Dishes in the sink

Someone asked me recently what is the best part I like about my art. Of course my first response is ALL OF IT, but as I was working a bit today, I realized that is not true. I do not like having to do things over and over, much along the same lines as laundry and dishes. It feels great when it's done, but in the meantime, it is such a drag. No satisfaction in cutting out the same paper over and over again, but it was really fun figuring out which paper to use, what size it should be, and how it should all fold together.

When I make a book, I usually think about how I could reproduce it. Sometimes it just is not feasible. But I like to make more than one if I can, mostly because I spent so much time in the planning and design. Why not make a dozen?

Because, dear reader, it becomes a lot like doing the dishes.
I have learned that a more realistic number for me is 4 or 5 before I become miserable.


Once I was part of a book exchange with 15 other eager book artists, and boy was that torture. I got mine done the day they were due. It was a great party, though. 
Still, only 5 of the 15 were up to another exchange.

So where I am today is reproducing a book that I made this spring. I found a great quote about stars by Van Gogh that instantly made me think of the images I had seen at the Washington County Museum taken by the Hubble Space Telescope. I knew that somehow they belonged together, Vincent and Hubble. 

The result is a flag book, an invention by Hedi Kyle, which is a deceptively simple structure using an accordion fold to support alternating "flag" pages. The trick is to fold and cut accurately, or you end up with a book that won't function properly. It's a fun and whizzy book to make, even with kids, so try one out.

Van Gogh and Hubble lead me to looking up images of stars in space, playing with images of Van Gogh's work, deciding on what script to use, decorating paper, planning

how it would all unfold, even writing and rewriting the calligraphed part over and over again until I had it "right"...

But before I put it all together, I made some quality copies and here is me making 5 more, which I plan to have done for the Artists' Shop at the Book Arts conference in a week:

You can see I get a lot of help from the studio cat.
And you can't see, but there are dirty dishes in the sink.

A bad day in the studio is better than a good day with housework.