This bear ended up as the band logo for the student band ‘Unburnable,’ and used to make a Star Wars based crawl opening to the 15 minute montage video that was then played in the background during their recent charity benefit concert.  Screenshots from the crawl beneath the cut.

Opening Crawl…

I’ve long been frustrated with my online portfolio. For one thing, there are a lot of pieces that I don’t have any images of at all, and many of the photos I have taken are poor quality. The only good images I generally have are of small and flat pieces that I’ve been able to scan.

Well, enough is enough, and I’m capitalizing on being home with some free time this summer to finally tackle digitally archiving my portfolio.  A good friend of mine Beka came and spent an afternoon with me in order to start the process of finally filling the gaps in my digital portfolio. Between her camera expertise, and my (sometimes awkwardly) improvised lighting set up we managed to get nice shots of about 50 pieces!

My goal is to scan and photograph everything that I still have in my physical portfolio that I’ve done since 2002. I’m excited to capitalize on the momentum from this jump-start!

PS. Also, I can’t advocate her art enough, but another friend of mine, Sarah, decided to join in on the Sketchbook Project too. Her theme is ‘Lights in the distance,’ and you can check out her blog here: Blurry Objects.

I’ve decided to participate in this year’s Sketchbook Project, and the random theme I was assigned is things found on restaurant napkins. I actually think it is a rather intriguing theme, and I’m looking forward to the arrival of my sketchbook package. This project is open to everyone from professional artists to regular non-artist folk, so if you’re at all interested you should definitely check out the website. I think this will be a great outlet when I’m stressing out over my thesis. Oh man, that cloud of stress is nearly upon me already.

The latest edition of the IRC Tribune is now available in a couple of forms. A limited number of hard copies have been distributed on bulletin boards around the IUJ campus, but a soft copy is also available in the following link. IRC Tribune Vol. 2 Issue 3, Spring 2010

This edition boasts a varied array of substantive and engaging articles. Each issue seems to develop and grow, and the current edition is no exception. I would like to thank everyone who submitted articles or photos, and those who assisted in the editing process.

x-posted to sylvia in transit

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Here’s my newest book! It is a slim forest adventure.

This was a total repo job. When I started, I wasn’t even certain that I had sufficient materials and facilities to pull it off. One small victory for tiny apartments! (no pun intended) Materials: the pages are made from papers reclaimed from recycling bins (graph paper, sheet music for Bohemian Rhapsody, sheet music for My Favorite Things, and yellow paper), the cover is cut from a discarded binder (I’ve saved the rest to make more books), the thread is from a travel sewing kit that I intend to exhaust, glue from the dollar store (100-yen store, anyways), the cover is decorated on the outside with a 2008 calendar image, on the spine with part of a green envelope, and on the inside with the brown paper bag from the convenience store.

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You will need:
- paper for your pages (half as many as desired in the book)
- liquid adhesive
- thread
- needle
- an awl, or a pushpin!
- illustration board, chip board or anything comparably sturdy for use as the cover
- a boxcutter, exacto-knife, or other sharp blade. Sometimes only scissors can work
- decorative paper for the cover

Instructions:

1. Cut your pages to twice the width you want for the book.
2. Separate the pages into equally sized stacks and fold them in half. These are called signatures. You should gauge the number of pages to include in each signature depending on the thickness of the paper. Usually it will range from between 3 to 20 sheets. In the example book I’m using four sheets per signature, making 8 pages (16 front and back). I used paper from recycling bins, so I have a mixture of yellow pages, sheet music (Bohemian Rhapsody and My Favorite Things) and grid paper. Some of them are purposely upside down. Other ideas include lined paper, colored or textured papers, or even old maps and comic books.
3. Align your signatures and clip them together, then mark with a pencil, pen or marker along their spines at four, approximately equidistant points. I usually use bulldog clips from my art supplies, but the office supply versions are okay too (But if you use the latter kind remember to put something in between your book and the clip, otherwise it will make an indentation. The art bulldog clips have wide, flat contact points and don’t do this).
4. Separate the signatures. Using your awl, etching tool or push pin, poke holes in these four points in each signature. You might want to do this on a cutting mat or a piece of styrofoam.
5. Sew your signatures together! A lot of tutorials show complex diagrams to explain this. If you’re interested in that please check the links below.
   - Measure your thread by the vertical length of your pages. You need that length, times the number of signatures you’re including
   - Tie a knot in the end of your thread, and enter the first signature from the first hole on one side. Looking at your stack of signatures horizontally, let’s just say you started at the left.
   - Exit from the next adjacent hole, enter the second to last hole, and then exit the farthest hole from the one you started with. In this case the one on the right end of your signature.
   - Enter the next signature from the nearest hole (the rightmost hole), and continue to the next hole.
   - When you exit the second hole, rethread through the first signature.
   - Re-exit from the next hole to the left, and cross back over to your second signature. Continue to the final hole in the second signature.
   - Now you can tie this off with the end of the thread hanging off of your knot.
   - From here, continue threading the way you did the second signature until the final one.
   - On the final signature, sew it normally, and then I double back to fill in the gap that lacks a stick in the center of the last signature.
6. When you’re done sewing, clip the resulting book block together as you did in step 3, and liberally apply glue to the spine. Leave this somewhere to dry.
7. While your book block is drying, start on the cover. Crop your cover material down to slightly larger on each side than your pages. Cut that piece in half. It should be larger on three sides to the silhouette of your book block.
8. From the same material, cut another piece that is the same height as your cover, but the same width or slightly wider than the spine of your book block.
9. Place your decorative paper face down and align the cover pieces evenly over it. Provide space between the front and back cover and the spine.
10. Mark their edges with a pencil.
11. Remove the cover, trim off the edges in a V-shape with the exacto knife.
12. Apply adhesive to the paper. (I typically use a strong spray adhesive)
13. Put the cover boards back in the places you marked. Apply pressure to ensure adhesion.
14. Carefully fold the edges around to the opposite side of the cover, smoothing out any bubbles. For this step, I use either a small triangle ruler, or a wooden modeling tool from a clay sculpture course.
15. When your book block is dry, paste another sheet of paper, or a piece of heavier card stock, along the spine with at least a small fly on either side. Clip with wax paper protecting the pages until it is dry.
16. Again, when this is dry, paste the fly along the inner edge (the side nearest the spine) of one side of the cover.
17. Let this dry. Then, paste the other side. Prevent the glue from spreading by placing wax paper in between the cover and the book block.
18. Lastly, paste another piece of paper on the inside of the cover to both reinforce this joint and clean up the book’s appearance.

You’re done! Let everything dry and then start filling pages!

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Other Tips:

• The cleaner you are, the better.
• I often mentioned letting things dry. It is easy to get impatient, but this drying is important to ensure your book is sturdy!
• If you’re signatures aren’t even, after you’ve glued the book block and let it dry, you can sand the pages down until they’re even.
• Once you’ve made two or three, you’ll establish your own habits and system! Get creative!
• Look at books, journals and sketchbooks in stores. You may be inspired!

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There are more complex methods, and other aesthetic and professional flourishes such as including nice flysheets or sewing your own headbands. If you’re interested in learning more about these kinds of things, I’ve included some links below to other tutorials below.

Bookbinding Tutorials Links:
Curiously Crafty’s Tutorial
Make your own Moleskine-like book
Craftster’s Bookbinding Tutorial Link list
Basic Binding of Books: A Tutorial (Jamie Butler)

The winter is treating me well, and providing a dramatic backdrop. Sometimes the snow creates an illusion that we are living in a monochrome, early TV era where black and white preside. The urge to get some ink on paper becomes overwhelming with sights like this.

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Sketchbook photoset on flickr

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Monday morning, bright and early, I am moving back to Japan for a couple of years.  I have packed some sketchbooks, markers and pencils, but only about 5% of my studio travels with me.  I will be busy as a graduate student, but I fully intend to NOT allow my art to slip away in the process.  Luckily, as I’ve mentioned in this blog before, Japan is a great place for people watching and sketching.  Also, I know there is a photography club already in full swing at my uni, which I am interested in joining.  I’m not holding my breath that there will be much of a local art scene where I am going specifically, but I do have my fingers crossed and intend to dig a bit. Plus, I’m sure I’ll be making it to some awesome exhibits in Tokyo.

Wish me luck, and let me know if you have any recommendations as far as DSLRs are concerned, as I intend to purchase one within the next month, after I get over there (I am waffling between a Canon 40D or a Nikon D80). Also, If you want to see what I’m up to, take a look at my other blog about my life in Japan. ♥

I’ve noticed a lot of hits from people searching for instructions on bookbinding ending up here, but I have never posted a tutorial to speak of. So, it seems natural to go ahead and post some tutorials (bonus: I can come here if I forget how in three years!). I’ll start with a simpler method, the Pamphlet Book. This is the first method I learned, and does not require the use of any adhesives. Plus, the stitch is quite simple. So here goes nothing! I hope it makes sense!

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You will need:

• paper for pages, half of the number of pages you intend
• thicker paper, cardstock or thin cardboard for cover
• decorative paper for slip cover
• an awl (or something comparable to punch fine holes, a sharp nail or etching tool can work just as well)
• a needle
• thread

Instructions:

➊ Cut the paper for your pages to twice your desired width
➋ Cut the thicker paper down to slightly larger than your pages on all four sides
➌ Fold the pages and the cover in half, making sure to crease each cleanly
➍ Use an awl to punch three holes through the signature (your pages) and the cover - these holes should be spaced out along the crease
➎ Sew the pages together:

1. Enter through the center hole from the outside of the signature
2. Come out through one of the remaining holes
3. Bring the thread across to the opposite, last hole and reenter
4. Sew back through the center, returning to the outside of the spine
5. Lastly, tie the ends in a knot (ex. square knot)

➏ Cut your decorative paper for the slip cover to nearly twice the width & three or more inches taller than the height of the cover
➐ Fold the slip cover’s top & bottom down to only slightly longer than the cover
➑ Fold the panels on either side in toward the center, making certain that they are folded evenly and that the space between them is a bit wider than the width of the open cover
➒ Slide either side of the cover in to the resulting pockets in the slip cover
➓ You’re done!

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Now you have a journal, sketchbook, menu, pamphlet, photo album, joke book or anything else you can imagine to use a book as. Enjoy your handmade book!

More on bookbinding

I enjoy the new Arts Council of Greenwood facility very much – they’re really revitalizing art in the area. It seems as though Greenwood is filling up with artists! I’ve seen a handful of shows there, and the space is really gorgeous.  The gallery is spacious at 3,000 square feet, and the restored 1911 federal building has classrooms, artists’ studios and an adorable gift shop (where I’ve bought a few lovely pieces of original handmade jewelry). [Arts Council]

A number of the people I met at the opening complemented my jewelry – which happened to be some of my own handmade pieces! Here is what I wore that day:

The first is a necklace I made incorporating an old key from the collection of my late grandfather – a hobby lock & key collector.  The earrings on the right were based around the pinwheel charms which were once part of a pair of clip on earrings that I cherished as a child – reinvented for renewed enjoyment. [more of my handmade jewelry]

At the opening I also was introduced by my darling Grandmother to one of her favorite artists, Jeffery Callaham.  I love expressive figures in Jeffery’s paintings and his bright color choices. In addition to being a talented artist, he’s an amazingly nice guy, and definitely worth a look. [Jeffery Callaham, the story-teller artist™]

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In going through my physical portfolio, and photographing pieces that I intend to include in my new digital portfolio, I’ve rediscovered some of my older pieces. I thought I would share a selection this work – some of these I appreciate because they show the roots of my current style, others because they highlight the growth I have achieved over the past 8 years, and a few due to pure nostalgia.

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This piece, titled D-Day, is one of three from a series on war that I completed in 2003.  What I particularly like about this, all these years later, is that you can crop the image in so many different ways and still have an interesting composition. This also reminds me of my love affair with ink and gesso.

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I went to Upstate New York for the 4th of July weekend with family, and the trip ended up seeps in art-related activities. I went to quite a few local art coops, open studios, and art exhibits. In honor of being on the Hudson River, I was able to explore Olana (see my pictures here – unfortunately you couldn’t photograph inside), the historical home of Hudson Valley landscape painter Frederic Church, in addition to attending a Fourth of July Party that was a fundraiser to benefit Cedar Grove, which is The Thomas Cole National Historic Site (Thomas Cole was Frederic Church’s instructor). This trend began as soon as I hit the ground in Albany, where I saw an exhibit in the airport of contemporary artwork titled Out of this World: transcending the terrestrial in contemporary art. The exhibit featured work by artists Betsy Brandt, Susie Brandt, Ginger Ertz, Chris Harvey, Jennifer Maestre, David Miller and Devorah Sperber.

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The piece on the right above, by Chris Harvey, was constructed out of found objects, mostly plastic kitchenware, but also wading pools and toys.  It reminds me of some of Murakami Takashi’s sculpture (ex. this, or this). The interesting thing to me was that a lot of the work in this exhibit was either made out of or inspired by unremarkable materials. For example, Susie Brandt created a series of hand hooked circular rugs made to emulate the patterns revealed from rubbings of street drains. Also, Jennifer Maestre constructed sculpture out of pencils (see here and here), while Betsy Brandt, Ginger Ertz and Devorah Sperber all created art with chenille stems, better known as pipe cleaners (I personally remember them as the perennial craft supply available in Girl Scouts).  Check out Ginger Ertz’s chandelier above, for example. Below you can see a portrait of Spock done by Devorah Sperber out of spools of thread (obviously, I enjoy it for more than one reason).

This was a really enjoyable exhibit – it was well arranged and coherent without becoming predictable.  Each artist brought an intereseting approach to their media.  I particularly liked the work of Betsy Brandt, Devorah Sperber and Ginger Ertz.  I’m glad I had time to catch it before I left the airport.

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To see all my photos from the exhibit, see the photo-set on Out of this World.

I had mentioned earlier about using all of the scrap material I generate in art for new purposes. Well, I believe that the first way I did this was through using all of the test strips I produce in the dark room to make small, photography collage postcards. Since you must use at least two or three test strips when printing a photo manually, I have managed to accumulate a sizable amount of these little scraps of paper over the years. Also, I’ve found that since photo paper is rather thick, when they are adhered with spray adhesive to the back of a 4×6 note card, the resulting postcard is plenty durable to survive the postal system. I have made countless of these during the past few years, and either sold, gifted, or written letters on the majority of them. Luckily, I have finally begun to document them, so here and below are a handful of the final products. These represent mostly those made within the last year, but a few are favorites I have held on to since 2005/2006.

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More postcards after the jump.

Senior Exhibition
April 14 – May 9 2009
Cowles Myles Collier East Gallery, Wesleyan College, Macon, GA, USA

As this was the culmination of my Studio Art degree, all of the graduating seniors exhibited together. I designed the postcard above for the department to send out, and it features a slice of work from each artist in the show. In order from left to right, and incidentally in alphabetical order by last name, the artists include myself, Emily Gross, Sarah Hill, Jessica “Charlie” Pearce, Janet Rodriguez and Brittany Taylor (I will add links to each person if I can find them online – as long as it is not merely their facebook).

photo by beka*

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photo by beka*

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My work in this exhibit dealt with the global connectivity of the modern age, and the erosion of differentiation between languages, cultures, languages, and races, as well as the growing ambiguity and interpretive nature of identity.  In my body of work, I examine the nature and significance of these boundaries, and actively explore the symbols associated with various group identities.  Meanwhile, juxtaposing elements from disparate origins. The series of drawing/paintings contains figurative, mixed media works, which incorporate collage elements, tight drawings and loose, expressive, textural coloring.

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For more on this series, along with a floor list and links to photos of the work, follow the jump.

The title of my ‘dissertation’ about this series is ‘Delineating Cultural Boundaries: Perception of Identity in a Pluralistic Global Age.’ Below is an short excerpt from that paper.

“Today, the rapid acceleration of globalization is an inescapable reality. Technological advances have ushered in a modern age of global networking and previously unsurpassed access. That access is not only to information, but also to goods, experiences, mobility, music, foods and communication with others, overcoming nearly any amount of physical separation. The lines of demarcation between different cultures, languages and races are becoming increasingly ambiguous. [...] Indication of the delineation and dissolving of these boundaries is evident in many areas. One example is the increasing use of loan words in many languages such as Japanese, French and English. This trend is also evidenced in the increasingly visible phenomenon of the hybridization of identity, where individuals claim two or more cultural identities based on national and cultural heritage. Even the formerly prevalent assumption that societies and cultures can be outlined and labeled objectively is no longer accepted in the anthropological community, which asserts, rather, that these discrete differences between cultures are merely widely accepted perceptions. In exploration of the nature and meaning of these boundaries, I am intentionally muddling and misrepresenting various cultural symbols, and juxtaposing the modern against the ancient, as in the African Queen, which depicts an ethnically African woman dressed in the regalia of the last of England’s reigning Tudors, Queen Elizabeth I. My work presents accessible symbols and images in an effort to provoke the realization that the labels we so easily associate with certain ‘types’ of people and things are not necessarily accurate. The assumptions we make so easily can actually be quite misleading.”

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During the months leading up to hanging this show I scoured all of the local thrift stores for decent cheap frames.  I ended up with literally a few dozen frames, only about a third of which I ultimately needed, but it still ended up saving money as each frame cost between $1 and $5.  I cleaned up all of the glass, and spray painted the frames themselves black so the show would have that extra degree of unity despite the disparity in dimension, media and surface.  Two of the larger pieces were not framed as they’re on wood panels (この時代の侍 and Express to Nairobi, the first of which is actually on an old shelf I found in the scrap wood pile under my house).  I also mounted two vertical works on very old pieces of shaped wood that had been my great grand fathers.  He was a farmer, but supplemented his income by catching mink and selling the furs.  Those two pieces of wood were given to me by my grandmother when I commented on them while I was organizing and cleaning up her garage. See below.

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Catalogue/Floor List

1. Ancient Gamers, 2009, 17 ½” x 23 ½”
2. Express to Nairobi, 2009, 28 ¾” x 22”
3. Bier Guru, 2009
4. African Queen, 2009, 5 ½” x 7 ½”
5. Indian Deity, 2009, 5 ½” x 7 ½”
6. Saint Viking, 2009, 5 ½” x 7 ½”
7. Bride 2009, 5 ½” x 7 ½”
8. Installation, 2009
9. この時代の侍, 2009, 18” x 30 ⅛”
10. What about Carlos?, 2009, 10” x 10”
11. Untitled, 2009, 4” x 12”
12. Korean Arabian, 2009, 4” x 14 ¾”
13. Chinese Cowboy, 2009, 22 ¾” x 34 ⅞”

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Mixed Media: And just for fun, here’s a list of the media I used in this series (one as comprehensive as I can make it by memory): gouache, colored pencil, paint pen, graphite, acrylic paint, crayon, collage, conte, fabric marker, gesso, permanent marker, chalk pastels, aquarelles, newsprint, pen & ink, watercolor, tombow watercolor markers, prismacolor markers, iron-on patch, paint pen, carbon paper, magazine clippings, comic book pages, mod podge, vintage mannequin, fabric, trash, debris, silk kimono, feathers, etc.  All of this on surfaces such as sketchpad backing, plexiglass, rag paper, watercolor paper, plexiglass, scrap plywood, masonite, abandoned scrap paper, abandoned liquid light treated paper, recovered wood panel…

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You can check out this exhibit’s flickr photoset here.

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*Beka’s photos