Newport Report

By all reports, the Newport Paper Arts Festival was a great success. NORBAG members converged from Oregon and California to enjoy the many workshops held at the Visual Arts Center in the scenic seaside town of Newport, Oregon. Thanks to all of the NORBAG members who sent in photos. 

NORBAG members from Humboldt County

Six of our Humboldt County members produced some of the results pictured below.

Tiny Twisted Treats in a Treasure Box

Flag Book

Bonnie created the box and collections of books shown above. This workshop was taught by Patricia Grass. Inside the box are five miniature books: a triangular meander, a slinky book, a flag book, a spiral book, and a simple origami fold book.

The Greek Stitch with Leather covered Wooden Boards

Wooden covers were covered with goatskin and decorated with holes using a Japanese punch. Half of the sections were sewn to each cover with a variation of the Coptic stitch and then the two halves were joined together.

Pansy Book

  This Pansy Book is the result of John Watson's "Sewing Single Pages" workshop.

Metallic Collage

 Sandy took a workshop (and she does this almost every year) from Cheri Aldrich, a mixed media artist who loves metallics of any kind.

Workshop Results

At day's end members rooming together shared their workshop results. These results are just some of the "stash". After participating in these all day workshops, members that roomed together would come back to the hotel and create their own workshop and then play well into the evening.

Paper Towel decorating

Recording their results

Day is Done

Is this a demonstration of how much book artists love their fonts, text, and layout or, as Bonnie suggested, did the person writing this not know how to spell "Edith"?

See You Next Year at Newport, 2012!

You Never Know

Michele, Tina, and Sandy

Humboldt County is home to many hiking groups and last Saturday, with a hint of sun in the sky, about 15 of us headed off for a hike around Bull Creek and a picnic at the Albee Creek campground. The group has varied interests—photography, botany, history—and we are given frequent quizzes by our hike leader, historian Jerry Rohde. These quizzes come with prizes donated by previous quiz winners, so one never knows what they will grab from the Prize Bag. When Tina correctly answered a question, picked and unwrapped her prize, it took Sandy and Michele a couple of seconds to realize what Tina was holding in her hand. Someone, and we don't know who this was, donated a book created by NORBAG as part of 1000 Books for Literacy, a fundraiser for the Humboldt Literacy Project. But wait, the story isn't over. Sandy originated the idea for the 1000 Books project, coordinated the Guild's effort of making well over 1000 books, supervised their installation at Eureka Books for the September 2010 fundraiser, and created the text for Nature—one of the five themes for the books. Michele created the text for another of the themes, helped construct the books, and was president of NORBAG during this event. As for Tina, well, she is a local artist and let me tell you, she was thrilled to receive this book.

 We walked out to the trailhead listening to Tina reading quotes from famous artists, laughing and perfectly delighted that she had received this book.
So, like putting a message in a bottle and setting it gently into the outgoing tide, one of them has come back and what a treat it was.

Let us know if you discover any others!

First Call for Books

Eureka Books will be hosting the fourth annual North Redwoods Book Arts Guild Exhibit, September 4, 2011. Last year's event was a great success and members are encouraged to submit books of all sorts: for sale or not, small or large, traditional or not. The exhibit introduced many new people to the books arts and expanded their concepts of what constituted a "book". If you think you might be interested, the following information will be helpful:

• Books are due on July 1, 2011
• Notify Exhibitions Chair by May 5, 2011 if you are planning on submitting a book. Please include 1) Your Name 2) Number of pieces 3) Your email address 4) Your home address 5) The best contact number. Send this information to Loretta.
• If you are not a member and would like to join in order to exhibit your books, you can find a membership form (PDF) on our website that you can fill out and mail.

Wondering what the exhibit is like? Enjoy these photos from our 2010 Exhibit. You may also see all of the 2010 books.

See you there!

Triangle Books Workshop Results

Triangle Pop-Up Book by Connie 

A dedicated (and from all accounts, very hard-working) group took on the challenge of making these wonderful Triangle Pop-Up books. The workshop was lead by Connie Stewart and as usual, there are some interesting variations due to artist's interpretations. If you were unable to attend, these might inspire you to try these out.

Alex busy at work.

Instructor, Connie

A start at embellishing the Pop-Up.

Our youngest member, Maja, Rumor has it the she was the first to finish!

Maja's completed book.

Another view.

Michele K.'s book

Boxes at the Humboldt County Library

People visiting the Humboldt County Library are in for a surprise if they think a box is a simple rectangular parallelepiped. These structures may contain books as part of their structures—or not. Take a break from all of our rain and duck into the library to enjoy these structures from our books arts exchanges.