Flag Book

CHAPTERS I: “Chromatic Interactions”

June 28, 2017 By Debra Disman

CHAPTERS I: “Chromatic Interactions”

The wonderful Craft and Folk Art Museum of Los Angeles currently has on view “Chapters: Book Arts in Southern California” through May 7, 2017.

I had the opportunity of creating an interactive book for the show, one that potentially 8000 viewers/participants could become co-creators of by adding and subtracting color, pattern, graphics and text as they so chose.

I created the flag book structure from book board (covers),

watercolor paper (accordion spine), rice paper (covering the spine),

repurposed file folders (torn into pieces to “cover the covers” and folded to form the flag page pockets), linen thread (to stitch the flag pages/pockets), Lineco Neutral pH Adhesive (for gluing) ,
and colored file cards (to write and draw upon, and insert into the pockets in varied arrangements), to create “Chromatic Interactions”.
I aligned the ‘windows” in the covers, with the windows cut out of the flag book pockets,

so that the file cards would read through the front and back cover apertures.
The results of offering the public the opportunity to express themselves through interacting with the book were fascinating.

I was moved that participants were expressing their feelings about current events, and the “state of the nation”.
Some just got silly and had fun.

Some asked profound questions…reflecting what is on the collective mind.

Some waxed poetic.
And one young artist expressed her feelings through creating a bookmark, as all the windows were filled!

Perhaps the greatest treasure of all…

Thank you Inez!

And thank you to the wonderful Holly Jerger, curator, for this amazing opportunity to give CAFAM viewers a voice..I am looking forward to seeing what else they have to say.

Flag Bookmaking Program

June 18, 2017 By Debra Disman

Learn to make the fun and versatile FLAG BOOK structure!

FREE and Open to the Public
All Materials Included

Held at the Los Angeles Public Library/Baldwin Hills Branch

2906 South La Brea Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90016
Nearest cross streets: Westhaven Avenue, between Adams and Jefferson Blvds.

The Sheltering Book Chapter 3

May 20, 2017 By Debra Disman

The Sheltering Book Chapter 3

I am honored to have been one of 17 artists who received an inaugural ‘The WORD Grant 2016: The Bruce Geller Memorial Prize” from the Institute for Jewish Creativity, a project of American Jewish University, to create, “The Sheltering Book“.

“The Sheltering Book will be a life-sized book structure which will become the backdrop for community bookmaking workshops drawing parallels between the meaning and architecture of the book, and that of the Sukkah. The project also explores the relationship between the public sphere and private space, whether that space be our personal creativity, where we create, or what we create.” —Debra Disman

“The WORD Grant, a project of American Jewish University’s Institute for Jewish Creativity, supports artists creating projects that explore Jewish ideas, themes, tradition, history, and identity. We believe in supporting a contemporary, vibrant, Jewish cultural landscape in Los Angeles.” —The Institute for Jewish Creativity

Made of corrugated cardboard, primed, base-painted, and treated with layers of transparent color, the Sheltering Book becomes a Sukkah With the addition of dyed netting stenciled with ferns, the “s’chach“, roof of the Sukkah.