… and another new flexagon.

Last week I posted a new flexagon/fidget toy I invented after Paula Beardell Kreig inspired me to play with little squares of paper. I came up with a second design, which is the subject of this week’s post.

Friday Night Flicks: ARKIR

Tonight’s flick is an introduction to ARKIR, and some of the works made by the eleven Icelandic book artists who constitute its membership.

 

 

If you would like to spend time this weekend learning more about book arts in Iceland, you could check out their website.

It’s Paula’s fault

On August 8, 2021 Paula Beardell Krieg posted about a new flexagon she had invented. She was offering a workshop through MoMath and I signed up for it. I then missed the workshop by remembering the wrong time. (Sometimes I am an idiot.)

Paula took pity on me and showed me how to make the flexagon at a private Zoom meeting on Friday. Here’s the not-yet-folded printout that I finished colouring yesterday.

Friday Night Flicks: The Robot Book by Thomas Jackson

I have decided to continue with videos of artists’ books for the month of September. There are so many wonderful books to look at! Thomas Jackson’s book cover has been designed to be perfectly appropriate for his collection of photographs!

 

 

This weekend you might spend a few minutes thinking of different —and perhaps more appropriate— covers for books you own.

Make Your Own Pocket/Hedi Kyle Panorama Book: Part Two

Last week I posted instructions for a model of a book structure that combines a pocket/modular accordion book with the panels from Hedi Kyle’s Panorama Book. This week’s post shows you how to make two projects based on that structure: an artist’s book —Waiting for the rain— and a paper toy. We will start with the artist’s book.

Friday Night Flicks: Sophie Lécuyer

Tonight’s flick is an interview with illustrator and printmaker Sophie Lécuyer, and gives some glimpses of her works in book form.

 

 

If you would like a closer look at some of Lécuyer’s books, you could check out the images on her website this weekend.

Make Your Own Pocket/Hedi Kyle Panorama Book: Part One

I have been posting teasers about this project for a few weeks, and it’s finally here: the Pocket/Panorama Book. It is a combination of the pocket (modular accordion) book structure I played with at the start of this year and Hedi Kyle’s Panorama (formerly Panel) Book. (You will find my instructions here.)

Friday Night Flicks: The Shibayamas by Giancarlo Shibayama

This flick is a bit longer than I usually post, but The Shibayamas is a larger undertaking than many artists’ books. It contains a history of emigration —personal, familial, and cultural— that seems appropriate in this time of mass migrations forced by natural and political disasters.

 

 

The book was created in a 2017 Reminders Photography Stronghold workshop: Photo Book as an Object, led by Jan Rosseel and Yumi Goto. You could spend a few minutes this weekend reading more about the book(s) and looking at some still images here.

99 and Done

My #99DayProject is now complete. I finished the last square ahead, so you can have an advance peek at tomorrow’s square.

Friday Night Flicks: This Quickening by Stephanie McCollough

The featured artist’s book this week contains three pop-ups. They are unusual for two reasons: they are constructed from pieces of tracing paper painted with gouache, and they are abstract illustrations of poems. From the webpage:

For this pop-up artist book entitled This Quickening I was most concerned with visually externalizing an energy that I feel inside of me always: a constant sense of internal convection that could be defined as an abstract awareness of personal potential. I selected 3 poems that help define this energy (“The Wild Iris” by Louise Gluck, “Scented Herbage of My Breast” by Walt Whitman, and “Progress” by Rainer Maria Rilke) and paired them with abstract collaged forms that are activated by pop-up paper mechanics. Each poem is typeset simply, and appears on it’s own spread before each image. The form, movement, and color of the images serves to further express this energy beyond the language of the poetry. The pop-up images are intended to be visual metaphors for my own experience as articulated by the poetry. These moving forms also add a gestural nonverbal layer of communication that offers a fullness of expression beyond that achievable with words, like a dancer expressing a feeling through the movement of their body.

If you have a few minutes to spare this weekend, you might watch McCollough’s videos of ‘sketches’ she made for the book. You can find links to them on this page. If you wish to read the poems, you will find them at the following links:

The Wild Iris by Louise Gluck

Scented Herbage of My Breast by Walt Whitman

Moving Forward by Rainer Maria Rilke (This is a different translation. I can’t find Edward Snow’s version on line.)