SIGNATURE
In Resonant Residence (7)
I formally began Studio Residency at the Camera Obscura Art Lab
in Santa Monica Wednesday January 10th. I share the sunlit space, located within the beautiful Mid-century building overlooking Palisades Park, Santa Monica Beach and the blue Pacific with textile artist and fellow Studio Artist-in-Residence Huong Nguyen.
“About the Art Lab and Camera Obscura
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Step inside the Camera Obscura Art Lab and you’ll find a welcoming space with fantastic views of Santa Monica Bay and the Pier. The Camera is located in a midcentury time capsule in Palisades Park between Broadway and Santa Monica Blvd on what was once the site of the Pacific Electric Railway’s North Beach Station. Designed by noted architect Weldon J. Fulton (who’s work can be found around town including the classic Camera Obscura sign and font, the Montana and Fairview branch libraries, and the former Zucky’s building on Wilshire Blvd), the building’s exterior features walls clad in chunky Palos Verdes stone, glass walls, sloping roofs, and projecting canopies and rafter beams. It was donated to the City of Santa Monica by Marcellus Joslyn in 1955.”
The huge studio windows look out on palms, walkways and a huge assortment of passers by, strollers, park wanderers and beach combers. The Studio is a magical place to work.
Fifth Workshop, February 10, 2018: “Simple Sewn Booklets” AKA: Single Signature Books
Signatures are gatherings of folded pages, which when stitched together, can become the text block (area where text is added). In this process, we sewed together a single signature using the very useful pamphlet stitch.
We attached the covers to the signature, so that the stitched spine was exposed.
Participants could design and embellish their covers before gluing them directly to the signatures, or attach the covers, then develop them. Some “covered the covers”,, learning folding and cutting techniques and creating covered corners.
They made creative use of cord, lace, decorative papers…beads and more,
including repurposed jeans, specifically, the denim pockets!
The components of the book were prepared for participants to use, covers and signatures cut into squares, sewing holes punched. Yest still, the makers used every moment of the 2.5 hour workshop to create and develop their books.
Human ingenuity, devotion and love of the handmade never cease to amaze me…I am blessed to witness this regularly in my practice.
Gratitudes…
The Sheltering Book Chapter 5
The Sheltering Book Chapter 5
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“.
Open to the world.
“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
A “Sheltering Book” program was held at the , of the Santa Monica Public Library. The program was attended by participants from preschool to post school who created books, and shared them in the shelter of The Sheltering Book.
This kind patron helped Montana Branch Library Manager Stephanie Archer and I carry The Sheltering Book into the Community Room.
Covers and pages were prepped, and participants bound them together into a single signature book which they then added to with writing, drawing and collage materials.
A whole wonderful family of three generations…grandma, mom, and four fantastic, talented and creative daughters!
Reveling in materials.
Creative use of papert strips too create waving grasses, behind which cat’s eyes glimmer…
Sharing with little sis looking on…
Use of magazine images.
She has a beautiful sense of design.
Grandma gets into the act!
Creating with Grandma…pretty in Pink!
Sharing…
A children’s book illustrator…
shares her creation…lovely color choices!
This wonderful teaching artist claimed the time to create a piece about her own identity…
employing buttons, collage, mixed media,
to great effect… 
and sharing.
Beautiful use of leaves…
outside,
and inside, her book!
She strolled into the Community Room during a break, and jumped right in!
A natural presenter!
This lovely couple go right into the expressive spirit…
creating about music,
and other visions.
Photogenic too!
This maker truly committed…
using inspiration from the natural
and the man-made worlds…
and fully developing ideas
within her book.
Sharing…
This spirited artist used to be a casting agent…
and she has truly found a new medium within which to epxress herself…and vision.
The Sheltering Book becomes a synergistic process and experience for the community at-large, offering shelter, safe space, and creative inspiration for all who engage with it.
Let us hold the vision!