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Debra Disman

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Codex

NEW WORK in 2021: Red Notebook (“Here’s To The Red, White and Blue”)

November 15, 2021 By Debra Disman

I was happy to finally be able to have Elon Schoenholz Photography in to photographs works completed/created during 2021, which continues to race by.

Part of an ensemble, suite, or installation of works entitled, “Here’s To The Red, White and Blue”, Red Notebook is structured as a “traditional” codex, with covers that open and pages that turn.  Moderately, “red” (hence the “red” element of the “Red, White and Blue” theme-meme-trope?) it contains a great deal of black as well.
In the immortal words of  Mark Rothko, “There is only one thing I fear in life, my friend;  One day, the black will swallow the red.”

Made from a repurposed placemat, hemp cord, linen thread, canvas, and lace, it is 8.5″ high, 12.5″ when opened in full, and 6.5″ at greatest depth and opens left to right, from cover through pages to cover, bound together through a single signature.


The red and back play off each other in all their associations


Sewing, stitching, gluing, knotting, coiling, massing


Amassing, accumulation, the RED in


Up next.

Filed Under: ARTISTS, Artists' Books, BOOKS, New Work, Work Tagged With: 2021 Work, ARTIST'S BOOKS, Black, Book as Art, Codex, Coil, COLOR, Conceptual Book, Conceptual Works, Constructions, Contemporary Artist, Covers, Elon Schoenholz Photography, Fiber, HEMP CORD, Los Angles Artists, Mark Rothko, Mixed media, New Work, Pages, Red, Rothko, Sculpture, SIGNATURE, SINGLE SIGNATURE BOOK, Spiral, Stitch, Stitching, Textiles, Three-dimensional works, White and Blue, Work

Wide Open Bookmaking

February 17, 2020 By Debra Disman

I have been honored to be an Artist-in-Residence at the Sunland-Tujunga Library, supported by the City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs, conducting a series of bookmaking workshops for the community.

It was great fun to lead a bookmaking workshop in early February for a group that meets at the Library called, “Wide Open Reading”. What a wonderful-sounding activity!

Participants came together to create single signature sewn books, with pockets created by an “inner cover” or casing, and glued on covers. A

A creative time was had by all!

Participants learned about signatures (a gathering of folded pages that comprise the text block of a traditional western style codex book structure),

and sewed signatures that had been prepared for them into an inner cover, with folded pockets.

They then had a blast using all kinds of materials to develop, embellish and adorn their inside and outside covers, and even a few pages!

Camaraderie and interaction among the group is a big part of the fun.

And, of course, pride in the final (or not so final) “product”.

Wide Open Reading deserves wide open bookmaking, and the makers certainly achieved this.

Bravo!

Filed Under: Artist in Residence, Artists' Books, BOOKS, Student Work, Teaching Artist Tagged With: AIR, ARTIST BOOKS, ARTIST IN RESIDENCE, Bookmaking, Books made by Hand, Books with Pockets, City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs Artist in Residence Program, Codex, Codice, Community, Community Arts, Community Arts programs, DCA, DCA AIR, Department of Cultural Affairs, Department of Cultural Affairs of the City of Los Angeles, Handmade Books, Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs, Los Angeles Public Library, Public Library, Sewn Books, Signle Signature Books, STEAM, SUNLAND-TUJUNGA BRANCH LIBRARY, Sunland-Tujunga Library, Test Block, Text, Wide Open Reading

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