Goodies in the Mail

The high point of this week was receiving a parcel from Ed Hutchins. Look what I got!

The picture above shows my copy of Cacophony, Ed’s brilliant pop-up book. To call it “double-sided” or “3-D” doesn’t really do it justice.

The parcel included a copy of the promo card for the book, listing all the words.

To give you a better idea of the book and how it works, here’s an assembly video.

 

 

(If you would like to purchase a copy of Cacophony, you can do that here.)

There were other goodies in the parcel as well. This is a “pocket pop-up”.

I was surprised to find a book by someone other than Ed included in the package. It’s an eight-pointed star book. The original tag was included with it, and the text reads:

I am Edip Agi*, artist. I offer you the Eight-Pointed Star Book. It is a version of the kind of journal and sketch book I make and use for my own ideas and drawings.

The book is composed of various archival papers that are layered to form a flower-like pattern. When one page is lifted, all the others follow in a spiral. The form may be easily regained by twisting the pages counter-clockwise while lowering them.

The design of this book is conducive to the creative processes of writing and drawing. I believe that changes in structure, like the structure of this book as compared to the conventional western book, spark changes in content.

Here’s the book in its cover/wrapper.

You can begin to see the odd page shapes when the cover is removed.

Here’s the book open after several pages have been turned. (The main body of the book is on the left in the image below.

It is a lovely thing, and I am extremely flattered that Ed gave it to me from his collection. I plan to try and reverse engineer the structure, so it may turn up in this year’s Advent Calendar. (If I am successful, Ed will be getting a copy.)

*The only Edip Agi that I could track down on the internet was (probably) a student at Cooper Union, became an Exhibition Assistant there, then went on to work as an animator on Antz and Shrek. Unfortunately that Edip Agi died at age 33.

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A tiny bit more work on A Month of Sundays is stacked in the box below. (I spent a great deal of my time this week dealing with online forms of one sort or another!)

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In other book art news:

As part of The Windle-Loker Lecture Series on the History of the Illustrated Book, The Book Club of California is offering an in-person presentation by Tony White.

After Artists’ Books will explore the impact and significance of Diane Vanderlip’s 1973 exhibition artists books, the exhibition catalogue, and how it influenced creative publications that followed, through to the present day.

You can read a bit more and register here.

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There seem to be a lot of events centred on Artists’ Books this fall! The Center for Book Arts will be hosting this conference October 14 and 15, with both virtual and in-person presentations. Read more about it and sign up here.

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This looks like it could be exciting. Learn more about the scheduled speakers and register here. Videos of all the presentations will be available to registered attendees for six months after the event, so you can spread your viewing over a longer period.

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You may want to check this out, or possibly contribute to it! You will find The People’s Graphic Design Archive here.