Going Vinyl

Seems I’m always behind the times. Everyone has a Kindle these days but I love the way a book feels, looks, smells, and I just love to turn pages. In fact I love books so much, I create my own.  These are handbound blank books for writing and sketching.

handbound books with long stitching on ultrasuede spine

And everyone is downloading music onto their phones and laptops while I still cherish my collection of vinyl albums and 45 rpm vinyl records.  Thing is, I don’t own a record player anymore and most of the records in my collection are unplayable anyhow because they’ve been overplayed.  So I have a few scratchy and worn down records.

some of the unplayable vinyl records in my collection

There’s a great collection here.  Lots of Memphis music – Elvis, Jerry Lee Lewis, Little Milton, Isaac Hayes, Johnny Taylor.  Not to mention Memphis labels like Sun and Stax. And lots of non-Memphis music too – Motown, The Beatles, The Kinks, Flatt and Scruggs and the list goes on. But it’s all unplayable and pretty beat up.  I couldn’t bear to throw them away, so I recycle them.  I cut them, preserving the studio labels of course, and use them as front and back covers of a handbound blank journal or sketch book.

Cut vinyl records waiting to be bound into books

Some of the finished books will be sold at the Memphis Brooks Museum in conjunction with their upcoming exhibit, “Who Shot Rock and Roll:  A Photographic History 1955 to the Present”.  This is a traveling exhibit organized by the Brooklyn Museum.

Here are a few handbound blank journals I have  finished.

Handbound blank journals with vinyl record covers

And if you can’t bear the thought of an unplayable record, I also make hand bound blank journals and sketch books with handmade paper covers, silk fabric covers, and covers made from hand printed Indonesian batik fabrics.

Display of my hand bound blank books at The Spring Show

All Shook Up

Legend has it that Elvis wrote “All Shook Up” after shaking up a bottle of Coke.  Actually, it was Pepsi. And it was the songwriter Otis Blackwell who wrote it on a dare by one of the owners of Shalimar Music.  Although Elvis did share the songwriting credit with Blackwell.

All Shook Up

This shaken up bottle of Coke is how I feel right now.  A little aimless  with bubbles bursting before anything can be enjoyed.  After 30 years of weaving and my attempts to eke out some semblance of a living as a weaver and weaving instructor, I’m facing a dilemma.  I’m getting increasingly frustrated  in selling my handwovens for  their true value and at the same time attracting  students interested in learning to weave.  It may be that I’m in the wrong place.  After all, Memphis is music, not fiber.

Case in point, I regularly donate my handwoven scarves, purses and wall hangings to local non-profit organizations with art auctions as fund raising venues.  My pieces always sell and the organizations are able to benefit from my donations.  It’s a win-win situation. This past year, I donated two rep weave wall hangings to one of these  non-profits.  Total value was for $300. No one assumed that that would be the highest bid, but it would have been nice to receive a little something with 3 digits for both pieces.  Each piece takes between 30 and 50 hours to design, prepare, weave, and finish.  Sadly, that was not the case, with one piece receiving only $25 and another only $30. And so my bubble was burst.  I just can’t compete with paintings which seem to be the most popular medium wherever I look.   There are many hobby weavers here in Memphis, but I’m one of just a couple of studio weavers, so there aren’t enough of us to educate the public and compete for their attention about our medium.  Certainly not in  the way that the  great number of painters are able to. Sad.

But I have another love, and that is in creating handbound books.  In my upcoming shows, I plan to test the local market and offer some of my book creations for sale.  These are blank books that can be used for sketching, journalling or photo albums.  Eventually I would like to explore sculptural books and create artists’ books.  I am currently taking an online class called “Creative Bookmaking” with Sue Bleiweiss of Two Creative Studios. I have been working on some fabric covered books, using either hand printed Indonesian batik fabric or dupioni silk fabric.

Blank book covered with Indonesian batik fabric. Longstitch/Linkstitch binding on spine.

Inside cover and end page of Thai mango paper

The books I made have 8 signatures of a 32 lb. weight fine writing paper.  I followed instructions for the longstitch/linkstitch binding in Keith Smith’s book, Volume I: Non-Adhesive Binding, Books Without Paste or Glue. It was a little tricky as I had to drill the stitching holes in the spine between each of the signatures that made a pair rather than aligning the holes with each of the  signatures.  Stitching for each pair of signatures was done in the same holes for the long stitch part of the binding.  The link stitch looks like a chain stitch and it appears at the top and bottom of the spine.  Some more examples:

Dupioni Silk cover with Kaffe Fassett cotton fabric embellishment

Inside cover and end paper of Thai mango paper

Dupioni silk cover with Japanese cotton print fabric embellishment

Inside cover and end paper of Thai mango paper

Detail of Longstitch/Linkstitch on spine

And so this looks like the future of book arts and me in Memphis!  I will continue to create whether at the loom or the book bench, and we shall see what the market will bring.

My fabric covered handbound books