BOX MAKING & ANNIVERSARY

NORBAG is continuing our monthly workshops thanks to Zoom. Our September workshop was a great success due to the advance planning of our host, Bobbie Hayes, and facilitator, Edge Gerring. Edge led us through each step to make a box with a hinged lid, completely covered with decorative paper. She had provided us with directions and exact measurements ahead of time, so we were ready to begin when the workshop started. The assembly went smoothly since it was well paced from one step to the next. Bobbie did a fantastic job of monitoring the progress by watching participants on the screen to see when most of us lifted our heads to be ready for the next instruction. After we finished the boxes we held them up to the screen so that everyone could see the creative papers that were used. Thank you Edge for taking the fear out of making a box!

Covering the outside of the box

Covering the inside of the box

Attaching the lid

Lid attached

Edge's finished box

Showing our boxes

The September workshop was our fourth Zoom meeting and we've had around 40 members join us each time. While there isn't much good news about the pandemic, the upside is that all of us have the opportunity to gather together once a month regardless of where we live. It has been great fun to see and visit with members from across the country and the “pond” that we've only known by name. Currently 65% of our members live outside of Humboldt County and coincidently about that same percentage represents the out-of-town members who have been joining us on Zoom.  

It doesn’t seem possible that 25 years have slipped away since 15 fellow book arts enthusiasts gathered together to form the North Redwoods Book Arts Guild under the leadership of Shereen LaPlantz. Book art was a relatively new medium in 1995 and Shereen’s book Cover to Cover had just been published. This was one of the first “how-to” books to introduce the wonderful world of book arts to new artists.

Of the original 15 charter members, four are still members today. By the end of our first year we had 48 members. Today we number 160 from 15 different states as well as four international members from Canada and England.

Our monthly newsletter is the real “glue” that holds our guild together. September 2020 will mark the 300^th newsletter produced by a team of very dedicated members. Besides this blog we also have a website and Flickr site where we showcase the beautiful exchange books each month.

One activity that has been constant since the beginning is our voluntary book exchange in which members can participate. Themes are suggested by the members and assigned for each month except December and February. In December members sign up in advance to participate in a card exchange where we make an edition of holiday cards, one for each member who signs up. February is always a Valentine theme where we make a single card to exchange.

We have no idea what 2021 will have in store for us, but for now we will try to stay connected through our newsletter, blog, and Zoom meetings. Twenty-Five Years…and still going strong! Here’s to all of us who share a love of book arts!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY NORBAG

Once again it’s time to wish a Happy Birthday to NORBAG.  It’s been 24 years since Shereen LaPlantz and 14 other Humboldt County lovers of the art of making books got together to form our guild. Now coming up on our silver anniversary year in 2020, we are widely known as a respected and innovative organization. I don’t know of any other book art groups that maintain a website, a blog, a rotating display of member’s handmade books at the public library, mail a monthly newsletter, AND hold a monthly book exchange and workshop all for the bargain price of $20 a year for members. Who does that? We do!

NORBAG members also support our community with projects such as making 1000 little books to sell with proceeds going to the Humboldt Literacy Project; making altered book notebooks for authors participating in the Humboldt County Children’s Author Festival; and supporting our member who annually organizes making Valentine cards to give to people receiving Senior Nutrition home-delivered meals, participants at the Senior lunch sites, kidney dialysis patients and people living in our local convalescent and board and care homes. 

Here is the display of the 1000 books during an exhibition of books 

made by NORBAG artists held at Eureka Books in 2010.

This kiosk display in the Humboldt County Library shows a few 

of the altered books made for visiting authors at the 2011 

Children's Author Festival.

Some of the valentines made this year at our February workshop 

under the direction of Lorraine Miller-Wolf.

Our members have been attending and instructing workshops since the beginnings of the yearly Newport Paper and Book Art Festival (NPBAF) and the biennial Focus On Book Art (FOBA), both held in Oregon. Some of our members have also given workshops at Humboldt State University’s OLLI (Osher Lifelong Learning Institute), and to other organizations in California, Pennsylvania, Washington, Nebraska, and York, England.

We currently have a membership of about 170 with nearly 70 % living outside of Humboldt County. Many of these members have joined other book art organizations in their new locations while still maintaining membership and participating in NORBAG exchanges.  Because of these “members from afar” NORBAG has served as inspiration for other highly successful book art groups such as the Northwoods Book Art Guild in Fairbanks, Alaska (http://nwbookarts.org/). Recently the Puget Sound Book Artists (PSBA https://pugetsoundbookartists.wildapricot.org/) held their first book exchange which was patterned after NORBAG’s monthly exchanges. The 25 PSBA members who participated had so much fun the group now hopes to make it an annual event.

So, Happy Birthday NORBAG, may we continue to support our community of artists and find joy in the art of making beautiful books.

Humboldt County Library Kiosk

The current display in the Humboldt County Library kiosk celebrates NORBAG's 20th anniversary with books made by some of our charter members. In September 1995 Shereen LaPlantz gathered together 14 fellow book enthusiasts to form the North Redwoods Book Arts Guild. We currently have a membership of more than 180 with at least 60% living outside of Humboldt County. Of those original members, eight are still active today. 

One of Shereen's objectives was for the Guild to host a book arts conference the following June. To raise money for the conference, the group made a collaborative book that is pictured here and can be seen in the kiosk. 

The Guild's monthly book exchange started with the first official meeting (October 1995) and has been going on ever since. It is a wonderful way for our members (both local and out-of-town) to be inspired to make a book. It is purely voluntary with an average of 10 to 15 participants each month. The themes for the exchanges are voted upon by the membership and a blind draw determines whose book one receives in exchange. Members have also made books that have been in exhibits in art galleries and other venues.

Although 20 years have passed since the first meeting, NORBAG's original goal still remains "to promote, encourage, and educate participants, as well as the general public, about book arts (traditional as well as non-traditional forms of bookbinding) and related arts."

Shereen LaPlantz was the author of The Art and Craft of Handmade Books
and Cover to Cover shown here.

Handmade book by Shereen LaPlantz

Handmade book by Pamela Eberly

Floating Dragonflies by Dolores Guffey

Marbleous Cats by Dolores Guffey

Dong: A Chinese Sewing Box by Gail Rossi

Carnival Cats by Dorothy Swendeman

A Never Ending Story by Dorothy Swendeman

Anniversary by Brenda Tuxford

Thank you to the Humboldt County Library for allowing us to maintain the displays in this kiosk, Becky M for arranging the display, and Dolores G for providing the photographs used here.

September Workshop

CELEBRATE NORBAG'S 20TH ANNIVERSARY

with Dolores Guffey

The first meeting of the North Redwoods Book Arts Guild was held in September 1995 and we even had a workshop that day! Fast forward 20 years and the Guild is alive and well. To celebrate, this month's workshop will be a simple Double Needle Coptic Bound Candle Book. 

You will have your choice of either a tweed or solid stitching pattern. The photos show the difference. The sewing technique is identical, just the choice of threads make the difference as seen in the photos.

This is an example of tweed binding using two colors of thread.

This example shows one color of thread for the binding.

     Note: This is a small book using only two needles. It will have 10 signatures measuring 2" x 2 1/2" so that by the end of the workshop, you should feel confident to later make a larger book using four or even six needles.

RSVP is essential. PLEASE respond to Dolores no later than Tuesday September 8 so that all the materials can be cut and ready for you to sew.

Materials to bring:

• Piercing tool (absolutely necessary). If you do not have one, they are available at Ellis Art & Engineering. Ask for a "needle tool used for clay". A metal one is $3. and a wooden handle one is $1.20.
• Bone folder
• Pencil and eraser
• Ruler
• Piercing cradle (extras will be available to borrow)
• Scissors
• Bees wax (extras will be available to borrow)

Instructor will provide:

• Covers & signatures
• Thread
• Needles, both bent and curved
• Instructions, including how to modify your own needles for Coptic stitching
• Examples of Double Needle Coptic Binding variations

Meeting Details:

• When?   Saturday Sept. 12 @ 12 noon
• Where?  Eureka Methodist Church @ Del Norte & F Streets
• RSVP     YES! by Sept. 8 to Dolores. See the newsletter for her contact information. She will respond to all emails.
• Cost       $1.50