Arrowmont - Part 2

My class at Arrowmont with Carol Barton (at right) was on pop-up structures and movable books (the larger category of which pop-ups are a part). We spent a portion of each day on pop-ups; the rest on books. Some in our class seemed to have a natural talent for the former and created some fairly elaborate scenes. I was satisfied to learn the mechanics and spent more time on book structures. I'm reminded of something Dan Essig, in the class I took with him last recently, said about his and his brother's different talents. As kids, his brother (now a historian) did well on tests that involved reading and comprehension; Dan (now a book artist) did well on tests that involved objects revolving in space. Pop-ups, I think, benefit from a mind that's good at visualizing objects revolving in space.

The pop-ups were great fun, and some of them were surprisingly simple. The great talent, of course, is in combining the various techniques to create the type of work that we see in sophisticated commercial pop-up books -- for example, Robert Sabuda's Alice in Wonderland.

As to books, we worked on four book structures during the week: an accordion book, a blizzard book (developed and so named by Hedi Kyle), a carousel book, and a tunnel book. For all but the blizzard book, where the content is pretty much the structure itself, we were expected to develop our own content, and most of us spent our evening work-hours on that.

I've mentioned before that Carol is a very good teacher, and she did a great job of putting the work we were doing in context. Before she presented each of the book structures -- the blizzard book excepted -- we viewed a slide show containing examples of that particular form, created by a variety of artists. Carol has done a good deal of research on early examples of movable books, so the presentations were both inspirational and good history lessons.

Most of us didn't complete the tunnel book, which was our last project, since the carousel book took longer than we expected. But many of us were able to develop a prototype for the book, which helped us work out the issues raised by tunnel book construction. It was a very full week.

Class projects

Pop-up and small accordion book by Sandy C., one of the students in our class

Pop-up by another student. The photo doesn't do a good job of capturing the dimension.

My accordion book, Pattern

A not-particularly-good photo of the same accordion book, which includes a poem by Dorothy Parker.

The cover of the whimsical accordion book by a student, an Arrowmont work-study artist

The same book's contents, depicting the work-study kitchen staff

My carousel book, Nesting

Another view of the book

A detail of one of the 5 panels

Baskets from the paper basketry students

Cloth in the Text & Textiles class

Dyed fabric drying

One of the works in progress

Arrowmont - Part I

I'm late in posting photos of my book arts week at Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts, and here's the first installment. Arrowmont is not tucked away in the countryside, as are some other craft schools (such as Penland, for example). It's smack in the midst of Gatlinburg, Tennessee. But, if Gatlinburg isn't for you, no problem. Once you get on the grounds, the surrounding area disappears. I ventured out on the night of my arrival for a scoop at Ben & Jerry's, and that was as much as I wanted to see of Gatlinburg until I left a week later. For those who what a change of scenery, though, there are options literally right outside the Arrowmont gateway. There are the usual tourist attractions, and some students in my class who'd visited Arrowmont before had found places to hike and swim close by.

The week was one of the hottest of the summer to date, so I was glad to have an air-conditioned room. Not all of the accommodations have AC, and I'm usually fine without it, but this time it was particularly welcome. It helped that the studios were air-conditioned too.

Students arrived on Sunday in time for dinner -- nearly 100 people were there during my class week. We had two hours of class that evening, during which book artist Carol Barton walked us through the curriculum for the week and started us off with some simple pop-ups.

I'll say more about the book arts class in future posts. For now, here are some pix to set the stage.
(Note: Unfortunately, as I wrote this, the Arrowmont web site wasn't letting me into the page of the site that lists instructors for the 2007 summer session. As soon as I can get access them, I'll note the names of the artists whose work I've shown below without attribution.

The library. This facility was totally unexpected, and I enjoyed spending time here late evenings after class.

A mixed media piece by instructor and textile artist Heather Allen-Swarttouw,
from whom I took a creative journaling class at BookWorks.

A view of one corner of the photography studio as seen from the catwalk that surrounds several of the studios.
The class was in pinhole photography. I was fascinated by the variety of containers that the students used to create their pinhole cameras.
One of the photographs by the instructor of the pinhole photography class, on display at the Instructors' Exhibit.

The instructor of the textile class, Text and Textiles, created this large piece, also in the exhibit, from family letters printed onto fabric, complemented by painted panels. This is a detail.
Another detail.

A cloth and fiber snake in a tree near the dining hall.

More to come.

Back From Arrowmont

I'm back from my week at Arrowmont and Carol Barton's workshop, and it was a great learning experience. Carol is an excellent teacher: as good a teacher as she is an artist, a rare combination. She was generous with information beyond what the class covered, provided good templates and handouts, and was quick to offer individual counsel. She treated us to several slide shows on the main structures we made during the week: accordion, carousel and tunnel books. Since Carol lives in a suburb of Washington, D.C., she has access to wonderful resources at the Library of Congress and other similar institutions, so her slide presentations included some fascinating information (and images) documenting the history of "movable books."

I'll share some pix from the class soon. In the meantime, here are some of the images Carol shared with us -- all of which are available in the Gallery section of at her web site, Popular Kinetics. The first (above) is Carol's tunnel book Everyday Road Signs, 1998, an edition of 50.

Alphabet I, accordion pop-up bookScott McCarney

Our Japan, Garden View, carousel book by Edward Holmgren

One of my favorites, How Can I Live in Iowa?, carousel book by Emily Martin

Off to Make Books

Five Luminous Towers, A Book to be Read in the Dark, offset printing, laser-cut

pop-ups, light and batteries, Carol Barton

BookGirl is off to Arrowmont tomorrow for a week of doing of my very favorite things: making books. I'm taking a class with book artist Carol Barton, who is known for her paper engineering and pop-up books. Everyone I know who's taken a class from her says she's a wonderful instructor, so I'm particularly eager to work with her. Since this will be my first time at Arrowmont, it'll be a bit of an adventure, even though it's only a two-hour drive from here.

I'll be signing off while I'm away, but to give you a little something to look at to help tide you over, I'll point you toward BookPuppy. Yes, it's true, BookGirl's dog has a blog. My friend Riverlark, whom I met at Penland in June during a book arts workshop, enticed her dog, Bella, to start one, and you know how dogs are -- mine had to jump on the bandwagon. Warning: elevated sugar levels and high cuteness quotient.

See you soon.

Tunnel Map, silkscreened tunnel book, Carol Barton

Summing Up the Week

Well, I didn't get into the Hedi Kyle workshop at Penland, but did get into Laura Wait's workshop. I don't know where I fell in the lottery, so I have no idea how far down on the waiting list I am for the former. I'm disappointed about not getting to study with "the book goddess (my term for her)," but looking forward to the class with Laura Wait. We'll be doing at least one case-bound book, so I expect it will be very different from what I might have done in Kyle's class. I am hopeful -- and the workshop description seems to indicate -- that we'll spend a fair amount of time on content as well. I'd be more disappointed if I weren't scheduled to take a class at Arrowmont in August with Carol Barton, who is known for her pop-up and tunnel book structures. That will balance out my summer's work nicely.

I started my classes at UNCA: 'Women in the Short Story' class and 'The Art of Watching Film.' They're both very good (the teacher for the film class is particularly dynamic), and I'm only sorry that I'll be missing of one each of them, as I have a HandMade in America Board retreat that I'm scheduled to attend (and looking forward to) in a few weeks. We read Irwin Shaw's 'The Girls in Their Summer Dresses' for the first short story class, a little gem of a piece. Luckily, there are no wallflowers in the class, so we had a voluble, spirited discussion. Our film session focused on using literary analysis tools to analyze film, and we watched clips from Blue Velvet, Apocalypse Now, and City Lights, and Buster Keaton's Sherlock Jr. in its entirety. Almost every class will include one entire movie, to illustrate a theme. To start the class, each student was asked to introduce himself/herself and mention a favorite film. An impossible task. It was a great ice breaker and a good way to get a sense of people through their choices (or at least to delude myself that I was). I simply mentioned two films that I love: Days of Heaven and Bringing up Baby. According to my film-choice disclosure theory, I wonder what that said about me?

Friday, which was to be my Studio Day, turned out to be a play date in Asheville with my friend Carol. We cruised a couple of galleries (including Ariel, where we saw some of Dan Essig's latest work), stopped in at Early Girl for lunch, Malaprop's for coffee, and True Blue for art supplies. I haven't done that in quite a while, and it felt great. The splendid spring day felt as lighthearted as we. Oh, and we located Eaties, the cereal bar, for future reference.