The Cat Book and others

I buy a lot of books just for aesthetics. It may be an unusual cover, exceptionally beautiful illustrations, or an interesting vintage design, I can't resist a good looking book.I found this book at the Philadelphia Free Library's book store, a children's book about a cat in the shape of a cat. The colors are worn and soft.
The illustrations, and the story, are sweet and simple.
This edition of White Fang from the early seventies has a striking cover, I love the white letters on the dark background, and I'm planning on making it into a journal.
This guide to North American wildlife is from 1982. There's something about the typography and color palette that is deeply comforting, and reminds me of my childhood.

I'm wondering what typeface was used. Plantin?

Delavacation.

This week, I've had the chance to spend some time in Delaware with my family. I've been going on walks, going to thrift stores, sleeping, and just acting like I'm on vacation. A Delavacation. It's been really nice.

nice ice

Yesterday afternoon, I went for a walk with my Dad in Alapocas Woods, by the Brandywine River, and looked at the ice. By the way, what do you call a bicycle with an infinite number of wheels? An icicle. That's my math joke. I made it up when I was twelve.

pretty pretty board shear

Last week, Mike and I put together the board shear, and it works like a dream! I will no longer be cutting book board by hand, and this is good news. Cutting book board by hand was by no means impossible, but it did feel like a chore. The board shear will make it far more pleasant and quick work.

This brings to mind a quote from Books, Boxes, and Portfolios by Franz Zeier, my philosophical and technical advisor.



Again and again in these pages I demand precision, but far be it for me to discourage those who are truly unable to work with a high degree of exactness. Creative freedom, however, should not be confused with sloppiness... An object made with love and care can be a thing of beauty, a whole, even when it is imperfect, by contrast another one, although flawless, can leave us untouched and strike no sympathetic chord.


Via Penland

Mr. Shane Darwent, bookbinding by Kathy Steinsberger

If you're in North Carolina, there's a great show up in Raleigh at Rebus Works Gallery featuring photographer Shane Darwent. The show's name is Via Penland. Every year, the gallery features one artist connected to Penland School of Crafts. This year, they featured Shane and his collaborations with five book artists, including myself.

Via Penland

This show represents over a year of travels and residencies, which are beautifully documented on Shane's blog. Shane also put together a great slide show of the opening, which you can see here.
My collaboration with Shane, a portfolio of five collages/drawings on his photographs housed in a box.

Some of Shane's hand-colored photographs

It looks like it was a great opening, I wish I could have been there! I'd love to hear your thoughts if you were there. I'm so glad I got a chance to do this collaboration with my fellow former core student, Shane. Thank you Shane!

Chronicle Books Happy Haulidays Wishlist Giveaway

There's a contest over at Chronicle Books. Make a list of $500.00 worth of books from the publisher that you would like and you just might win them.

Yes. I would like $500.00 worth of books and if you do too, you can enter here.


Pictorial Webster's Stamp Kit
Pictorial Webster's
Typeface: Classic Typography for Contemporary Design
The Handy Book of Artistic Printing
Plants and Their Application to Ornament
Bird's Eye Views
Open Studios with Lotta Jansdotter
Noodles Every Day
Saveur Cooks Authentic Italian
Craft Inc. Business Planner
Knitting Pretty
Thinking with Type
Quick & Easy Vietnamese: 25 Everyday Recipes
Minka: My Farmhouse in Japan
Tilting
Self Portrait in a Velvet Dress

Crossing my fingers!

Almost forgot, if you leave a comment, you yourself are put in the drawing. Best of Luck!

1,000 More Greetings


Good news! I found out last night that some of my cards are going to be included in the book 1,000 More Greetings (page 17, Robocop). I submitted work for this book a year ago, forgot about it, remembered it, figured it must have fell through, forgot about it again, and then got an email which I almost deleted as spam saying I was in the included in the book. What a roller coaster ride.

Linen

A few weeks ago, I found out that my favorite bookcloth, a chocolate brown buckram, had been discontinued by its maker, which made me so sad because it had become my go-to color, the one that seemed to work with everything.

On the bright side, it was motivation to start making my own.


I'm using the instructions from Japanese Bookbinding: Instructions from a Master Craftsman, which are the traditional method of making bookcloth using kozo paper and wheat paste. This book is fantastic! My other favorite is Books, Boxes and Portfolios.

I'm excited to have a new palette of colors to work with, and to be able to use actual linen as a covering material for my books. It's such a wonderful material. So wonderful that Benoit Millot made a film about it.

BE LINEN MOVIE from Benoit MILLOT on Vimeo.

Scandinavia


Some of you may already know, I'm fascinated by Scandinavia. Here are my reasons. They may not all make sense...

- I like the way the languages look when they're written.
- A book I read when I first started binding books called Finnish Handicraft greatly influenced me.
- When I was in 6th grade, I did a report on the tundra.
- The Norwegian forest cat
- This picture

- Lichen, birch, mushrooms, little country homes...
- Intensely strange and wonderful mythology and folklore.

I'd really like to go there someday. I would go here.

And there's other things I like, these...




:: From Fine Little Day ::


:: From Anna Emilia ::

:: From Paperiaarre ::

Wilson Jones!

Check out this bad boy. It's the Wilson Jones "Hummer" and it's my new three hole punch that I picked up at the thrift store on Wednesday. You can adjust the distance between holes, and it punches cleanly through book board. I love it.

I also love this children's encyclopedia which has the loveliest end pages. I think I'm going to use them for book covers.

I've been working on a whole bunch of new leather and hardcover books. I'm pretty excited about them, especially the hardcovers. I'm trying something new with those...

I'm making all these new books for the holidays, I'll be selling them at Crafty Balboa on December 4th. More info here, and I'll post about it again when the date is nearer.

One Hundred!

Welcome to blog post one hundred, a milestone I had doubts of ever reaching when I started this project. It's not that I didn't want to, but I don't have a good track record when it comes to things like this. But I've really enjoyed working on this and I hope you all have too.

This is a book I recently made for myself. I made it with the cover of an old science book. I liked the cover for its sturdiness and classic design. The text block is densely sewn together so it has a nice weight to it.

I rebound the book with a mix of recycled paper from French Paper and old maps, graph paper and illustrations. I made sure to include a map of Scandinavia to daydream over.

This illustration is one of my favorites, the colors are out of this world. Green sky and purple clouds!

The whole book is sewn together and glued in, so you would never know it was a new book by looking at the outside. Pretty neat.

So thank you everyone for reading, and I look forward to the next one hundred. Happy 100 blog posts!

The Thrift Store Dream


I have a recurring dream about the thrift store. I go to a thrift store I've never been to before. I look around. I rummage. And I find the most incredible, beautiful things! Old photographs, wood type, old ledgers and journal, a small press maybe. And I take it home, and then I wake up and hope, hope, hope that they'll be there. Well, maybe someday I'll find that cache of wood type in the sky.

Everything has been tagged. You're it.


Last night, I spent a couple of hours tagging all blog posts in an effort to make searching for previous posts a little easier for you all. So if you scroll down and look on the right, you'll now see a list of labels organized alphabetically. This way, you can read all posts pertaining to such scholarly topics as the david continuum, my obsession with graph paper, and the studio, while browsing through a selection of cats . Enjoy.

On a sadder note, my beloved 99 Subaru Outback was recently totaled by an uninsured motorist. I was fine, the car was not. Since I normally drive to the studio, due to documented (yes, this happened) old man hatchet fights at the nearest subway stop, I won't be going there very much for the next few weeks or until I find a new car. If you know of any reliable station wagons or sedans for not very much money in the Philadelphia region, let me know.


This was my first car. A mint condition 83 Toyota Corolla that belonged to my grandparents. I called it The Roach, because of it's distinctive color and survival skills. I had only one tape in that car. Bill Cosby "Himself". Ah memories.