Artist
LACMA Workshop at the Valley Plaza Branch Library in North Hollywood
“Santa Monica Eats” Bookmaking Program at the Santa Monica Public Library!
601 Santa Monica Blvd.
Santa Monica, CA 90401
310-458-8600
Join us for a wonderful event at the The SMPL Main Library and create your own book to hold your treasured recipes!
Make an accordion fold book with pockets to keep your favorite recipes in! Adorn your useful and beautiful book with decorative papers, textures, ribbons and pop-ups you cut yourself right in the folds of your book!
“CHAPTERS: Book Arts in Southern California” presented at the Craft and Folk Art Museum in LA.
I was commissioned to create an interactive book.
I created “Chromatic Interactions”
Chromatic Interactions is a flag book is comprised of an accordion spine, front and back covers, and flag pages which are pockets with windows cut out of them to reveal both front and back of the cards that visitor participants wrote and drew on, then inserted into the pockets.
The front and back covers had windows cut out of them that correlated with the windows cut out of the flag pocket pages.
People’s responses, offerings, additions and interactions surprised me…they really did pause and participate.
This is one of my favorites:
May we all have…Joy…in the morning, in the night…all the time.
As Much As Possible.
JOY
Chromatic Interactions II
“CHAPTERS: Book Arts in Southern California” presented at the Craft and Folk Art Museum in LA.
I was commissioned to create an interactive book.
I created “Chromatic Interactions”
Chromatic Interactions is a flag book is comprised of an accordion spine, front and back covers, and flag pages which are pockets with windows cut out of them to reveal both front and back of the cards that visitor participants wrote and drew on, then inserted into the pockets.
It was eye-opening to see how people responded, what they wrote and drew, and how the book transformed over time.
I am exploring this phenom through a series of posts, now that the show is over. The CAFAM was kind enough to save and give to me many of the file cards added to the book by the participants who interacted with the piece…keeping it in a continual state of transformation.
The front and back covers had windows cut out of them that correlated with the windows cut out of the flag pocket pages.
Someone had to remove the cards so that new ones could be inserted. I am still not sure if this was the Museum staff, or the patron participants themselves.
Here is some of what they wrote….
“STRIKE while the iron is hot”
“Speak Out
Stay Calm
Carry On”
“How can we stop the political train wreck?”
“It was the best of times. It was the worst of times. *activism….”
“people say don’t hate anything except for hatred”
This one “speaks” for itself.
Actually, they all do.
People
Speak
Out
Chromatic Interactions I
“CHAPTERS: Book Arts in Southern California” presented at the Craft and Folk Art Museum in LA.
I was commissioned to create an interactive book.
I created “Chromatic Interactions”
It was eye-opening for me to see what people wrote and drew, and how the piece changed over time.
I will be exploring this through a series of posts, now that the show is over, and CAFAM was kind enough to save and give to me many of the file cards added to the book by patrons/visitors/participants…interacting.
Flag book. Stitched flag pockets with windows cut into them.
Accordion spine.
A focus on file folders.
Flag pocket and cover windows align, allowing messages to show through, and creating a tunnel effect.
Color, line, word, image, added by the viewer, become participatory art making and collaborator.
Book board.
Found file folders crumpled to create surface texture.
Here is some of what Museum visitor participants wrote…
TIME
“…all slow…”
After the US election.
Did they mean “irrelevant” No???
“There once was…”
Packing it in.
Successful life…validation
“Beautiful
I’m blinded by the light.”
“Mosaic” flower
Wilder tale
E X T R A P O L A T E
So glad, Inez!
Full…
And fuller.
More
To
Come
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.