Shared Spaces Bookmaking is my name for special group-bookmaking experiences that allow even for long-distance collaborations. Handmade books lend themselves beautifully to collaborative creative processes, and I enjoy encouraging bookmaking with a variety of groups and in multifaceted ways. Through these projects, I can guide groups who live far from my North Carolina studio, including ones with widely scattered members, such as families, groups of friends, or enthusiasts who share a particular focus. (This is a great way for me to widen my circle of book-art acquaintances, too.)
Through Shared Spaces Bookmaking projects, your group and I can work together to plan a project ideally suited to your interests, schedules, and budget. I can help you choose the type of book to do—an accordion book, a flag book, a pamphlet-stitched book, or an origami-style book (as shown below, clockwise, starting at the upper left). We can discuss which form might fit best with a certain theme your group members have in mind or a certain overall look you’d like to create.
Here are my two main Shared Spaces Bookmaking approaches:
o The first process is ideal if you and several friends live far apart but want to create an artists’ book collaboratively, with each of you ultimately receiving a book that contains not only your own content (writing and/or artwork) but also that of every other group member. You each create pages and mail those to me, and I then assemble all the pages and create a book for every person.
We’ll start with detailed discussions about the book form that best suits your group’s idea and then determine whether you’d each prefer to select, purchase, and prepare your own materials or have me handle those steps. If you each supply your own materials, I’ll provide specific suggestions about such things as the weight and type of paper that work best for the group’s selected book form, and I’ll give you details about what size to cut the pages.
For this collaborative project, you’ll each be completing one or more pages, depending on the chosen book form, for every member of your group. I’ll suggest ideas for your creation of the content (writing and/or images) or simply let your imagination take flight, whichever you’d prefer. Since the books are small (5″ x 7″ or smaller), the creation of multiple pages doesn’t require complex techniques or lots of time, and the process can be flexible. For instance, you can either finish one page at a time or prepare one large sheet of writing and/or artwork and then cut that into the needed pages. I’ll be available to guide you through all stages of the process. And if you don’t think of yourself as either a writer or an artist, I’ll be glad to offer suggestions about simple techniques you can use to create special pages.
After you’ve each completed your pages, you’ll mail those to me. Once I have all the group members’ pages, I’ll assemble those; craft a book—by using the appropriate binding techniques and creating the covers, complete with special touches—for every group member; and mail a finished book to each of you.
o The second approach is perfect if your group (such as a reading group, a number of friends, or a group of family members) would like to get together and create blank journals or certain simple but intriguing book forms (such as an origami-style book). I’ll provide detailed instructions, specify the materials you’ll need to purchase, and guide you through all of the bookmaking stages by answering any questions that may arise. To make this a memorable Shared Spaces experience, I’ll also suggest ideas for your collaborative creation of unique covers and other book features. People who are learning how to make books often find that working along with others allows them to benefit from the shared insights and progress.
All Shared Spaces projects can be planned for a wide range of materials—from inexpensive, recycled ones (I encourage “green” bookmaking!) to unusual handmade papers to expensive art papers—and I can suggest sources for all of the materials your group prefers and needs. As you might guess, your group can control many of the costs by selecting and buying your own materials or gathering your own recycled ones.
