Dear Everyone ~
Bookful of Travel is my fifteenth Bookful collaboration with artist, author & dear friend Cat Bennett. Our four-session workshop via Zoom will begin on Saturday, January 18.
Here are some delightful & insightful musings from Cat about her approach to creating a travelogue:
“When I sat down to create an entry in my book about travel, I remembered a long journey I had taken when I was an 18-year-old student from Montreal to a tiny German island in the North Sea. I started to write then stopped and searched for maps and images of the island online. I was surprised to see how the island had changed in the many intervening years. I searched for older images and found one to make a drawing of. Making the drawing released a flood of new memories.”
Cat reflects, “Perhaps the visual mind stores pictures of what the busy verbal mind might more easily forget. Without images, my writing would be thinner. Without words, the images would tell only the sensory side of the story. I’ve discovered that going between writing and drawing makes our memories sing and reveals stories we didn’t fully know were there. I so look forward to exploring this process with everyone in our Bookful class.”
Students will make a landscape-format accordion book with drop-spine hard covers. The book measures 5¼" x 7¼" x 1¼", and includes two different types of pocket. Your accordion panel-block does not attach directly to the front cover and spine; instead, a vertical pocket inside the back cover holds your panel-block in place for ease of use and beauty of display. The back pocket also enables you to insert a fresh accordion panel-block for subsequent traipsing & traversing. A diagonal pocket on the inside front cover handily holds postage and ephemera, musings and miscellany.
I was recently in the U.K. with Zak (an extremely bittersweet family trip). It was so comforting to collect every imaginable papery bit that presented itself, from little waxy bakery bags to a parking violation, to museum maps and autumn leaves.
The kitful of materials I’ve assembled for this Bookful features decorative papers for your covers, which I discovered on my trip. You will choose from three patterns: Delft Stripe, Ikat Rose, and Cabana. You’ll make your pockets from complementary Canford solids, and your panel-block from Stonehenge.
In weeks #2, #3 & #4, Cat will begin the workshop sessions with a curated slideshow of inspirations. We’ll see how several contemporary artists & illustrators go about making images with a sense of place. We’ll talk about which approach might work best for our pages and how we can combine various kinds of image-making in our stories. Cat will then lead the class in painting & drawing & collage exercises using a range of mediums.
To celebrate our fifteenth Bookful, every kit will include a glassine sleeveful of: papers large enough to hand-fold envelopes for attaching to your pages; exquisite scraps for embellishing your collages; a few petite glassines for collecting the tiniest of things—and an assortment of waxed-linen threads you can use to stitch bits of ephemera into the folds of your accordion panel-block.
If you’re inspired by our Bookful theme—whether to document upcoming or recent travels—or if you’d simply like to make a book about a particular adventure, we want to encourage you to join us on this bookmaking journey. Whether you are anticipating or reminiscing, this Bookful will envelop you with joie de voyage.
Nota bene: If you are a Bookful newcomer, we can assure you that no drawing or bookbinding experience is necessary—all levels of artistic skill & enthusiasm are welcome! The pace is peaceful, and the camaraderie is delightful. Plus, you will have four complete workshop videos (recorded in real time) to watch and rewatch at your leisure. We look forward to beginning the new year with you via Zoom!
Bookful of Travel
Across the pondering, Bari
PS:
A Petite Surprise for Everyone whose binder’s dozenth Bookful (or 14th or 15th!) this will be: Your kit(s) will ship with a bonbon bag of thirteen little BZS treats, to use or mail or gift.
