Books in Capsules

I've long liked the idea of books in vending machine capsules. I've been hoping to incorporate this into my next show, which will be in the fall. Acquiring an actual vending machine is probably more investment than I care to put in (although, to be honest, I was surprised to discover one can be had for not much more than, say, framing a largish piece of 2D art).

However, I also thought it would be appropriate to have the "vending machine" be a handmade piece of the art. I have built a box that would be the perfect size, although, through trial and error, the dispensing mechanism has become increasingly simple until, in the latest incarnation, it is not more than a sloped drop down to a hole with a swinging door on it. The problem is, the @#$%! capsules tend to get stuck on the way down. I'm imagining the visiting public having to shake the box and shove their fingers up into the chute to unjam the capsules. Not quite the right idea. Alas.

By last night I was ripping out most of the innards of the thing and growing panicky over the time I've let go by on this. (Due to the usual health considerations, I've already lost much precious preparation time.) Sigh... I'll also need to complete about 50 tiny books to go into the capsules, in addition to the rest of the show. I have some one-of-a-kinds so far, and have some multiples in the making. They are actually kind of fun to do. Several have included found word texts. We'll see....

By the way, miniature books in toy-style vending machines are not a new idea. After I started on this, I discovered they have them in Japan, where miniature books are popular. And there are places in the US with a similar idea.

(Thanks to artist Scott Blake for sending the last link. He, incidentally, helped bring an Art-o-mat vending machine to Omaha, Nebraska.)

Paste-painted Dura-lar Book

I discovered that the paste-painted Wet Media Dura-lar that I mentioned in the last post can be cut, folded and stitched. I made a miniature book with it. The only problem was that it didn't stay shut. The pages insisted on staying open.

However, magnets in the covers solved that problem.

And the magnets can keep the book open in a circle too. (My favorite source for these is K&J Magnetics.)

The bits of colored plastic visible in the top picture are vending machine capsules. They will be explained soon.

Experiments with Paste Painting on Tyvek, Wet Media Dura-lar and Yupo

I experimented the other day with non-paper materials for paste painting. One of my more interesting discoveries was that you can paste paint on Wet Media Dura-lar. It won't curl, and the paint doesn't flick off (although I haven't yet tried to fold it...).

I've paste painted on Tyvek before, but I thought I'd try some texturing tools I hadn't used much yet. In general, results on Tyvek often seem more textured than on paper, and it usually doesn't curl. Here, I twisted a square cookie cutter in various directions:

This was done on Tyvek with foam letter stamps, stamped in all directions until the letters themselves became mostly illegible :

This is on Tyvek again. The paste was brushed on and then dabbed at with a towel:

And then I played around with the scans in Photoshop, to see how the textures could be further altered:

This was a paper that I'd begun a while ago. I first made a faux-wood pattern in a greenish-blue color. I then later went back and added a fresh blue layer on top and dabbed at it with a rag:

 

And then played around with the scan a bit in Photoshop:

I discovered that you can paste paint on synthetic Yupo as well. I thought the result was rather interesting, although I'm not sure yet what I'll do with it.

It occurred to me that a long time ago I said I was going to add a paste painting tutorial on here. It seems I never got around to it. Someday... However, there are many tutorials online, easily found with a search. 

I just discovered this good recent one from Lili's Bookbinding blog. I'd never prepared cornstarch paste using her method before (my method is mentioned here), so I decided to give it a try. She doesn't simmer the paste on the stove. She makes a slurry and adds boiling water to it while mixing well with an electric mixer. It was fun to watch the paste suddenly whoosh up into form in the bowl this way. I found this paste differed from my usual version. Not bad. Just different. I thought it tended to form a skin more quickly, but otherwise it had a nice consistency. I'd like to use it again. The recipe is on her post at the above link. 

Another tutorial I've liked is at Buechertiger's blog (here and here). She also provides links to further resources.

If you know of any other good paste painting tutorials or resources, please feel free to recommend them.

Couldn't Leave Well Enough Alone...

I couldn't keep my hands off the sharks. The bottom just didn't look quite right. So in a fit of industrious exuberance I added more. The next morning, I wished I hadn't. It's not awful. I just preferred the other version.

Alas.

Be Careful What You Take to Bed With You

Nearing completion.

How ironic that I started this book/object before the situation I mentioned in my last post. Next time I get the urge to portray sharks circling something, I will take note.

Before I go further, I want to thank, from the bottom of my heart, my legitimate readers and friends for their support and encouragement. I've been deeply moved by the kind comments, messages and emails that I've received since I last posted. It's been a bright spot during an otherwise dark time, and has meant a lot to me.

Not to turn this into a medical novel, but I also have an endocrine disorder that makes stress potentially dangerous. What's been going on made me pretty ill, and at one point nearly landed me in the ER. I hesitate to mention this, after bringing up my M.S. diagnosis earlier made me a target for psychosis and cruelty. But the kind people in my life have been fantastic. In addition to great filtering, a trustworthy friend has taken over monitoring and moderating my comments for me. On the off chance something inappropriate gets through, I won't see it. Thank you.

Lovely washi.

On a happier note, I have a book project to share. I've finally been able to get back in the studio a bit, and have been on a Japanese paper binge. If you dip pieces of it into paste (in this case, rice starch paste) and remove the excess, you can form the  paper into almost anything. Leave it on waxed paper to dry, and you can have, for instance, miniature billowing drapes.

And what's especially lovely is that it is non-toxic. I wouldn't want to dip my bare hands in acrylic medium or PVA, but rice starch and distilled water? I feel like a kindergartner with something really cool and slimy.

Sticky slime! Dip into the paste, then run the paper
through fingers to remove the excess. Then shape.

After drying.

Curtains!

Arranging. 

Be Careful What You Take to Bed With You.

More on the Bed

Lest I get more credit than I should, I wanted to mention that I looked at several books on miniatures before constructing the bed. For the frame, I wound up largely using a design from Jane Harrop's Thirties and Forties Miniatures in 1:12 Scale. More or less, I divided hers in half lengthwise. I also fiddled some details to allow for the fact that I was using paper-covered book board, rather than stained Obechi wood in various thicknesses as she had, but I was quite pleased with the direction her examples took me in. This is an illustration from her book:

I also wanted to share this interesting book design I found recently. It is shaped like a dolls' house, and opens in the front like one. Possibilities there...

Bed Book Project

I've had an idea for a sculptural book running through my head. "Be careful what you take to bed with you" will be the only text it will contain.

I've also been looking at books about miniatures and dolls' houses. So I built a miniature bed. Or rather, half a bed. It's going to sit on the open book, looking as if it were sticking out of it. Or at least that's the idea.

Here's the bed frame, which is made from book board, paste and Washi:

Here's the bed after a mattress, pillow and blanket molded from Washi, foam, quilt batting, thread and paste was added. It has a stiff, papier maché-like texture:

The book block has been sewn and is waiting to be cased in. The plan is to make a little paper sculpture monster or swimming sharks or something to put under the bed. I might also add walls or flooring from folded pieces of paper. I am allowing it to develop and let it suggest things to me.

Floating Pictures in Slide Holder

I've been playing around with a translucent microscope slide holder. I glued some pictures of white doves onto slides and stacked them inside. The effect reminds me a bit of a miniature fish tank, with things floating in a little box. Only the semi-opaque character of the plastic adds a certain ghostly mystery.

Retail Therapy

I've been away. I had to travel to a big University of California medical campus for what turned out to be some ok help from one department, and some patronizing and dispiriting non-help from another.

Alas, feeling down and wanting to console myself, I did a little shopping. Large universities, especially ones with big science programs, have bookstores with esoteric goodies. Coming all this way, at least I could pick up a few petri dishes, slide holder cases and watch glasses for later. I have some slides at home and was wondering what I could sandwich between them in the semi-translucent holders.

I think some of the petri dishes will become "cards" for friends. I'm trying to figure out what to use to write inside them that will suggest fuzzy and/or semi-translucent blobs of cultured bacterial matter. Suggestions are welcome.

The student checking me out at the bookstore asked if I was doing an experiment. "No, I'm an insane artist and I'm going to use these to make bacterial-looking birthday cards." His face brightened considerably.

E-motive

The We Love Your Books "e-motive" exhibition of experimental and artists' books is happening now in Milton Keynes. I'm pleased to have my small part in this (pictured below).

There's more information and pictures of the entries at their website. Emma Powell, one of the organizers, has also put photos of the entries, as well as pictures of the show itself, on Flickr.

In addition, participants were asked to submit photos or scans from their sketchbooks as they worked through the process of creating their pieces for the show. These have also been posted as a set on Flickr.

Nice printed catalogues of both the exhibition and the sketchbook spreads are also available.

It makes me tired even contemplating the work that the organizers Emma Powell and Melanie Bush must put into arranging these shows each year. It truly does seem to be a labor of love. As I say, I'm pleased I can be a part of it in my small way (literally, since my laptop book is a miniature).

E-motives, my entry for e-motive

Daily Planners

My Daily Planner

I did a stupid thing last month. I discovered that if one takes life-sustaining meds, it's a bad thing to forget a dose. A really bad thing. This little oversight, and then my trip south, put me out of commission worse than usual for a while. I guess I should've paid more attention to my own bookmark design from a few years ago. Alas.

I'd been planning to contribute something for an exhibition next month at Eureka Books that our local book arts guild is having. I was going to make something appropriately sellable and commercially pleasing, like my miniature cat ABC book. But it just wasn't in me. So I finished My Daily Planner instead. It fit my mood better.

PS: I wrote earlier about how I waxed the papers to make the cover material for the little books.

E-motives Laptop, Finished

The cover has a little more wobble than I'd like, and there turned out to be problems with the Tyvek cover—it was wearing on the corners. So I did some touch-up and coated it in matte medium, which seems to have worked. It's not the texture I would've preferred, but still, my little book about online depravity is done. 

(An earlier post about some of the inside pages is here.)

E-motives Laptop Project

The miniature laptop, my recreational amusement of the moment, is coming along. The basic form is assembled. The keyboard will be resized and added soon. For a while it wouldn't close properly, but that problem was solved with the use of a smaller diameter hinging wire. And the pages for the book, which will be housed in the "screen" and are meant to look like parody web pages, are just waiting to be put together (the mock ups are shown here). 

"How to stalk someone" turns out to actually be a popular search item on Google. I was thinking in terms of parody, outrageousness (although you'd think I'd know better, seeing as I've been harassed myself). After typing only a little bit of it, the rest of the phrase quickly pops up, suggested by the search engine itself. This is presumably based upon this term's 5,190,000 hits. Um.....interesting. I think.

Etc...

(Ok--perhaps it'll make more sense once it's finished...?)

Tyvek For a Miniature Laptop

I've had an idea that I've been hoping to turn into into a book before the We Love Your Books submission deadline in less than a month. The theme for their next show is "e-motive," to be interpreted widely. The book will be about unsavory things people do online--"not everybody's e-motives are as nice as yours and mine" will be part of the text.

I decided on a sculptural cover designed to look like a laptop. It's made of bookboard and a little bit of basswood. For the keyboard and overall look of it, I scanned all the various sides of an actual old grey laptop and manipulated them in Photoshop. Even so, what could I use for a covering material that would suggest a laptop in looks and texture?

I had a hunch that Tyvek might just work. In Photoshop, I made a sheet-sized area to print from the scan of the laptop's outer top cover. It's a slightly textured-looking grey. I printed this onto the Tyvek with my pigment inkjet. Only it came out green, not grey. So I tried it again only using black ink. Not bad.

To hinge it together, I cut a plastic cotton swab handle into sections and fashioned them into a hinge attached to alternating parts of the cover's inner edges. Through this I will thread a wire to hold it together. It's still not assembled, but it looks as though it's going to work. The reason the bottom half looks blue and streaky in the photo is that I had to rip the Tyvek off. It's waiting to be re-covered. The keyboard will be added on top of that.

It doesn't exactly feel like a plastic laptop cover, but it suggests a plastic-like texture, and is definitely not like paper. And the variations in the Tyvek add to a look of beat-up old laptop. We'll see...

The book's pages are going to fit into the screen area on top. Along with all the rest of it, I'm still working on those.

Background on Tyvek