I’ll blog about the workshops.

Stay tuned!

• Let me know what you think - leave a comment!
• Tagged as Betsy Palmer Eldridge, bindings, book arts, Bookbinding, John Carrera, Ox-Bow, Paper and Book Intensive, Shanna Leino

Worktable Wednesday

May 2, 2012 (3 weeks ago) - by Elissa

Today I worked on a custom order that came through Etsy – it’s the first time that one of my handmade books is going to the Netherlands!

The custom photo album tweaks the page paper of the Sea Green Floral photo album. Instead of white paper with flecks, this album includes a smooth dark green paper. I tend towards neutral colors for photo album pages, so this combination is one that I most likely would not have come up with on my own.

I love this combination!

The color of the paper is so rich. I’m sorry I couldn’t get a better picture of it.

I can’t wait to see how it looks when it’s done!

• 2 Comments
• Tagged as book arts, Bookbinding, custom, custom order, etsy, handmade, photo album

Bookbinding/Librarian merit badge from Ireland – update

April 27, 2012 (3 weeks ago) - by Elissa

Earlier this month, I talked about the Bookbinding/Librarian merit badge from Ireland. I contacted the Ireland National Office for more information on what one has to do to earn the badge.

I quickly heard back from Conor McKeon, Programme Commissioner (Scouts) from Scouting Ireland.

He was kind enough to send me a scan of a page from the scout badge book – it includes the requirements for earning the badge:

1. Make two covers for holding loose sheets, covered in suitable material with punch holes for tread or ribbon.
2. Discuss this subject with your Patrol and instruct another Scout in Bookbinding.
3. Bind the Troop or Patrol Log Book.
4. Describe in simple terms, how a book is made.

Sadly, it looks like there won’t be a bookbinding-specific badge for much longer.

Here’s what Conor had to say:

The badge in question is from our old youth programme for Scouts.

For the last three years we have being transitioning to a new programme. As part of this programme scouts can design their own merit badges and they must fall under the following categories (Skill, Physical, Adventure, Community or Environment).

This essentially means if they want to bookbind they define the skill level they wish to achieve and it must be challenging to them.

If you like the badge and want one for yourself, you should probably get one now.

• Let me know what you think - leave a comment!
• Tagged as badge, book arts, Bookbinding, Ireland, merit badge, Scouts