Miniature Books

The production of these books began in the summer of 1995. I had been making books for a number of years, producing the limited edition books of my etchings and writing. These books all had a similar format and I wanted to broaden the scope of the formats I was using, expanding my skills in the process. The opportunity to do this arose when I saw a workshop advertised that promised to focus on creating varied book structures. I signed up right away, as did my mother, who did not wish to miss out on anything that sounded like great fun. (I should add here that she was a retired architect who had been able, over the years, to make just about anything with her hands, so this was definitely right up her alley.)

At the end of each day our discussions moved quickly and excitedly from the structures we had learned that day to ways in which they could be used. By week's end, we had a lengthy list of ideas and in short order began to create some examples, modifying and honing them as we went. The small groups of what we came to call our "little books" that we produced that first year rapidly sold out when we took them to a local craft fair. When summer ended and I went back to teaching, my mother continued to work on the books, developing some new models and making more of the initial ones. Slowly we began to achieve a system of sharing the various tasks in the process – we each did different aspects of the painting, I did the handwriting, and she did the binding. This happy partnership continued until her death. I continue to produce the books we developed together in open editions. The books shown are grouped into five categories – quote books, star books, wordless books, limited edition books, and miscellaneous structures.