Book Dynamics!

I mentioned last Sunday that I had received the copy of Book Dynamics! I had ordered. It is a delight, featuring three dozen artist’s books made by Ed Hutchins between 1989 and 2007.

Ed kindly included a promotional postcard for Explosive Politics, created in 2016.

The work was part of the Pop-Up Now II exhibition at 23 Sandy Gallery. You can check out all the moveable books from that show here.

Book Dynamics begins with an introduction by William J. Dane, followed by two essays/reminiscences by Bertha Rogers and C.J. Grossman. The main portion of the book consists of pictures of the featured works with text by Ed talking about some of the hows and whys of each one.

Ed’s books are a delight: witty and/or thoughtful ideas cleverly presented in unusual structures. Ed is a great believer in designing the form to suit the content, so no two books are alike. Some basic forms re-occur, but there are tweaks to the basic structures that individualize them for each version.

Ed’s writing reveals him to be a thoughtful, smart, and funny individual. What is evident when others write about him is that he is also a kind and giving man. I already knew this, having had the good fortune to meet him in Banff, Alberta in 2006 at an ARLIS/NA conference. He generously gave me a copy of the printing/scoring/cutting pattern for one of the works featured in Book Dynamics!: Mystery of the Magic Box.

If you are interested in artist’s books, especially those with unusual structures, Book Dynamics! has enough examples to provide hours of viewing pleasure and years of  inspiration. You can order a copy here. If you are interested in purchasing one of Ed’s artist’s books, you can check out what is available here.

If you still haven’t decided to buy the book, you might want to read a review by Miriam Schaer here, or an interview with Ed—with more pictures— here.

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All four of my entries into the Paper Toy exhibition have been accepted so I spent some time this week printing copies. I am supplying sticks for the thaumatropes so that purchasers don’t need to go out and buy them.

I trimmed and sanded bamboo skewers,

cut and folded strips of paper,

glued them into tubes,

inserted the bamboo skewers, glued the envelopes shut at the ends, then glued the filled envelopes to the printed card stock.

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In other book arts news:

I recently participated in an artist’s book project to celebrate Sandra Kroupa’s 50 years working in the Special Collections Library, University of Washington. Book artists from around the world donated works to a collection which was presented to Sandra at a gathering celebrating her big anniversary. (I had to go through my records to make sure that I donated a book that Sandra had not already bought!)

Laura Russell has designed another in her series of DIY books to commemorate the event. (The main background photo shows Sandra opening an artist’s book documenting all the work in the donated collection.) You can download a copy of Laura’s free printable file here  or here.  The book is a tunnel book based on Ed Hutchins version of the structure. I mentioned his generosity earlier: you can download Ed’s instructions here.

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Finally, just a little taste of some subtle autumn colour.