Texture Book cover

Quite often when I see another artist’s work I want to touch it. Photos just don’t capture the texture and depth of the art. I feel the same about these pages. Each one used a different technique, several that were new to me. The cover was done with an alphabet stencil, embossing paste, and iridescent powders. I love that technique and will probably be using it more and more often, especially in collage pieces, as I expand my collection of stencils.

My mother quilts. She recently completed something called a “Dear Jane” quilt using Civil War replica fabrics. I had someone cut a chipboard book of the word “Quilts.” Then I used some of her scrap fabrics from the Dear Jane project and incorporated them into this board book. I also incorporated snippets of several designs from the quilt blocks into the book design. Because I made this with my mother in mind I used her first initial, “K”, within the design of each page.

I started the Quilts board book in early fall 2013. My daughter was in 7th grade. She is now a freshman in college. In the middle, a lot of life happened. This week I finally sent Quilts to its intended recipient and she loves it.

It’s rare that I paint without gluing junk and stuff to it and collaging the entire piece. But, under the guidance of Annie Lockhart (www.annielockhart.com) I did just that. The pieces took a full weekend to complete. The top photo is a 30″ x 40″ stretched canvas. The bottom piece measures 36″ x 36″. Both abstracts were done with acrylic paint.

Who knew, right? A wonderful woman by the name of Cynde Tagg introduced the idea of using teabags as an art supply to me. Preparation is simple. Drink tea, dry the teabag, then flatten the tea bag. The pieces shown here were made by adding paint, ink, and embellishments to a few teabags. The piece on the right is a single fold greeting card.

This box is another piece that I made as a gift. It was meant as a thank you card of sorts. The closed box with the lid on measures just over 4 inches square. When you remove the lid, the inside, graduated flaps fall open, creating the “explosion.” I decorated each of the flaps individually with a small trinket or design. On the inside of the lid I crafted a pocket to hold a short note of thanks to the recipient. 

This box is surprisingly sturdy. The sides and lid are made from chipboard so they don’t bend. I love basic designs like this because they offer endless options for decoration. I have done variations in color for the box base as well. 

This box marks the first I time I took a class from Mita Saldana of Against the Grain – Center for Bookbinding Arts. This project started as a pile of paper and book board. Book board is essentially really thick, rigid cardboard. I very much appreciated learning all the steps in the process of making a box. For example, I didn’t know that the book board needed to be filed smooth to ensure that the pieces fit together cleanly and securely. Good thing I didn’t try this project on my own! The finished box includes 3 interior boxes and stands 5 inches tall. The interior shelves are 3 x 3 inches square and are fully covered. The top of the box is lightly padded.

The top is lightly padded.

Front view

Inside has 3 fully covered mini-boxes.

Mita is a friendly and engaging artist. She can be reached through her web site at atgbooksnm.com.

This project came from a workshop I took from Orly Avineri called “The Visual Journal as Sanctuary.” We started with expired passports and after two days of work, reflection, and awe, we came away with passports that had taken an entirely new journey.

The passport I used came from an Israeli woman. I bought the thing on eBay. Because of its origin, the passport read backward from the way we do in English. That gave some additional character to this project. I inserted recycled pages, found objects, tea dyed pieces, tags, tea bags, old postcards, stamped paper, painted paper, fabric, and a host of other objects into this now bulging passport. Somewhere along the line I started calling the book “Erna” after the original owner of the passport. I often wonder what she would think of the way her passport looks now, and of the technology I’m using to share this artwork with others.

Top view of the completed project.

The page on the right is an antique postcard inserted into the passport.

This piece of fabric because a pocket sewn into the passport.

I designed the paper on the right that became a pocket.

The rubber stamp used on these pages was hand carved by a classmate.

This layout includes a couple of rubber stamped images.

Tags from tea bags added to this layout.

Front cover of Israeli passport

First page of passport. I have begun calling the book Erna after its original owner.

If you are interested in more information about Orly’s work, visit her web site at oneartistjournal.com. She is a very powerful teacher. In early 2018 Orly will be back in Albuquerque and I highly recommend her workshops to other artists.