Category Archives: finished work

adding leather: a first experiment

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I recently managed to get my hands on around 8 lbs of shoe leather scraps. I have a couple of different ideas of what I might do with it. It was weird to sew. The scrap I chose to use for this book had some flaws, but it was soft and there was enough in the one piece for the spine and four corners. It was so thick that I wasn’t able to fold it over the edges of bookboard like a normal leather half-bind, so instead I glued it all to a thick piece of cardstock. I used PVA…..never again! It was everywhere! Next leather experiment will be with wheat paste. (as soon as I find some.)

The bind is loosely based on two of Keith A. Smith’s 2 section sewings… the inside (3 & 4) sections are sewn together, the middle inside (2 & 5) sections and then the outside.

TOMS

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A friend and I have been meaning to each decorate a pair of TOMS shoes for months now. We finally managed it today! Seven hours later, here are what mine look like. If you can believe it, they are even brighter in person! We used sharpie markers.

thesis show reception 4.15.2011

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It’s done! It’s finally over! The show is actually going to be up for another week, but the reception is finished and all I have to do now is take it down. Which is a somewhat daunting thought but I’ll worry about it in a week. I apologize for the picture quality; I really needed a better camera and a tripod for such low light shots.

This is the face of great relief…

It’s not really red/pink, I promise! I actually got pictures of it looking blue and green too…

People finally get to see what the heck I’ve been talking about for the past six months!

3-section sewing journal

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A smaller journal that is slightly more compact than the other. I used two needles to sew the bind. It’s from Keith A. Smith’s book #2, but didn’t actually have pattern instructions so I improvised. I think the reason I don’t create more of this kind of binding is that it takes so much paper to get the spine wide enough to do anything interesting. Not sure how to remedy that…

a personalized journal

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I have been harassed within an inch of my life to provide a custom journal for a friend (love ya, Stacy!)…so here it is. I had wanted to do some weird sewing combination but the lack of access to a drill press makes most of my experiment ideas difficult and impractical. Maybe I’ll figure out how to get my hands on one someday.

This style was called ‘Japanese ledger binding’ by the professor who taught me…only I’ve not had success in finding many other examples online. It’s pretty simple, which is why I added Stacy’s nickname to the top.

a bicycle ‘zine

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I recently had the opportunity to participate in a the Southern Graphics Council International 2011 show in St Louis. A friend was going to have a ‘zine exhibition and workshop and had invited any and all artists he knew to create a ‘zine to send with him. I decided to collaborate with Elle Natchke. She gave me stories of her 3000+ mile bike trip from the coast in Oregon all the way to New Jersey’s coast. Each spread is a short vignette of what she saw. More collaborations with Elmo to come!