It’s absolutely redundant to say that I love the physical structure of books. If I didn’t love the structure, I wouldn’t be doing this work. That said, I have aspirations of creating books that beautifully and successfully blend text, imagery, and binding. That interest led me to The Fine Press Book Association and I became a member the moment I saw the letterpress printed cover of the Fall 2010 issue of their journal, Parenthesis.

My copy arrived Thursday and I’ve had it in my hands every moment I can since. There are wonderful reviews of fine press editions, as well as articles about process, technique, and about printers and binders and their background and inspiration. There is a wonderful review of Deep Wood Press’s incredible edition of Heart of Darkness and of Carolee Campbell’s edition of Nathaniel Tarn’s collection of poems, The Persephones (Ninja Press), featuring lushly textured leaves of domestic etch shaded with sumi ink layered with salt. Just the photos are breathtaking; I can only imagine the actual poems.

The moral of this little Saturday post: It’s important to keep feelers out for great inspiration all the time.

I’ve had the Anagram Press website in my bookmarks for years and have drooled over Chandler O’Leary’s imaginative, detailed letterpress and book work at length.

Chandler has just added a beautiful new piece to her great “Dead Feminists” series that she creates with Springtide Press. This new “Drill, Baby, Drill” piece is gorgeous, and a portion of the proceeds from its sale will go to Oceana, an organization helping the gulf oil spill.

The text in these pieces is so thoughtfully chosen and the imagery is beautiful. I’d invite you to look through the portfolio of work on her site and enjoy her illustrations and the intelligence that comes through in each piece.

The Harriet Tubman piece? Tugboat Thea? They’re gorgeous, fun, and poignant and appeal to all of my history-lovin’, fascinated-with-feminism, crazy-for-a-good-marriage-of-text-and-imagery tendencies!

Enjoy looking through Chandler’s work. It’s incredibly important to look at other people’s work as you do your own and I find Chandler’s downright inspiring.

I’ll be back with some new things next week, including perfect bound journals and a peek at some new printing projects, as well!

February, July, and September calendar images from the book of Belles Heures / All images from The Metropolitan Museum of Art

There’s an unbelievably fine level of detail and an unabashedly ornate and sumptuous approach to materials and design in these pages. The border decorations are intricate, careful, and lavish and the text is stunningly calligraphed. The inset miniature paintings (often in the neighborhood of 2″ x 3″ or smaller) are perfection and, while occasionally quotidian scenes, also depict stunningly violent and grotesque images of saints’ trials and martyrdom.

It’s only April, but I’m already on to calendar ideas for 2011. I’m drawing up a storm and I think I’ve got something fun in the works – and it’s definitely inspired by the illumination exhibit.

Image from Brooklyn Museum site / Walton Ford (American, b. 1960). The Far Shores of Scholarship, 2003. Watercolor, gouache, pencil, and ink on paper. Courtesy of Paul Kasmin Gallery

And, last but not least, I’m getting excited to see this Walton Ford show at Paul Kasmin Gallery in the next couple of weeks! There are also some beautiful intaglio etchings on view on the gallery’s site. We saw a fantastic exhibit of his work 3 1/2 years ago at the Brooklyn Museum and ever since then I can’t get enough!

Calendar page – image from The Met

Each page is incredible, the process is incredible, and I am so inspired by the pieces in this exhibit. I can’t wait to see how it creeps in to my work!

While bouncing around with Charlotte this morning, we took a look through a great book I hadn’t flipped through since last summer. Drawing from Life: The Journal as Art by Jennifer New (a fellow Iowan!) is a great look inside the visual journals of people ranging from David Byrne and Maira Kalman to a geologist, a scientific illustrator, and a psychologist who chronicles his subway rides.

The book is filled with all sorts of ideas, inspiration, and skill levels. It’s always nice to be reminded of all the curiosity and ideas out there.

P.S. Jennifer’s blog is fantastic!

These are a few of my favorites – there are plenty more, but I figured some degree of editing was key to keeping this from turning in to a multi-page post!

Rosie’s Best / Iowa City, IA
This first recommendation is near and dear. Alicia (Alicia Rose, hence Rosie’s Best) is a close friend, a generous person, and a fantastic cook. She’s just launched her own line of fabulous handmade goods, including hot chocolate sets with fluffy homemade marshmallows, granola, and much more. Having used many of Alicia’s recipes (from her fantastic blog), I can attest to her culinary instincts and intelligence. She not only makes food with care, but with an eye toward local products, amazing taste, and sustainability. Alicia’s passion for food is obvious and I am so excited to see her venture take off! (image from Rosie’s Best)

moop / Pittsburgh, PA
I’m late to the game, as their holiday order deadlines have passed, but Moop’s amazing handmade bags are sewn to order and are both stylish and sturdy. Matt got me the Market Bag for my birthday this year and it’s the perfect large size without being unwieldy, plus has plenty of pockets to keep things organized. And, it’s now doing extra duty as a diaper/blanket/extra outfit bag, as well, and couldn’t be better! (image from moop)

Campbell Steele Gallery / Marion, Iowa
I could (and have) made long lists of favorites at the gallery and, believe me, I have done my fair share of gift shopping there for the last several years! Whether you gift one of Brent Cox’s ubiquitous glass balls that have enjoyed a regular rotation in the front windows over the last 18 years or so, handmade (and oh-so-stylish) jewelry, functional pottery by Nate & Hallie Evans, a cast bronze key fob or Bathtub Toes by Max Cast Foundry, I’m confident the gallery will provide you with a huge choice of beautiful (and fun!) gift options. Personal favorites also include any of my mom’s pieces, delicate blown glass by Angelo Fico, and Toby McGee’s breathtaking landscape bowls. (image from Campbell Steele Gallery)

Little Sapling Toys / Boise, Idaho
I’m a big fan of simple things made from natural materials for little ones. Give me something carefully made that will last for several different ages and I’m set. As we’ve jumped into the pool of parenthood, I’ve been thinking about all the toys and things that I had and loved as a kid and have come to learn that many of them were very, very Montessori; brown stairs, shape sorters (I still remember learning what a quatrefoil was and it’s still one of my favorites!), stacking rings, and colored cups. Little Sapling makes beautifully simple toys and teething rings and I found myself drooling over their work this week, and figured I had to share! (image from Little Sapling Toys)

There are so many more folks I could rave about, but this is a start, anyway! Enjoy poking around their sites and feel free to add more suggestions in the comments!

More about the mountain of work going on around here soon!

Robin, March 10 / Watercolor & Pencil / Stan Fellows

As an avid journal writer and drawer myself, I always enjoy seeing the beautiful ways in which people incorporate their words and images together on the page, creating vivid reminders and records of daily moments.

Great Day, March 6, 2009 / Ink / Stan Fellows

Some wise words from Stan himself, useful for anyone who enjoys writing and drawing, but feels stumped when they sit down to begin: “This is an important lesson for journal drawing – Don’t try to come up with a profound image to communicate what has happened. Your journal is not supposed to convey ideas to others, but should be a collection of snapshots along the way of your life. Just draw what is in front of you when it occurs to you to observe or reflect. That IS how we remember our most important moments; banal scenes before us when we get significant news.”

Cherries, July 21, 2008 / Watercolor & Ink / Stan Fellows

It’s awfully grey out this morning, and I have a feeling there are plenty of banal scenes in our apartment and out our windows to keep me going for days.

After finishing that mountain of calendars and cards on Tuesday, I treated myself to a trip to Newark on Wednesday afternoon. I know, I know, that doesn’t sound like a treat, but I promise you that it was.

In tandem with a fantastic book arts exhibit they have up, The Newark Public Library organized a talk by Amos Kennedy, Jr. and a screening of a new documentary about him and his work. I mentioned Amos’s work a few weeks back, when I first heard about the documentary and was pretty much immediately hooked. When I heard that there would be a screening, I made sure I could have that afternoon and evening free to make the trip, and I’m glad I did.

Amos is a letterpress printer and bookbinder who lives and works in Gordo, Alabama. He has a strong academic background in letterpress printing and book arts, in addition to a strong practical approach to his work and life. He studied at the University of Wisconsin with Walter Hamady (a book and printing god – this is a great sample, but definitely investigate him more, if you’re interested) and knows the technical and theoretical aspects of the craft, but has adapted it into something that serves him in a very personal and beautiful way.

Amos is a wonderfully genuine guy who is contagiously happy because he loves the work he does. He is a gregarious personality who makes it his business to challenge people’s assumptions and, as a black letterpress printer in Alabama, I get the distinct impression he gets to challenge people a lot.

He primarily prints posters on chipboard that are heavily layered from wood type, overlaid with various quotes that are a mix of hilarious, challenging, brilliant, personal, and historical. Right now he’s working on a powerful exhibit design including several of his posters for an exhibit commemorating the Selma to Montgomery march. His own website has a great assortment of his poster images, and is well worth exploring. The images I’ve included here are the posters I was lucky enough to pick up for us on Wednesday.

All of this is to say: there is a lot of great work going on by a lot of different printers and book artists that I find unbelievably inspiring. I’m excited to get a few of the projects I have in mind out of my head and into existence. When Amos spoke on Wednesday afternoon, he said that his wish is that everyone could be as happy with their own work as he is with his. I am, and I have that same wish for everyone else, as well.

As for me, there’s been no perceptible slowdown in things around here, and I’m finishing up books and cards just as fast as I can, and loading up my Etsy shop, as well as my site. Enjoy!

Tomorrow we’re making plans to see a bit of the marathon, which passes not too far from our place and is always good for a healthy dose of inspiration, and then heading up to Williamsburg to check out Prints Gone Wild, the annual affordable print show…hopefully also a good source of inspiration! I’m really looking forward to seeing work by Tugboat Press from Pittsburgh, Cannonball Press from here in Brooklyn, and also Yee-Haw Industries from Knoxville, TN, and Purgatory Pie Press from Manhattan.

In the meantime, while I’m tired of listening to election coverage, I’m also not sitting back and assuming that Obama’s got this one in the bag. (Come on, if you didn’t know where I stood on this, you’ve gotta be kidding.) I know things are looking good, but – as though it needs to be said – we all need to get out and vote on Tuesday. Even if you don’t agree with Obama on everything, I think you can safely say that someone who espouses the ideals of hope, optimism, and constructive movement toward a better world is a good thing for all of us. Not to mention the fact that the words “president” and “Palin” do not belong in the same sentence. If you need some visual material to consider a few of these issues a bit more, I highly recommend checking out the latest effort of our friends Chris, Julia, and Jesse: 30 Reasons.

Enjoy the sunshine, if you’ve got it like we do today, and curl up with a book full of good ideas, if you don’t…and enjoy a little Philip Appleman to get you started on your way!

Saturday morning, we got up bright and early headed to Providence to visit my baby sister, Willa, and her Matt. We managed to fill the weekend with some great food (including incredible tomato and egg French galettes Willa made on Saturday that I cannot wait to get pictures of!), and incredible scenery. On Sunday afternoon we went out to a small beach in Barrington. Besides looking out on spectacular views of the water and sailboats, we kept ourselves busy with shell searching and discovering horseshoe crab shells roughly every 3 feet.

We’ll have more pictures from our Rhode Island adventures from Willa soon, but in the meantime I had to write about the incredible exhibit we saw at the RISD Museum on Sunday.

I think a lot of us grew up with David Macaulay books & videos (ours were thanks in no small part to my grandmother’s affinity for the Metropolitan Museum of Art gift shop, if I had to guess), and I remember being fascinated by his books.

The exhibit of Macaulay’s exhibit that is up at RISD is nothing short of captivating. He is an alum of RISD and was also a professor of illustration there for somewhere close to 25 years, and this exhibit is comprehensive. Much like the Walton Ford exhibit at the Brooklyn Museum nearly 2 years ago, I wanted to spend hours on each piece, and was overwhelmed in the best way possible. Ford’s mixed media drawing/paintings combined text, carefully rendered images, and explored complex ideas. Though David Macaulay’s drawings are certainly illustrations in the traditional sense, the same combination of process, ideas, narrative, and drawing was present in his work, as well. The style and sensibility is something that speaks directly to my own way of thinking and hooked me as soon as we walked into the gallery.

I was most familiar with The Way Things Work and Castle before this, and while both were prominently featured, there were also a number of drawings from Cathedral, Rome Antics, The Way We Work, Ship, and Mosque. More than anything, in these books – geared for readers of all ages – Macaulay explores complex ideas through visual images and narrative in ways that open up architecture, nature, archaeology, physics, biology, and the world to curious minds. There are no boundaries too high, it seems, and there are questions at every corner.

The exhibit not only features finished illustrations for Macaulay’s various books, but also includes a few small 3D working models, and many working illustrations, rife with notes and full of lines that indicate the process behind the finished work. There is a real sense of study and learning in the handling of lines, story, and ideas, and it is fascinating to see both the research and drawing process play into the end product. Macaulay matches an idea that grabs him with his own finely honed draughtsmanship, and pairs that with meticulous research, carefully aware of time and of the human element in everything he does.

We left the exhibit and RISD with copies of The New Way Things Work and also Building the Book Cathedral. The latter not only includes the text of the finished book, but also Macaulay’s notes and his thoughts on the creative process of pulling together various perspectives, stages in the structure’s conception and creation, scale, and time. The historical moment is specific, though the cathedral is fictional.

As the cathedral grows and towers over the town around it, I was unquestionably intrigued, motivated, and fascinated by all of the precise drawings and fragments wrapped up in the story of this massive building. Finally, as the cathedral’s completion ends this particular story, the townspeople are brought into the frame, with Macaulay’s narrator reflecting that these men and women standing under the buttresses are the grandchildren of the original masons and carpenters whose own work had begun the structure in which they now stood; the throughline is undeniably realistic and sentimental and human.

I suppose that’s what hooked me; as someone who never quite felt like traditional math and science classes were addressed to students like me, I’ve often felt out of the loop and inadequate when it comes to subjects as precise as architecture and physics. Breaking free of the mold of convention, David Macaulay’s illustrations and narratives bring satisfaction to a curious mind that wants to explore each question’s path, not looking for answers, but finding a fellow voice to ask the inevitable questions at each step along the way.

If you’d like to learn a little more about David Macaulay, there is a very interesting lecture of his on YouTube that is worth taking 30 minutes or so to check out.

I’m motivated, and am inspired to bring some of these ideas into my own work, in whatever ways possible. As Matt put it, making a beeline over to me in the gallery at RISD while we were maybe halfway through the exhibit on Sunday, “This makes me want to go home right now and get to work!”

A few words, in honor of all the good parts.