HOLIDAY CARDS & MARE BLOCKER EXHIBITION

The NORBAG Holiday Card exchange on Dec. 13 was great for both local and out-of-town members again this year. About 20 members were at the Zoom meeting and 13 went to Sandy V's house for the local event. The cards were shared at both events and even members who had not participated shared some of the holiday art they were working on. Photographs of the 2025 holiday cards are in our Flickr gallery.

The following "peace" cards are from past holiday exchanges. They are currently on display in the kiosk at the Humboldt County Library.

Mare Blocker Exhibition

The current exhibition in the Sherry Grover Gallery at BIMA (Bainbridge Island Museum of Art) features work by Mare Blocker, a Washington book artist. Here is what she said about this exhibit that will remain until February 15.

"For this series of artist's books, I have used repurposed paper and paintings loved ones had left for me, and mixed it with older bits I had gleaned for recycle bins in the academic institutions I have worked in." 

"Having a retrospective is a chance to look back to see my event horizons and the layers a life of images has built."

DRUM LEAF & BIMA

 The July workshop taught by Judy Detrick was instruction on how to make a book using a break-away Drum Leaf binding. Although we didn't quite make it all the way through finishing the binding, Judy was very thorough in her demonstrations and told us how to find more instructions on the binding. Sherrill Story shared the following photos of her finished book.

Back to Nature at BIMA

If you happen to be in the area of Bainbridge Island, Washington be sure to visit the Bainbridge Island Museum of Art (BIMA) to see the current exhibit titled Back to Nature. Here is a sample of some of the beautiful books on display upstairs in the Sherry Grover Gallery. This exhibit will be up through September 21.

Anthology of Sky by Susan Collard

Unwinding Through Time - Bark Beetle Book Vol XX
by Suze Woolf

Butterfly Books No. 1,2,3,& 4
by Roberto Benavidez

Book of Bones by Velma Bolyard

Birdsong: Boreal Chickadee
by Andie Thrams

Spring Spells by Hazel Monte

Stitching the Forest Together
by Lucia Harrison and Deborah Greenwood

Ethereal Vines by Islam Aly

Old Growth: Beneath the Forest Floor II
by Lucia Harrison

amendment by Elizabeth Banfield

Backcountry Series: Quiet Wild
by Andie Thrams

Backcountry Series: Just Like Us
by Andie Thrams

GIRDLE BOOK & COLETTE FU

At the April NORBAG workshop we made Girdle books (not really related to the kind of girdles that are worn as foundation garments 😉). The design for our books came from structures used during the middle ages that hung down from a person's belt. In this day and age, this type of book would work great as a nature journal where one could have their hands free, but the book would be very accessible. Lara Cox was our instructor and she did a great job leading us through this project. Now that we know the basics of how this structure works, it will be very interesting to see if our members come up with some other interpretations of the design. Thank you Lara for introducing us to this historical structure. Below are a couple of examples of books made during the workshop.

Sherrill Story

Sherrill's husband demonstrated
 how to wear her book.

Bonnie Julien

Inside cover of Bonnie's book.

Colette Fu

In November 2023 the Bainbridge Island Museum of Art (BIMA) welcomed artist Colette Fu for a month-long residency. Fu's work is a melding of her photography and pop-up engineering. Featured below are some of the books that were exhibited in the Sherry Grover gallery.

The legend is that Butterfly Mother gave birth
to 12 eggs, the origin of all living things.

Miao Fishing Contest

RADIAL HINGE BOOK & BIMA

Our September workshop, taught by Kit Davey, provided us with a completely new structure to play with. This circular book, with pages that rotated 360 degrees, was easy to make once we were taught how the hinges work. NORBAG members can view the recording of this workshop and anyone else interested in this structure can check out Kit's website at  https://www.found-object-art.com/, to see if she might teach it again. It will be fun to see if our members use this structure in future book exchanges. Here are a few examples from the workshop.

Mary Conley

Edge Gerring

Bonnie Julien

Thank you Kit for showing us a new structure to play with.

Currently on display in the Sherry Grover gallery at the Bainbridge Island Museum of Art (BIMA) in Washington is "Sound Stories: Group Exhibition of Artists' Books".  This exhibit will run through September 24. The following photos are a small sample of the books in the exhibition.

 

Lucia Harrison
Consider What's Lost II

Mare Blocker
Accordion Queen

An Gates
Leonardo da Vinci's Platonic Solids

Debbi Commodore
Take a Moment

Deborah Greenwood
The Land