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February, 2014

  1. Book Artist of the Month: Diane Jacobs

    February 3, 2014 by Erin Fletcher

    TheBlackHole-DianeJacobs

    The Black Hole is an intimate miniature accordion that explores the personal issues one may feel about body hair and so of, course it includes a surprise hairball at the end. The accordion can be read on either side and is letterpress printed with wooden covers and a parchment strap. This artist book was created in an edition of 45 by Diane Jacobs back in 2003. 

    TheBlackHole2-DianeJacobs

    In your work, you demonstrate the versatility of hair as a medium by forming hairballs, felted shapes and using full locks of hair to loose strands. Do you enjoy manipulating hair one way more than another?
    I love to roll my own hair into balls. It is very easy because of it being curly and relatively fine. But I discovered that I can pretty much roll anyone’s hair into a ball. I like comparing different hair color and texture in the ball form. I like the association of a hairball being something else when put in a different context such as the hairballs in the gum ball machine. I also enjoy weaving hair in the combs to spell out words.

    HairChart-DianeJacobs Tails-DianeJacobs Combs-DianeJacobs

    I noticed you only use hair with natural color. Do you avoid artificially colored hair for a reason?
    I am sure some of the hair I use is dyed. Personally I have always liked the natural  color of someone’s hair. I have used a bit of blue hair but that has been the only really artificially colored hair I have in my massive collection.

  2. Bookbinder of the Month: Haein Song

    February 2, 2014 by Erin Fletcher

    Whistler-HaeinSong

    The design on this full leather binding from Haein Song really transforms the material to mimic a textured painted canvas. Haein bound this copy of Whistler by Haldane Macfall in 2009. Sprinkled on top of the hand colored natural goatskin are flecks of gold leaf. The title is also tooled in gold on the front cover. If you click on the image above, you can see the title on the front cover toward the tail. I spotted the “H” first. Happy hunting. 

    The endpaper and matching panel doublures are monoprinted and sit opposite a leather joint. The edges are decorated with blue and brown acrylic pigment and sprinkled with gold leaf. 

    Whistler2-HaeinSongWhistler3-HaeinSong

    There seems to be quite an influence from Mark Cockram in the design of this binding. I can tell you were a student of his. The decoration on the leather has such a painterly quality to it, can you talk about your technique for achieving this affect?
    Do you think so? That is quite interesting as I haven’t thought in that way. Mark’s teaching involved structures, materials, tools and many tips from his experience except aesthetics. He thought, I believe, everyone has different aesthetics. But I suppose what you see influences how you express.

    Few Whistler’s paintings were on display at Tate Britain when I started this book. I remember walking around feeling his paintings titled Nocturne. I wanted to convey that feeling to the cover. Back then I was trying simple but different dyeing and printing technique. How it was achieved was simply rolling few different chosen (or mixed) relief inks onto the glass surface then lay the leather on top and rub it. Endpapers were made in similar way. There is a little bit of trial and error until you get the desirable outcomes. Also depending on the amount of inks and pressure you can achieve a very different look. Whistler was very much interested in Japanese prints. To finish I used a technique called Sunago (Japanese technique in woodblock printmaking, which involves sprinkled or scattered gold leaf) to reflect that.

     

  3. February // Book Artist of the Month: Diane Jacobs

    February 2, 2014 by Erin Fletcher

    HairTalk3-DianeJacobs

    Hair Talk is a three volume artist book set that was created by Diane Jacobs over the course of three years from 2009 to 2011. The structure is inspired from a binding by Roberta Lavadour, except in this case, Diane binds the series in human hair. The content within each book are the collected replies to a set of questions, where an individual wrote about their feelings regarding their own hair. 

    The books are letterpress printed and bound with covers made from Cave Paper. 

    HairTalk2-DianeJacobs

    When binding this book with human hair, did you find the material to be tricky to work with or did you treat the hair first (like a bookbinder would wax their thread)?
    I learned this binding from Roberta Lavadour. It is a twine binding technique that she invented. Instead of twine I used human hair and transparent thread that resembles hair. Each folio is a set of four questions, so in order for that particular person’s responses to stay together I needed to sew each folio individually into the spine. With Roberta’s book, she would sew a thick signature with each twine line. I did not treat the hair with anything. It was a little tricky, but do able.

    The way a person chooses to wear and style their hair can suggest a lot about them, whether these connotations be positive or negative. What did you hope to extract from this survey and what did you find to be surprising?
    I was surprised that more people did not want to trade their hair in for different hair. The majority of people wanted to keep their hair. My questions were not about style (that would have been interesting) they were:            
    Question 1: Describe your hair (color, texture, body, length…)
    Question 2: What don’t you like about your hair?
    Question 3: What do you like about your hair?
    Question 4: Would you trade your hair in for different hair? If so, what would it be?

    HairTalk4-DianeJacobs HairTalk5-DianeJacobsHairTalk-DianeJacobs

    Diane’s work is intriguing and thought provoking. She is driven by the language that inhabits issues surrounding women, racism, equality and other social issues. Her work spans over several mediums from artist books and sculptures to prints and two-dimensional pieces. This month long interview will cover some of Diane’s artist books plus a few additional pieces I found to be relevant to my set of questions. 

    See the interview after the jump and come back each Monday during the month of February for more posts on the work of Diane Jacobs. She discusses her materials and inspirations sources such as feminism and nature. 

    read more >

  4. February // Bookbinder of the Month: Haein Song

    February 1, 2014 by Erin Fletcher

    MythOfSisyphus-HaeinSong

    This beautiful binding of The Myth of Sisyphus and Other Essays by Albert Camus was crafted in 2013 by Haein Song. Bound as a Bradel binding, the spine is covered in a natural goatskin with dark blue vellum covers. The sprinkled dashes on the covers are hand tooled in gold. The spectacular endpapers are hand printed. 

    MythOfSisyphus2-HaeinSongMythOfSisyphus3-HaeinSong

    This binding is absolutely stunning and so flawlessly executed. The covers are a beautiful dark blue vellum. Did you find the material difficult to work with in either the structural or tooling aspect of the binding process? I have a single experience with vellum over boards, but I know that bookbinders approach the board construction differently. May I ask if you prepped the boards for the covers in any particular way for the vellum?
    I heard few notorious rumours about vellum but I don’t think I found it difficult at the time I was working on it. Partly because it was a relatively small bradel binding and there wasn’t headcaps or joints. The spine of the book is covered in natural goatskin. 

    What I found afterwards was that the front and back vellum boards sometimes change their shapes depending on the humidity or temperature of the surrounding. But surprisingly it comes back to the original shape after some time. I was told that it needed a little bit of time to climatise.

    Later I was also told that lining vellum with a very thin paper (archival bible paper or Japanese paper) would reduce this changeable characteristic. 

    Tooling wasn’t particularly hard after practising enough on sample boards but I don’t think I have an ample amount of experience to compare differences in tooling on leather or vellum.

    – – – – – – – – – – –

    I have not yet had the pleasure of meeting Haein or been presented the opportunity of viewing her work in person. However, I’ve had her website bookmarked for a while now, checking back from time to time to ogle her work. As I began preparing a list of people to interview this year Haein’s name popped up as a suggestion from Hannah Brown, whom I interviewed at this time last year. So with Hannah’s endorsement and my growing fondness, I present the following interview with Haein Song. The interview ends with Haein’s elegantly worded philosophy on bookbinding. 

    Come back every Sunday during the month of February for more posts on Haein’s work. You don’t want to miss it, Haein shares some of the creative techniques behind her expressive and artistic bindings. 

    read more >

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  • My name is Erin Fletcher, owner and bookbinder of Herringbone Bindery in Boston. Flash of the Hand is a space where I share my process and inspirations.
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