For years now, my husband and I have been collecting quirky vintage books, both to display in our home and with the inkling that they would spur creative repurposing in my bookbinding. But for the most part, I was doing more collecting than repurposing, whether it was radio operator manuals, Gregg shorthand books, 95 Russian Authors, or A Treasury of Cat Stories, to name a few.
In February, I found out I wasn't alone in my affinity for old books when I hosted a sold out class through The Skillery to teach the Coptic binding, using salvaged books to serve as the front and back covers.
I brought a couple dozen books from my own collection, which has grown slowly, usually just one book at a time, by shopping at antique stores and estate sales, and at one of my favorite stores ever: Book Thing of Baltimore, where all of the books are free! Really, they are. But there is a rule at Book Thing: each visitor is only allowed to take out 150,000 books per day. If you still don't believe that they're free, you're not alone: the Book Thing FAQ suggets many are skeptical.
I also encouraged my students to bring their own books. Many did. Among my favorites were a variety of colorfully illustrated children's stories and a little book about the Tennessee Capitol building.
We met at Dandelion Salon, where I have hosted classes before. I taught the students how to carefully remove pages and spines and then walked them through a complete Coptic binding lesson. The journals we created have new blank pages on the inside, between two vintage covers.
While we stayed busy, local photographer Kate Cauthen also stopped by to capture the class in action to bring attention to The Skillery, which I've written about often. The Skillery helps coordinate classes throughout Nashville. Kate was kind enough to share her photos.
Leading up to the class, and since then, I've continued to work with my vintage book collection, completing a few projects that will soon be shown at the Porter Flea art show.
I think we're still taking on more books than I'm upcycling into new blank journals. But having a few more books around has never seemed like much of a problem to me.
What's better than a friendly, unannounced email from a fellow artist?
I recently received a complimentary note from Nashville fiber artist Allison Shelton, of Shutters & Shuttles. She said she couldn't believe we hadn't met yet, and neither could I. We had crossed paths often at local arts shows — including at Porter Flea, where I show up in some of her photos— and I had seen her work in shops around Nashville. But we hadn't yet connected.
We decided to meet to discuss a weaving and bookbinding collaboration. After a rendezvous at a coffee shop, she invited me to visit her in-home studio. No surprise, it turned out to be just blocks from my home. You never know what great, creative things are going on in East Nashville!
Inside her studio, I marveled at the spools and spools of yarn. Plus, I had never really seen how a loom works. I didn't realize how big it would be.
It was exciting to watch Allison work on fabric that I would soon use for bookbinding. We looked together through samples of patterns to choose what we liked best. And by the time I went home, I was able to take along some varieties of fabrics to begin using. You can see one of them in first photo below (top left) on her work table.
I also found some surprises, including one of Allison's experiments.
On her website about page, she refers to a poem she wrote in fourth grade, when she described herself as a "reptile lover." That strikes me now, having seen one of her most interesting woven designs, which incorporates snakeskin. In another, she used cassette tape ribbons.
In the next few days, I hope to being work on a book that will feature the woven design that Allison has completed. I'll have more photos to come, but in the meantime, please check out Allison's work.
The artists attending Porter Flea this spring are likely excited by the unique venue — Cornelia Fort Airpark in East Nashville — but I doubt they're as excited by the venue choice as my husband. Because he's a reporter at the local newspaper, he knows quite a bit about the quirky airpark, so this guest post is all his — a departure from the normal posts here and a bit longer, but worth it, I think.
Katie is right. I've become somewhat obsessed with the airpark, East Nashville's cozy home with ties to cocaine smuggling, a famous female military pilot, and the May 2010 flood. What more tease do you need than that?
The upcoming Porter Flea AirCraft event will be the first at the airpark since the flood closed it for good to air travel in 2010 (except for one infamous flight, but we'll get to that). The flood caused millions of dollars in damage to buildings and about 20 planes, as various YouTube videos have memorialized.
The city of Nashville bought the space in 2011 to add it to the Shelby Bottoms park system.
But its history reaches further back, to the airpark's opening in 1944. The year before, the airport's namesake, World War II pilot Cornelia Fort, became the first female American pilot to die while on war duty.
According to a Tennessean history article, Cornelia Fort grew up a southern debutante and learned to fly in 1940, after graduating from college. While she was a civilian pilot in Honolulu she had a close encounter with the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. She survived that. But in March 1943, Fort collided in midair while ferrying a military plane over Texas.
Not a bad tale. But it'd be easy to argue that Fort ranks as the second most famous pilot associated with the airpark, at least in recent memory.
Last year, longtime airpark flyer Russell Brothers made national news by landing his powerless and malfunctioning 1961 Beechcraft 18 (think shiny aluminum and twin engines) on its belly in the grass alongside the strip. He did so, unscathed, in the middle of the night. Then he left the plane behind, called only his wife for a ride, and went home.
Police found the plane later, triggering an investigation that led to federal firearms charges against Brothers this year. He'd said at the time that he left his plane in the park because, well, it wasn't in the way of anything.
The firearms charges came down because felons cannot own guns — and Brothers was a felon. He had served 11 years in federal prison for international cocaine smuggling, using the same airplane, back in the 80s. The newspaper keeps a fat envelope of clippings from the trial, during which a judge referred to him as a "giant among giants" in smuggling.
I wouldn't normally do this, but if you want to learn more, I'd encourage you to splurge a couple dollars to read the whole story in the newspaper's archives ("Elderly pilot with criminal past explains East Nashville emergency landing"). Also, it appears, the plane could be rigged up for skydiving — with Brothers serving as "captain adventure."
Suffice it to say, I was intrigued when Porter Flea announced Cornelia Fort as the next craft show venue. When organizers invited artists to come help clean the place, which was still cluttered from the flood, we were probably first to volunteer.
The mission was simple: mop it out and clear out the hunks of junk. There was also a possible reward: any interesting finds were up for grabs, because the city had already cleared out what it considered worth keeping. Spoiler: they weren't scrappers at heart.
Our best find came from an airpark office. Behind a dingy desk, I found a large binder, splayed open and holding plastic ... somethings ... in small folder pockets. It was then that we learned a new word: aerofiche.
In all their glory, hundreds of sheets of translucent aerofiche were still intact, capturing the mechanical diagrams and parts inventories for dozens of airplanes. They could be enlarged and read by a projector. It's an obsolete technology — one that carries an aura of another era of recordkeeping. I've snapped photos of our aerofiche cleanup, but we haven't determined what to do with them yet. Incorporating them into bookbinding, if I can convince Katie, could be a leading contender.
Here's a peek at what we found — but stick with me, because there was another thing that we were able to glimpse that day as well.
If it's not already clear, we had a lot of fun at the airpark that day. We also sweated it out among a couple dozen volunteers. We also got to look around the grounds a bit, which are mostly uninteresting, except for two things: One, a sort of birdhouse graveyard behind a hangar, and another something only partially visible inside that hangar.
Just like last year, it still doesn't seem to be in the way of anything.
I am constantly surrounded by beautiful, handmade papers. It's one of the perks of bookbinding. But sometimes, I've found that it takes a bit of a shakeup to see them in a new way.
My husband was working late one night, and as I rooted around in my paper scrap bin, I noticed an intriguing pairing of bright Lokta papers. These are among my favorite papers. They come in many gorgeous colors, have great texture, and are easy to work with. They respond well to glue and don't crinkle. Plus, they're sustainably made.
That night, I had a spur-of-the-moment urge to collage with these bits of paper. (Ironically, my husband often harps on me about all the scraps that I save, and it was only when he was away that I decided to put them to use.)
I began a free-form binding project without my usual careful planning. I focused on color matching.
The first collage covers I made were striped. For the second, I assembled the papers in a patchwork. For this second book, I also rubbed away at pieces of the paper, distressing portions and allowing the color layers to blend. I also preserved the deckled edges of the pages and composed with those in mind.
The books I came up with — a sister set — are now in my Etsy shop. I hope you'll take a look, and show them to friends. They'd be good journals or sketchbooks or a fun guest book for a summer wedding.
Porter Flea Handmade Market — Nashville's best handmade craft show — lifts off soon, promising to be bigger and better than ever. And I do mean bigger. More vendors than any of the first four Porter Flea events will come together June 1 in an unimaginably large venue: three airplane hangars!
I've been busy preparing, because this show has done nothing more than grow in popularity. This time around, the market extends beyond a one-day show, kicking off on Friday night, May 31, with a preview party. Tickets are limited, and about 40 remain, so please jet over to the Porter Flea tickets page to pick yours up. (It's 21 and up that night, with the show featuring local beers, artisan cheeses, and baked goods from the incredible Sweet Betweens.)
Also new this year, each returning artist will be featuring an AirCraft exclusive item. The theme plays up the unique venue, Cornelia Fort Airpark, a small landing strip in East Nashville with a colorful history, but which was closed to air traffic by the May 2010 Nashville flood. Still, the spirit of flight will live on with this event, and I've been busy screenprinting and binding a series of books that feature a vintage Beechcraft airplane.
Please check out the Porter Flea vendor page to learn more about the 80 great artists who will be in attendance. You can also set yourself a reminder, show your support, and invite friends at the event page on Facebook.
And if you're still wanting more, please look back at my postings and photo albums from the previous Porter Flea shows. You can follow these links:
Last summer I had the privilege to teach a remarkable group of high school art students. Watkins College of Art, Design, and Film hosts a Pre-College Program each July for students to experience the life and culture of an art college while earning college credit. In addition to taking classes in art history and portfolio preparation, and taking field trips to local galleries and studios, students choose a concentration to study: film, drawing and painting, graphic design, interior design, or photography.
I taught the month-long graphic design class, meeting with my tight-knit group of students daily to hone their design skills. I'm looking forward to teaching the Pre-College graphic design course again this summer, and I'm also excited to share the brochure I designed for the program a few months ago. I've posted the pages of the brochure design here (click on the images to view a larger version), and you can also see the full pdf here.
While the scholarship deadline has already passed, Watkins College will continue to accept applications on a rolling basis. If you have any creative teens in your life who would love to spend the summer immersed in an inspiring art program, please spread the word.
It's an exciting time to be an entrepreneur in Nashville, and an event coming up in a few weeks will celebrate all that we've got going on here, as well as helping artists like me to push forward in the new year. I'll be attending the Nashville Creativity Summit, hosted by The Skillery, which includes one day of workshops to empower the creative community, and a second day for those creators to share their skills through hands-on classes across the city.
In advance of the event, The Skillery interviewed me for a write-up on the company blog, which really got me thinking more about how far I've come as an entrepreneur. Here's a little bit of what I had to say:
"... If someone would have told me in college that I'd own my own business one day, I would not have believed them. The whole process just came about so organically. It began with a dream of having a more fulfilling, creative career. I quickly found myself spending hours poring over business blogs, and loving it. I actually enjoy branding, marketing, self-promotion, and product development ... "
This isn't the only time I've been on The Skillery blog lately. I was excited to read a first-hand account of the bookbinding passion that one of my classes inspired. Right before Christmas, I taught a class on binding miniature book ornaments. My student wrote:
"That class, quite unexpectedly, launched a new passion in me. I spent the next few days making books that were slightly less mini, based on Gonzalez's tutelage. Then I set out to learn other binding methods ..."
I feel like The Skillery has come a long way since launching in November 2011 — and so has my business since I came to Nashville. In some ways, these go hand-in-hand. I actually taught the first class that The Skillery ever hosted, and I've happily sold out four more classes since then.
So I'm looking forward to the Nashville Creativity Summit on Feb. 9 and 10. If you're here in town, consider signing up.
What: Nashville Creativity Summit presented by The Skillery
When: Saturday, Feb. 9 and Sunday, Feb. 10
Where: The Emma Bistro, 9 Lea Ave, Nashville, TN 37210; and locations throughout Nashville
Community education classes are starting back up at Watkins College of Art, Design & Film in just a couple of weeks. In addition to my Introduction to Graphic Design and Typography class (which is already full), I'm teaching two different book arts classes this spring that still have some open spots.
The first one is a nine-week intro to book arts course, which will cover the basics of bookmaking, plus lots and lots of different handmade book structures. You'll learn how to make single sheet books, hardcover and softcover pamphlets, multiple variations of accordion books, flag books, star books, photo albums, four different types of books sewn with the Japanese stab binding, an Italian longstitch journal, and more. This class starts in less than two weeks, so be sure to sign up soon!
The second class I'll be teaching is a weekend workshop devoted to the Coptic binding. In just two days, you'll make your own hardcover journal with an exposed spine binding. This workshop isn't until March, so you have a bit more time to sign up.
No previous bookbinding experience is required for either class. To register, please call the Watkins Community Education office at (615) 383-4848 or register online. And the view the complete spring course catalog — for classes like clamshell boxmaking, darkroom photography, printmaking, and stop-motion animation — click here.
Fold, tear, glue, and stitch:
An introduction to book arts
When: Tuesdays, 6:00 – 9:00 p.m.; February 5 – April 2 (9 weeks)
Where: Watkins College, 2298 Rosa Parks Blvd., Nashville
Cost: $205, plus $40 materials fee
Description: Learn the basics of bookmaking and more than a dozen binding styles as you become familiar with the materials, tools, techniques, and vocabulary of handmade books. The course will begin with simple folded structures and build toward intricate and exciting books that can be used as journals, sketchbooks, photo albums, and sculptural displays. Instruction will cover essentials of paper grain, folded signatures, hardcover and softcover books, and binding by hand. The class will also include the opportunity to view and handle a collection of professionally made examples. You’ll leave with an assortment of your own handbound books, and the skills and resources to continue binding at home. All tools and supplies included in materials fee.
Binding handmade journals
When: Saturday, March 2, 10:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m., and Sunday, March 3, 1:00 – 4:00 p.m.
Where: Watkins College, 2298 Rosa Parks Blvd., Nashville
Cost: $90, plus $20 materials fee
Description: Learn to bind your own unique and functional book, perfect for journaling or sketching. This two-day workshop will teach the Coptic binding style, which features hard covers, exposed stitching on the spine, and pages that lay completely fl at when open. The Coptic stitch, developed by early Christians in Egypt, remains one of the most popular bookbinding styles. All tools and supplies included in materials fee.
The holiday rush has come and gone, leaving me with a bit of time to refresh, to reorganize, and to do a bit of reading for pleasure. When I returned to Nashville after visting my family for Christmas, I decided to take some time off before diving right back into the studio.
And so I spent the first few days of the new year curled up on my comfy couch with People of the Book by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Geraldine Brooks. The novel was recommended to me by a shopper at an art show this past fall as we chatted about bookbinding.
The novel centers around the journeys of an actual book, the Sarajevo Haggadah, a rare Hebrew illuminated manuscript. The book begins from the perspective of an Australian book conservationist who is hired to work on the book. As she carefully examines the pages and binding of this rare codex, she finds clues — such as wine stains, salt crystals, a piece of a rare butterfly wing, and a white hair— that provide insight into where the book may have traveled and how it was created.
Each chapter of the novel goes into detail about a particular clue, filling in the details of how the insect wing happened to be hidden in the haggadah's binding, or how Kosher wine was spilled on its pages. And while all of these details unfold, the reader also learns of the book's journey, from its creation in Spain, to the story of how it survived the Spanish Inquisition, the rash of books burned by the Nazis, and the bombings in Bosnia. And while People of the Book is a work of fiction with imaginary characters, many of these stories are actually based on the haggadah's remarkable history.
And as a bookbinder, it was also a treat to read a novel that included mentions of linen thread, wheat paste, gold leaf, vellum, and other familiar materials. Yes, this is a little bit nerdy, and perhaps the typical reader wouldn't get quite as much of a kick out of this as I did. But regardless of the fact that the topic was of particular interest to me, this novel was one of the most engaging and enthralling books I've read in several years. It was easy to get caught up in the lives of the characters and their interactions with the haggadah, spanning from 1480 to the present time. The pieces of the story were woven together as carefully as one would create an exquisitely-made handbound book. I would highly recommend it to anyone looking for a good read.
Have any of you read People of the Book? I would love to hear what you thought of it in the comments.
When you have a newspaper reporter for a husband, art shows get covered in a whole new way. We just wrapped up Porter Flea a few hours ago, and he was still so motivated after an incredible show that he went ahead and compiled Instagrams and tweets from the artists and shoppers who attended and we're sharing them below.
He used Storify, which is a really convenient tool for crowdsourcing and compiling social media when lots of people come together in one place — and especially when those people are snapping tons of photos and tweeting their thoughts.
I'm a cardigan-wearing bookbinder living and working in Nashville, Tennessee with my husband and my dog. I studied the art of bookmaking in Cortona, Italy during the summer of 2006. My work channels traditional techniques into bright, contemporary books that emphasize textures, colors, and patterns. Archival materials make these books — whether journals, photo albums, guest books, or sculptural expressions — into long-lasting works of art. I want to share my works in progress and the photography, sewing, printmaking, and other arts that inspire me.
.JPG "linenlaidfelt AirCraft exclusive book")
.JPG "up up and away")
