book

BookBinding:

These are a few pictures of some books I have bound. I plan to do more with this page in the future and put other stuff up. (I have oodles of books to share, as well as other future pages of artwork.)

The Link Stitch Binding:

This book is comprised of ten parts: eight sections containing four folios each, and two sewn board covers. These parts are joined together very distinctively with a technique that connects the thread leaving each sewing station to the same station beneath it by means of a looped link. This binding superficially resembles the Japanese Multisection, but makes use of only a single needle and thread, and has a far more decorative appearance.

As follows (l-r, top to bottom): Three Link Stitch books. The cream-one was the book I turned in. Side detail showing leaf skeletons embedded in cover paper and bananaleaf paper along spine. The gold newspaper collage was a bad idea, but pretty. The speckled orange with gold ivy stamps was also a bear with which to work.

Ethiopian Binding:

This binding is comprised of two board covers and eight sections of six folios. The covers and text block sections are joined together using a four-needle, linked chain stitch. The book style is reminiscent of both the Japanese Multisection and the Link Stich bindings, as it is made up of a separate front and back covers, however it is more of a hybrid of the two rather than a distinct replica of either.

The two board covers are made of laminated pieces of heavy stock museum board that are covered, on the outside surface, with a beautiful paper that is then wrapped around to the inside of the cover. The inside surfaces are then covered with a decorative paste down. The book is sewn together using four needles and two pairs of sewing stations. The covers are joined to the text block using a crazy, wrapped-around and through the cover stitch that I could never ever hope to describe, but looks groovy nonetheless. The sections of the text block are joined together with a normal in out one section in the next stitch, but then the needle is threaded out the corresponding station and looped around the previous section's station in another hard to describe but neat looking stitch, that when viewed en masse, form a nice series of chain links.

As follows (l-r, top to bottom): The Ethiopian book I turned in. A side view. A spine detail, showing the blue linked stitching. The cover was done using a colorful felt paper that began to dissolve when it touched the glue. I ended up having to coat it in several layers of glittery sealer to make sure the paper fibers stopped trying to escape. It ended up looking girly and fey, which is fine with me.

Sculptural Books

Sculptural books are the type of pretty book that you look at, admire, and then wonder what the hell to do with them. Pop-up books are a variety, tunnel and carousel books are another. Single sheet books are a type of flexible book that can be constructed from a single sheet of paper, and are considered the easiest of the sculptural books to make. Jacob's ladders even fall into this category of book.

Jacob's Ladder:

This is a book called Making Faces. It is a jacob's ladder with digitally-altered images and clear straps, so that you can see each image in its entirety. I took photos of myself, mostly making stupid faces at the camera, and broke them down into eyes, noses, and mouths. Each of these facial features was then digitally altered using Paintshop, either monkeying with the color and contrast, or playing with rasterizing, solarizing, or the other fun distortional features of Paintshop. The altered images were printed out and laminated to squares of book board, and then assembled into the book form, using adhesive and strips of freezer-weight ziploc bag as the straps that create the flipping nature of the book. Flipped one way, each side of the ladder is a random bunch of facial features, but flipped the other, the features line up into 'faces' of eyes, nose and mouth. The front and back images on the book are of Audrey Hepburn from the Breakfast at Tiffany's movie poster. I just liked the image.

So, with this book you are literally making faces out of facial features that are taken from images of me mugging at the camera or 'making faces'. It's all a horrible pun.

This is the book that I showed in MULTIPLE TALENTS XIII: THE ANNUAL EXHIBITION OF THE BOOK ARTS CLUB OF IOWA CITY, Feb - Mar 2001. Sometime this summer, this book will be in another exhibit, possibly with another one of my sculptural books.

(l-r:) Flat view of book front. Flat view of book front when pieces are tumbled to reveal the secondary image. A double image demonstrating the flexible nature of the book form. This piece was very popular in the Multiple Talents show, because visitors were allowed to handle the book and flip it around to reveal the four different views of the book. Photos by Emily Martin, 2000.

(More books to come.)

Hey, lookit: I got cited as a source of inspiration!

from: typophile.com:

"http://www.pixiemartin.com/book.htm

"This might be of interest. Not as involved as other hand-binding methods.

"jupiterboy
Fri, 2005-03-25 07:51"