Dear Everyone ~

'Tis the week before Christmas, and I have just completed 12 Months of Blank Books covered in sumptuous Serizawa calendar pages from years past. This is an opportunity to wrap your thoughts in your birthday month or another month you favour.

Whenever I'm making a book (or a box), I'm always delighted to discover, or re-discover, how differently various papers behave for: scoring, folding, cutting, tucking, and adhering. Some of the Serizawa calendar pages are from 1962, so they are over half a century old. The mulberry paper is exquisitely tactile. It is still incredibly pliable and strong, even after so many press runs (one colour at a time) under great pressure.

I bought my Serizawa calendars for years and years from Aiko's Art Materials in Chicago, founded by Aiko Nakane in the mid-50s. She gradually turned over the running of the shop to Chuck Izui, who maintained an extraordinary and inspiring inventory of Japanese paper pleasures and treasures until 2008. In addition to my almost countless fond memories of times in the shop, I will always "channel" Aiko and Chuck's sensibilities when I open the drawers of the card cabinet Chuck gave me when Aiko's closed. The cabinet now anchors my postcard wall and displays usable vintage postage packets and various other papery things.

Over the years, I have used pages from the Serizawa calendars to make bags in which to present flat and flattish things. I recently decided to "dedicate" a dozen pages to make a set of buttonhole stitch blank books. The covers are from various years, and do not correspond to 2019 in terms of days of the week. But they are truly swoonderful and, as far as I know, unique. If you are able to come by, you are welcome to experience (and gently pat) them in person.

View the entire year here!

Arigato,

Bari