Instead of a workshop, our February NORBAG meeting will be a show-and-tell featuring handmade calendars. Carolyn Jones will share some of her favorite calendars made by herself and fellow artists Dorothy Swendeman, Terri Tinkham, and Vikki Young. We invite you to pour a beverage of choice and sit back and watch as Carolyn takes you on a tour of handmade calendars that showcase various themes, bindings, structures, surface design and other paper arts techniques.
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| left to right: Terri Tinkham, Vikki Young, Carolyn Jones, Dorothy Swendeman |
In 1994, three handweavers (Carolyn, Dorothy & Terri) got together and used scraps and samples of their handwoven fabrics as the focus of an edition of 35 calendars on a textile arts theme. It was a hit so they did it again the next year. In 1997, Vikki joined the group and they worked together to explore new themes and structures. Vikki wrote stories and text to illuminate the themes as they added new paper art techniques along with their weavings.
Editions ran to 150 copies at their peak. Themes included ethnic textiles, fashion, food, travel, theatre, botany, a coloring book, color, words, and patterns etc. Each calendar is an exercise in marrying structure with content, and an extensive collaboration between four fertile, but very different, artistic minds. Since the deaths of Dorothy and Vikki (Dorothy was a founding member of NORBAG and Vikki edited the newsletter for many years), Terri and Carolyn have continued to explore. The collection now includes 27 handcrafted, themed, limited edition calendars and four limited edition books.
Here is a sample of some of the wonderful calendars Carolyn will share with us.
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| Discarded medical record folders were transformed into a rainbow edged concertina, with pockets, to explore Transformations. |
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| A dozen favorite quotations were illustrated with collage in star book form for May We Quote You? |
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| Individual miniature works of art illustrate 24 facets of the plant world, with each page in this tyvek binding unfolding to provide hints about what inspired us. |
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| What if? takes a tour around France and explores a different use of the Cricut machine each month, chronicling our successes, failures and discoveries along the way. |
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| Not quite a word a day, Logophilia illustrates a word every 2-3 days with a handmade object or game inspired by a specific date. |
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| Though the majority of the calendars are spiral or comb bound, like these, they come in a variety of shapes, and incorporate lots of interesting paper structures and techniques within. |
Remember...there is NO workshop for our February meeting, but we will have a wonderful show-and-tell and of course our Valentine exchange cards.
When: Saturday, February 11 at 10 a.m. PST
Where: On your computer, tablet or smartphone via Zoom
RSVP: Yes, to Dolores Guffey by Feb. 6 to receive the password
Zoom questions: Bobbie Hayes
Contact information is in the newsletter.
More Calendars
As long as we're featuring calendars this month, we have another NORBAG member who has made a lot of calendars through the years. Vivienne Bruce, our member (since 2001) from Victoria, B.C., Canada made the calendars featured in this month's kiosk display at the Humboldt County Library in Eureka, CA. For several years Vivienne participated in our holiday card exchange with a calendar using a unique design and technique every year. Each calendar is printed in both French and English and she often included information from the Chinese Lunar Calendar into her designs.
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