Book-a-Day: Day 2

The book for Day 2 in Dan Essig's Book-a-Day class (see my earlier post for more about the class) was a small papyrus book with a coptic binding. To make each cover we adhered a sheet of papyrus to cardboard, then folded it in half. (You can use heavyweight card-stock or light-weight board instead of the cardboard.)

We treated the covers as signatures, sewing through the fold in each cover. At the end, we glued the sides of each cover together. For a papyrus book I made in another of Dan's classes, we laminated 8 sheets of papyrus together, omitting the cardboard altogther, then folded the laminated sheets in half.

Leaving each cover open until the end has several advantages. You can pierce the outer side of each cover to sew in a button or bead (front cover) and tie in a thread or cord (back cover) to wrap around your button for a closure. If you have sufficient thread after you tie off your binding, you can also bring the thread through the back cover and use it as the tie for your closure. And you can cut a window in your front cover and put an image behind it, sandwiched between the two parts of the cover.

Are you thoroughly confused yet?

I used a piece of mica on the cover over the image, running PVA along the inside edges to secure it. It makes the book a bit more delicate, since the mica is raised above the cover, but I like the look.

I learned a couple of interesting things about papyrus during the class: first, papyrus is not paper; it's wood -- essentially, very thin plywood; second, it has no grain. By nature, it wrinkles and buckles when it encounters moisture (such as PVA), which to me is part of its charm.

The book is small -- a little more than 3 inches high and about 2 1/2 inches wide.

Peeking through the window is a tiny scrap from a map of Rome.

Dan cutting a window in the book's cover.

Book-a-Day: Day 1

What could be better if you love book arts than a week spent making books? Well, perhaps a week spent making books with a terrific book artist and great teacher. I'm fortunate to live in book artist Dan Essig's home town and just as lucky to have access to BookWorks, a wonderful book arts center, where Dan taught a "Book-a-Day" workshop this past week. About half of the students came from out-of-town, and most of those from outside the state, fairly typical for Dan's workshops.

Dan is best known for his books in wood and for his sculptural works (see The Penland Book of Handmade Books -- that's Dan's book on the cover), but this class covered books made with paper, papyrus, leather and mica, employing various bindings.

Here are some pix from Day 1. The book's cover houses two text blocks. It's not a dos-a-dos (a book that contains two text blocks, each text block having its own cover and the two books sharing a back cover); instead, the two books face in the same direction, and fold over each other. Each text block is attached to the spine with a long-stitch binding. We used paper made by papermaker Anne Marie Kennedy. It's wonderful, strong paper that behaves very much like leather, which makes it perfect for this fold-around cover.

Dan has tools, such as awls, available for sale. Some he's made, others are made by book artists and master toolmakers such as Jim Croft.

Above and below: two "bonus" long-stitch books from Dan's collection.

Ice Storm

We had an ice storm a week ago. It's hard to believe that something so beautiful can be so dangerous. We have a lot of trees on our property, and at first blush, seeing them covered with ice is magical. But the weight of the ice on the trees can do a great deal of damage. Smaller trees can bend and break; branches of larger trees can split off; and larger, rotting trees can come crashing down.

One of our trees did, in fact, come down. Luckily, it came down over our driveway and not our house. One of our neighbors, who is a builder, came by with his crew (and a power saw) and cleared the driveway and cut the tree into firewood for us. We're fortunate to have such good neighbors.

The second, equally magical phase of an ice storm takes place when the sun comes out. The sun made the ice glisten on the trees. The sound was a little frightening, as chunks of ice slipped from the trees and fell to the ground and onto our deck. Two days after the storm, we had temperatures in the low 70s. Go figure.

The weight of the ice can bend small trees and branches precariously

The ice built up to a diameter of a half-inch. An amazing sight.

The tree that crashed down over our driveway.

The sun starts coming out. Pretty magical, isn't it?

Recent Books

Before Christmas, I spent several days making books -- for one, I borrowed a form that I learned in my very first class in book arts, called a "Spine Surprise;" for another, I used the covers of a lovely old book in French that I'd had on my shelf for over a year; for a third, I re-discovered a sheet of paper that was perfect for a "puppy journal." (I'm still not sure what a puppy journal is, , but as the owner of a new puppy, I knew I had to make one!)

The Spine Surprise book is an accordion-style book with signatures on both sides. One side has pockets and and a signature pamphlet-stitched into the center fold; the reverse side contains two signatures, one in each corresponding folds. The book is secured it with an elastic band.

The other books are coptic-stitched. I used a four-needle binding and combined two different colors of waxed linen thread.

A Year's Reading: Part Deux

Yes, I did say in my last post that I was only listing "some" of the books I most enjoyed reading last year, but when I looked over my reading list again, I felt guilty about not mentioning a few more favorites:

The Places in Between is a book I likely wouldn't have read had it not been a selection of my book club. It turned out to be one of my favorites of the year. Rory Stewart, the author, is a Scot and a former British diplomat who was posted to the Middle East. The book is a recounting of his walk across Afghanistan. Some of the members of my book club thought the book too slow and some thought it a failing that Stewart didn't tell us "what to think" about what we were reading. I thought the book's pace and style fit the content precisely, and Stewart's even-handed way of describing what he encountered on his trip actually said a great deal.

I read T.R. Pearson's first book, A Short History of a Small Place, years ago. It was a wonderful discovery for me, and I've been reading Pearson every since. A Short History had a voice I'd never heard before (you'll either like this or you won't), and was very, very funny. Cry Me a River is a very different type of book. What Pearson's fictions shares, 'though, is his ear for language and his eye for character.

This year I read more "how-to" art-related books than usual. One I recommend highly is Steve Meltzer's Photographing Arts, Crafts and Collectibles. In addition to learning about photographing the subject matter, the book answered a lot of questions for me about photography in general.

I feel better now that I've told you about these... Happy reading!

Artist Credit: Reading Woman (c. 1670), by Pieter Janssen Elinga

A Year's Reading

Here's the list of the books I read in 2007. I've been keeping reading lists for as long as I can remember. I'm not quite sure why, other than to stay focused on reading, and to refer to when someone asks me for a recommendation. But it's also a good way to look back with a bit of distance to see which books left an impression, and which I might have done without.

It's a reminder, too, of the truth of the "so many books, so little time" adage. And that, even among those books I was able to read, so few left a significant mark -- books that I remember months later and still get excited about.

Some of these include Patricia Hampl's Blue Arabesque, a quiet, meditative book about art and artists (this was the first book I'd read by her and it won't be the last); The Mystery Guest, an odd little book (by Gregoire Bouillier) about....well, about the narrator's former romantic relationship, a bottle of wine, a party, and his role as the party's "mystery guest." It's much more, and perhaps much less, than that. I liked it a lot. Truth and Beauty, by Ann Patchett, is about her relationship with her close friend, the writer Lucy Grealy (see Autobiography of a Face). Patchett is a wonderful writer, and her description of her friendship with Grealy is alternately fascinating and infuriating, but always heartfelt and honest.

I'd never read Sharon McCrumb, but found The Ballad of Frankie Silver strangely affecting, perhaps because the setting is the mountain towns of North Carolina, where I live. The novel is based on the true story of the first woman executed (for murder) in the state. McCrumb is a terrific story-teller. Another favorite was Charles Baxter's The Feast of Love. I'd been hearing about this novel for years, but got around to reading it only recently. It's full of characters you want to know more about, and permeated throughout with a feeling of magic. It made me want to know Charles Baxter better, too. I enjoyed Balzac and the Little Chinese Princess, by Dai Sijie, a lovely story of two Chinese boys who are sent to work in a rural area of China during the Cultural Revolution. And I liked Elizabeth Gilbert's Eat, Pray, Love. It was only after I finished the book that I remembered having read a novel of hers on a lark a couple of years ago, Stern Men, only a little about lobster men in Maine, that I'd much enjoyed.

Of the books I re-read, I fell in love again with E.M. Forster's Howard's End and My Antonia by Willa Cather. I admit that it was hard to read Howard's End this time without seeing Emma Thompson as Margaret Schlegel (Emma played Margaret in the film based on the book). No doubt that added to my enjoyment, but on its own it's a beautifully layered book. My Antonia was a lyrical journey. I don't remember being very excited about it the first time I read it (come to think of it, that was probably in high school or college). I'm convinced that a major part of the reading experience is the reader's readiness. They say that timing is everything, and it certainly applies to reading. Which is why re-reading, years after you first read a book, can yield such great rewards.

What did I not like? Well, perhaps the worst books are those that I think of as the equivalent of Chinese food: moments after you've finished them, you've forgotten them and are hungry for a real book. Usually, though, all's well while you're reading. To extend the metaphor, they're a little like comfort food. As to what I plodded through, The Mists of Avalon, by Marion Zimmer Bradley, a book I read for a book club, and My Name is Red, another book club read, top my list. They're very different books of course, and Orhan Pamuk received the Nobel Prize for his body of work recently. I found My Name is Red to be terribly repetitive, as if Pamuk wanted to make sure that the reader GOT THE POINT. The Mists of Avalon, which I understand is a huge favorite of many and a cult book of sorts, was also repetitive (and very, very, very long). But more than that, it wasn't much fun, and a book about the Arthurian legend (told from a feminine -- and feminist -- perspective) should be fun. Instead, it was preachy and pretentious.

I'm already into my reading for 2008 and looking forward to great new finds and some classic favorites. Happy reading in 2008!

My 2007 Reading

• The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood
• Photographing Arts, Crafts and Collectibles - Steve Meltzer
  
• The Feast of Love - Charles Baxter
  
• The Tenant of Wildfell Hall - Ann Bronte
  
• The Brontes at Haworth - Ann Dinsdale
  
• The Man Who Smiled - Henning Mankell
  
• Howard's End - E.M. Forster
  
• Lord Jim - Joseph Conrad
  
• Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
  
• The Mists of Avalon - Marion Zimmer Bradley
  
• The Tattoo Artist - Jill Ciment
  
• Dead Clever - Scarlett Thomas
  
• The Ballad of Frankie Silver - Sharon McCrumb
• Lions and Liquorice - Kate Fenton
  
• Special Topics in Calamity Physics - Marisha Pessl
• Angelica - Arthur Phillips
  
• Homeland and Other Stories - Barbara Kingsolver
• On Chesil Beach - Ian McEwan
• Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith - Anne Lamott
• Digital Art Studio - Karin Schminke, et al.
• In Case We're Separated - Alice Mattison
• The Forest Lover - Susan Vreeland
• Truth and Beauty - Ann Patchett
• How to Read a Novel - John Sutherland
• The Orchid Shroud - Michelle Wan
• The Golden Compass - Philip Pullman
• Same Sweet Girls - Cassandra King
• The Art of Fiction - David Lodge
• The Amateur Marriage - Anne Tyler
• Cry Me a River - T.R. Pearson
• Have Mercy on Us All - Fred Vargas
• Drinking Coffee Elsewhere - Z.Z. Packer
• Polio: An American Story - David Oshinsky
• Friends, Lovers, Chocolate - Alexander McCall Smith
• Tell Me a Riddle - Tillie Olsen
• The Death of Ivan Illych - Leo Tolstoy
• London: A History - A.N. Wilson
• Balzac and the Little Chinese Princess - Dai Sijie
• Awake in the Dark: The Best of Roger Ebert - Roger Ebert
• Blue Arabesque - Patricia Hampl
• The Piano Tuner - Daniel Mason
• My Name is Red - Orhan Pamuk
• The Sunday Philosophy Club - Alexander McCall Smith
• Eat, Pray, Love - Elizabeth Gilbert
• The Mystery Guest - Gregoire Bouillier
• All is Vanity - Christina Schwarz
• Prague - Arthur Phillips
• Creative Collage Techniques - Nita Leland/ Virginia Williams
• Reading Like a Writer - Francine Prose
• Collage Techniques - Gerald Brommer
• Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic - Alison Blechdel
• My Antonia - Willa Cather
• The Places in Between - Rory Stewart
• Lady Into Fox - David Garnett
• The Keep - Jennifer Egan

Artist Credit: Woman Reading, by Mary Cassatt, top right

"Women's (Art) Work"

Lee Kottner has a thought-provoking post today about, among other topics, the devaluation of crafts made by women at home. The entire post is well worth a look. Here's some of what Lee has to say:

"It's easy to dismiss handmade work as trivial or pointless activity in the machine age, especially when it's made by women. Crafts traditionally done by women have been undervalued and dismissed by patriarchal society for centuries. And I have to say it pisses me off to hear Old Guard feminists dissing other women's work this way. Doing so just plays into the false dichotomy men have always built between professional and home production: between the male chef and the woman who cooks equally well in her own home; between a male ceramicist with a commercial studio and a woman potter who makes her own dishes; between a male fashion designer (or even a tailor) and a woman who designs and sews her family's clothing; between male fabric designers and women who batik and silk-screen and weave their own fabric. Whatever men do in a professional setting is traditionally considered more important and harder and more respectable than the same job done by women in their own homes. Bullshit, I say. It was women cooking, weaving, sewing, and potting who started all these so-called arts that men elevated into some lofty category. It's not who does it, it's the quality of the work the matters.

"The article's author quotes Debbie Stoller, Bust's editor and founder of Stitch'n Bitch, as saying that those domestic crafts were casualties of the first wave of feminism. Don't you believe it. Women sewed from both necessity and out of boredom but it was, more than anything, the cheap availability of mass-produced goods that made women's handicrafts unnecessary. Women could not have moved into the workforce without cheap manufactured goods they formerly hand-produced: bedding, clothing, even food (butter churning?). In addition, advertising created a desire for the manufactured rather than the hand-made. But in poor families where mass-produced goods were still unaffordable, women still continue to sew, knit, and crochet. Same hand crafts like tatting and lace making fell by the wayside for cultural reasons unrelated to feminism. Who includes lace-embellished linens in their trousseau anymore? Who even has a trousseau? Mass production put the majority of independent cast ironworkers, glassblowers, and cabinetmakers out of business, too. These are traditionally male handcrafts (like printing), and nobody blames feminism for their demise. Yet they're as scarce as or possibly more scarce than women who sew, crochet, knit, or weave."

BookGirl's 2009 Reading

This is my work-around to Blogger's unfortunate inability to create separate "pages" (something Wordpress, for example, can do), so don't concern yourself with the date above. So I'm creating this list as a separate post and will link to it from an item on the sidebar of my blog's home page. I'll keep it up to date.

My 2009 Reading

• The Raphael Affair - Iain Pears
  
• The Pickwick Papers - Charles Dickens
  
• The Creative Habit - Twyla Tharp
  
• Painted Paper - Alisa Golden
  
• The World to Come - Dara Horn
  
• Mr. Wilson's Cabinet of Wonders - Lawrence Wechsler
  
• 13 Ways of Looking at the Novel - Jane Smiley
  
• The Elegance of the Hedgehog - Muriel Barbery
  
• People of the Book - Geraldine Brooks
  
• A Flaw in the Blood - Stephanie Barron
  
• The Private Patient - P.D. James
  
• Fat Chance - Simon Gray
  
• Downtown Owl - Chuck Klosterman
  
• Tender is The Night - F. Scott Fitzgerald
  
• The Dress Lodger - Shari Holman
  
• The Turn of the Screw - Henry James
  
• The Moonstone - Wilkie Collins
  
• The Pleasure of My Company - Steve Martin
  
• Fearless Creating - Eric Maisel
  
• Softspoken - Lucius Shepard
  
• The Comforts of a Muddy Saturday - Alexander McCall Smith
  
• Blink - Malcolm Gladwell
  
• Jim the Boy - Tony Earley
  
• The Book Thief - Markus Zuzak
• Ask the Dust - John Fante
• Winesburg, Ohio - Sherwood Anderson

My 2008 Reading

• The Poetry Handbook - Mary Oliver
  
• The Great Man - Kate Christensen
  
• The Cloister Walk - Kathleen Norris
  
• Absalom, Absalom - William Faulkner
  
• When Will There Be Good News - Kate Atkinson
  
• Astrid & Veronika - Linda Olsson
  
• Print, Pattern & Colour - Ruth Issett
  
• Art & Fear - Bayles and Orland
  
• Three Junes - Julia Glass
  
• The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher - Kate Summerscale
  
• Away - Amy Bloom
  
• The War of Art - Steven Pressfield
  
• Author, Author - David Lodge
  
• Valentines - Ted Kooser
  
• As I Lay Dying - William Faulkner
  
• About Alice - Calvin Trillin
• The Accidental Masterpiece - Michael Kimmelman
  
• The Gate of Angels - Penelope Fitzgerald
  
• The Writing Diet - Julia Cameron
  
• We Are Now Beginning our Descent - James Meek
  
• Shakespeare: The Word as a Stage - Bill Bryson
  
• The Girl of His Dreams - Donna Leon
  
• The Bluest Eye - Toni Morrison
  
• The Chessmen of Doom - John Bellairs
• Maps & Legends - Michael Chabon
  
• Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
  
• A Long Way Down - Nick Hornby
  
• Child 44 - Tom Rob Smith
  
• The Archivist - Martha Cooley
  
• Interpreter of Maladies - Jhumpa Lahiri
  
• Out Stealing Horses - Per Petterson
• Altered Books Workshop - Bev Brazelton
  
• Twilight - William Gay
  
• What the Dead Know - Laura Lippman
• The Film Club - David Gilmour
  
• The Society of S: A Novel - Susan Hubbard
  
• The Haunting of Lamb House - Joan Aiken
  
• The Mature Master - Sheldon Novick
  
• The Careful Use of Compliments - Alexander McCall Smith
  
• Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
  
• Pleading Guilty - Scott Turow
  
• 'Measure for Measure - William Shakespeare
  
• Daisy Miller - Henry James
  
• The Beast in the Jungle - Henry James
  
• One Good Turn - Kate Atkinson
  
• The Aspern Papers - Henry James
  
• The Spellman Files - Lisa Lutz
• Tourist Season - Enid Shomer
  
• What Maisie Knew - Henry James
  
• The Garden of Iden - Kage Baker
  
• The Merchant of Venice - William Shakespeare
  
• Washington Square - Henry James
  
• Fingersmith - Sarah Waters
  
• The Uncommon Reader - Alan Bennett
  
• Will in the World: How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare - Stephen Greenblatt
  
• Midwives - Chris Bohjalian
  
• Trespass - Valerie Martin
  
• A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man - James Joyce
  
• Water for Elephants - Sara Gruen
  
• Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance - Robert M. Pirsig
  

My 2007 Reading

• Photographing Arts, Crafts and Collectibles - Steve Meltzer
  
• The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood
  
• The Feast of Love - Charles Baxter
  
• The Tenant of Wildfell Hall - Ann Bronte
  
• The Brontes at Haworth - Ann Dinsdale
  
• The Man Who Smiled - Henning Mankell
  
• Howard's End - E.M. Forster
  
• Lord Jim - Joseph Conrad
  
• Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
  
• The Mists of Avalon - Marion Zimmer Bradley
  
• The Tattoo Artist - Jill Ciment
  
• Dead Clever - Scarlett Thomas
  
• The Ballad of Frankie Silver - Sharon McCrumb
• Lions and Liquorice - Kate Fenton
  
• Special Topics in Calamity Physics - Marisha Pessl
• Angelica - Arthur Phillips
  
• Homeland and Other Stories - Barbara Kingsolver
• On Chesil Beach - Ian McEwan
• Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith - Anne Lamott
• Digital Art Studio - Karin Schminke, et al.
• In Case We're Separated - Alice Mattison
• The Forest Lover - Susan Vreeland
• Truth and Beauty - Ann Patchett
• How to Read a Novel - John Sutherland
• The Orchid Shroud - Michelle Wan
• The Golden Compass - Philip Pullman
• Same Sweet Girls - Cassandra King
• The Art of Fiction - David Lodge
• The Amateur Marriage - Anne Tyler
• Cry Me a River - T.R. Pearson
• Have Mercy on Us All - Fred Vargas
• Drinking Coffee Elsewhere - Z.Z. Packer
• Polio: An American Story - David Oshinsky
• Friends, Lovers, Chocolate - Alexander McCall Smith
• Tell Me a Riddle - Tillie Olsen
• The Death of Ivan Illych - Leo Tolstoy
• London: A History - A.N. Wilson
• Balzac and the Little Chinese Princess - Dai Sijie
• Awake in the Dark: The Best of Roger Ebert - Roger Ebert
• Blue Arabesque - Patricia Hampl
• The Piano Tuner - Daniel Mason
• My Name is Red - Orhan Pamuk
• The Sunday Philosophy Club - Alexander McCall Smith
• Eat, Pray, Love - Elizabeth Gilbert
• The Mystery Guest - Gregoire Bouillier
• All is Vanity - Christina Schwarz
• Prague - Arthur Phillips
• Creative Collage Techniques - Nita Leland/ Virginia Williams
• Reading Like a Writer - Francine Prose
• Collage Techniques - Gerald Brommer
• Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic - Alison Blechdel
• My Antonia - Willa Cather
• The Places in Between - Rory Stewart
• Lady Into Fox - David Garnett
• The Keep - Jennifer Egan

An Accelerated Christmas Present

My husband and I have been talking about getting another dog -- more specifically, another shih tzu. But we'd decided (or at least I'd decided) that we'd wait until the spring or summer when my life was a little bit hectic. Puppies take big chunks of time to housetrain and to acclimate to new surroundings -- time that I don't feel I have right now. So much for the best laid plans...

We picked up Coco (short for Coco Chanel, of course) on Dec 22d and she's settled right in. The ambivalent one (besides me, for a while) is her 3-year-old "older brother" -- our other shih tzu, Twiggy (so named because he's never seen a twig or leaf he didn't want to bring into the house). He's been very gentle -- he seems to understand that the puppy's size merits that -- but he's clearly more subdued, and I think he misses the freedom to roam at will without Coco nipping at his heels and being (he must think), generally a pest. Coco, meanwhile, already thinks she owns the place.

Here's some pix of the new addition, and of Twiggy, who for a 15-lb dog, looks gigantic next to tiny 3-lb Coco.

Coco

We used to think of Twiggy as a small dog, but next to 8-week-old Coco, he seems huge!

Twiggy is spending more time up on his window seat these days...

Christmas Lights Gone Wild

I couldn't resist posting this YouTube video. I kept thinking about the person who programmed this -- either wonderfully dedicated or horribly obssessed. Either way, it's quite an achievement.

To all of you who celebrate Christmas, have a happy one!

Bookmaking Field Day

To my mind, one of the real joys in life is spending time with people you like engaged in activity all of you enjoy. So I'd been looking forward to getting together with my friends Priscilla and Cheryl to make books. By the time I arrived at Priscilla's she and Cheryl had been experimenting for a while; they love art supplies as much as I do, but are way more prolific than I am.

Priscilla's cats, Chloe and Ginger, kept us company. I was fascinated by Chloe, a very fluffy calico, with a face the spitting image of Garfield's. On her own, she hopped into a bag that Cheryl had placed on the floor and we caught her in the act (below).

I spent most of the time day cutting book board (with an exacto knife, no less -- tedious but meditative) for several books than I plan to make over the next couple of weeks. One of these will be a gatefolk book, like the one in the photo below; the others are straightforward coptic journals. I thoroughly enjoyed dedicating a whole days to book projects. Sharing it with like-minded friends made it all the better.

One of Priscilla's books. Part of the fun is show-and-tell.

Cheryl's card -- using texture paste and a stencil.

Cheryl is making these as gifts -- using the covers of the recipients' favorite childhood books (and a Scrabble board for a Scrabble lover)

Cheryl stitching

A book cover Priscilla made using silver duct tape (!)

A few photos of my gatefold book. The hanging threads are from strips of papers I sewed onto some of the pages.

Chloe feeling snug in Cheryl's bag.

The view from Priscilla's living room -- my photo doesn't do it justice.

Balance

I can't remember how long it's been since I've posted less often than once a week. Not since I started my blog, I think. But I've taken on a fairly large, time-intensive project -- well, it's not so much the size of the project as it is that I have a tendency to fill up my life, so that when a new project comes along, it's not easy to keep all the balls in the air. That's what's happening now. Something has to give, and sometimes the "something" are things that I enjoy. So I'll likely be blogging less frequently over the next few months. Sigh.

Bookmaking is one of those balls that I'm trying to keep in the air. I'm trying to be as disciplined about making time for book arts as I am about my new project. It's all about balance, right? Unfortunately, balance is something I've never been very good at it. I've decided that it's as good a time as any to practice.

I haven't been so busy, 'though, as to miss the splendor of the changing leaves in our mountains. We've suffered a severe drought this year, along with much of the country, so it seemed a little touch and go as to whether we would see much color this fall. Luckily, although the drought delayed the colors, it didn't stop them. The photos give just a tiny inkling of the wondrous displays on the mountainsides.

This is my favorite time of year here, and the visual display is just one of the many reasons. The beginning of a new season is a good reminder that nature keeps its balance, whatever the challenges that try to interfere. It's a good lesson for to remember right now.

The view from my studio

Looking out beyond our back yard.

Now I know what "sun-dappled" means.

It amazes me that the gerbera daisy plant is still blooming.

A pumpkin sale!

The Bookstore Cafe

The right coffeehouse is one of my great pleasures. Whenever I want to get in a good long spell of uninterrupted reading I head to a coffeehouse. When I have a writing project that I have to concentrate on, a coffeehouse is usually my first choice. Why a coffeehouse rather than home? Well, at home I tend to feel that there are other things I should be attending to, say, all the weeding I'm always meaning to do but never get around to. And, of course, there's that pleasant feeling of being alone but in good company. I'll talk to people in a coffeehouse that I probaby wouldn't talk to elsewhere. It seems that by virtue of being there, you're part of the same club.

Bookstores with coffeeshops/cafes are particular favorites. My very first was in the late 70s when I was in Washington, DC for a conference: Kramerbooks and Afterwords in Dupont Circle (its web site claims that it was the first bookstore/cafe in the country to feature cappuccino and espresso). When I moved to DC in the mid-90s, Kramerbooks had become a full-scale restaurant, and although its selection of books was still terrific, the food had started to wrestle with the books for attention, and the pace was too hectic for the kind of leisurely exploring that I like most.

It didn't take me long to find another great bookstore cafe hang-out, though. (Did you know that DC has the largest number of bookstores, per capita, of any city in the United States?). The wonderful Politics & Prose was one Metro stop and a nice walk north of my Cleveland Park neighborhood. The coffeehouse was downstairs; the seating, besides the usual table and chairs, consisted of a large, old, plump sofa and a couple of mismatched chairs. I was usually there a couple of Sunday mornings a month. I enjoyed my Sunday Washington Post with a cup of coffee and toasted bagel or big slice of pumpkin bread. I rarely left without buying a book (my post-breakfast browsing), but I never felt that it was part of the bargain for spending time there.

I should say that I'm an equal opportunity bookstore-cum-coffeehouse disciple. Given a choice, I'll opt for an independent, but I'm happy to spend time at Starbucks and Barnes and Noble too. (I'm also an equal opportunity book buyer. I buy at independent bookstores, chains, library book sales, flea markets, and online). I'm lucky now to live in a place that values bookstores and coffeehouses and the role they play in building community. As much as I find myself in them, I suppose I've come to take them for granted.

So it hit home today when I read an article in the UK's Guardian that the Iranian government has closed down the coffeeshops in four bookstores in Tehran this week. One of the coffeehouses is in one of the city's best-known bookstores, which regularly hosted readings by writers and had become a popular meeting place for literary types. The government justified the closures by saying that "the coffeehouses constituted an illegal mixing of trade," but critics believe that the move is aimed at restricting the gathering of intellectuals and educated young people, and that more closings will follow.

Such a small thing, I used to think, being able to enjoy books and coffee whenever and wherever you want, and being with others who want the same.

Andrea Dezso

How smitten am I with Andrea Dezso? How admiring am I of her talent, her versatility and her range? How fascinating is it that she's from Romania (Transylvania, no less) and that her Romanian culture and immigrant experience figure often in her art? Let's just say "a lot," and leave it at that. I claim her as a book artist, since she works often in the book form, but, in fact, she is not easily classified, since she is a sculptor, a writer, an illustrator, a designer and a muralist (I'm sure I've missed something -- ah, yes, filmmaker).

The wonderful blog of the Rag & Bone Bindery led me to Dezso's work, and I was hooked. I want to show you every single piece that's on her pages at the Parsons New School for Design site, but I'm limiting myself to just a few. I hope that you'll take a much more extensive look at her work on the Parsons site, which includes detailed information about the both Dezso, her work as a whole and the individual pieces. Here's a recent article from the New York Times.

Dezso, who is 39, came to New York ten years ago after receiving a residency at The New York Center for Book Arts. She teaches at Parsons and takes on projects for clients such as McSweeney's, the indie literary publication (so indie it's now mainstream) founded by writer Dave Eggers. For McSweeney's Issue 23 she masterminded a "poster" which, when folded, allowed each short story in the issue its own individually designed front and back cover. Geesh!

Top right: Pioneers Give First Aid To Their Comrades, Andrea Dezso. One-of-a-kind pop-up book. Paper, board, acrylics, colored pencils. 2007 New York city. "This book was inspired by the first aid classes we were required to take as young pioneers in Romania in the eighties. We learned that if someone has a seizure and becomes unconscious we must pull out their tongue and pin it to their pioneer short with a safety pin to prevent suffocation."

The Moon's Party, Andrea Dezso

One-of-a-kind fold out book about the Moon and her animal friends, 1995

City Ornament, Andrea Dezso
Op Art piece appeared in The New York Times Op-Ed page on December 25th 2006

Above and Below: Of My Son, Andrea Dezso
One-of-a-kind book 1994

Illustration for "Pick Your Poison", Andrea Dezso
, published in The New York Times Op-Ed page on Sunday, May 14th 2006

Shadow Books, Andrea Dezso

One-of-a-kind multi-layered, hand-sewn and cut paper theaters illuminated with light emitting diodes (LED). Installation of books and photographs exhibited at Flux Factory's Cartunnel Comix Fluxture show in 2004. Four books in the series, all in private collections. Size of each book: 4X6X4 inches

The Mothsucker, Andrea Dezso
One-of-a-kind artist's book. Coptic binding by the artist. Mixed media on 100% cotton
Fabriano watercolor paper. Size: 5X7 inches. 1998- 2000. Book in private collection This book documents my challenging adjustment process of living in New York City.

Kidney Cold, Andrea Dezso.

Embroidered Drawing from the "My Mother Claimed" 2006 series. Cotton and metallic floss embroidery and glass beads on cotton canvas

She Wishes She Never Married, Andrea Dezso
Embroidered Drawing from the "My Mother Claimed" 2006 series. Cotton and metallic floss embroidery and glass beads on cotton canvas

Mamushka, Andrea Dezso

Picture book, 16 pages, written and illustrated by Andrea Dezsö. Published in Esopus magazine issue #3 in 2004

New York Dreams (Carousel Book), Andrea Dezso
One-of-a-kind artist's pop-up book on Lana 100% cotton watercolor paper. Mixed media.
Sizes: variable. 1997-98. Collection of the artist

Above and Below: Andrea Dezsö: McSweeney's ISSUE 23 book and wrap-around jacket folded out into a poster
Illuminated paper cutouts, embroidery, drawing, painting, collage, calligraphy– I created the art for McSweeney's issue 23 entirely by hand.

From the McSweeney's website: Every story gets its own front and back cover, drawn, collaged, or embroidered by the polymathic Andrea Dezsö. The whole thing is wrapped in a jacket that unfolds into five square feet of double-sided glory--spread it out one way for dozens of very short stories by Dave Eggers, arranged in what we're pretty sure is a volvelle; flip it over and witness all those Dezsö illustrations stitched into one unbroken expanse.