Category Archives: Handmade Books

Loves Me/Not – An Artists’ Book About Love and Loss

Posted on June 23, 2011 | 2 comments

Part of the BFA series, “Always Reborn,” this structure is one of my favorites. The accordion book has fold up leaves to create pockets and features the reoccurring motif of a daisy – who hasn’t plucked those petals at least once? Designing the structure was a labor of love and precision – for some reason it felt important that the daisy be in the front and back of the pockets so that when you pull out a story, the daisies are still complete.

We’ve all felt them, the rollercoaster ups of being in love and the screaming downhills of being hurt. Loves Me/Not is a collection of 12 real stories gathered from women of all ages about times that they felt loved and times that they felt hurt, betrayed, and left behind.

The stories are tender, poignant and funny. Here is just one of the stories included in Loves Me/Not:

My ex-boyfriend and I decided to call it quits. I wanted to make things work, he was my first love and  I thought we were meant to be together. I still remember calling him that Sunday to talk about our relationship and hearing him
say, “I’m sorry,  I love you, but it’s just too hard.”  I remember feeling my throat go dry, I was completely speechless. I actually felt like my heart had  stopped beating. The days following our breakup I couldn’t eat and I cried myself to sleep at night. This was my first experience with heartbreak.

Loves Me/Not is archival inkjet printed on Rives BFK and is an edition of 10.

~Ginger

www.gingerburrell.com

2 Comments

Posted in Art, Artists' Books, Handmade Books, Photography

Tagged , , , , ,

Empty – An Artists’ Book About Infertility

Posted on June 22, 2011 | 1 comment

Like many women, I struggle with infertility. And, like many artists, I make art about those topics which are the hardest, and the most important, to explore. For my BFA show last year I made a series of women’s figures and artists’ books titled, “Always Reborn.” The show explored issues particular to women’s experiences including infertility, family, love, and violence against women.

The books that I made for the show have been shown in galleries since then, but I realized that they weren’t quite yet in their final form. The wax covers were not realistic for handling and there were small changes that I needed to make to bring the book into the full focus of my original vision. Whereas I originally started with the women’s form and then added the book, I realized the book was all that is needed, the form became secondary.

I’ve been working on the final versions and am finally ready to release them into the world. Empty is one in a series of four books: Empty, I’m Telling You Now, Loves Me/Not and Family Circle.

Empty explores infertility using the universal display of family photos. As my mother, my grandmother, and many mothers have before me, I imagined a display on the mantel of photos of my children: baby photos, first-day-of-school photos, graduation and wedding photos. Empty displays the frames sans photos. The lullabies I’ve hummed countless times to imaginary children weave through the book in a faded, almost transparent soundtrack.

Edition of 10, archival inkjet printed on Rives BFK.

~Ginger

www.gingerburrell.com

1 Comment

Posted in Art, Artists' Books, Handmade Books

Tagged , , , , ,

Making Artists’ Books with Polymer Clay – A New Class at Palo Alto Art Center

Posted on June 20, 2011 | 4 comments

I’ve been fascinated by the possible uses of polymer clay in artists books since I first used it for the jesters hat on my artists’ book King George.

My next use of polymer clay was as candy piece covers for my artists’ book Love/Chocolate:

Now, in preparation for teaching a class through Palo Alto Art Center, I’ve made sample books with polymer clay covers, decorative medallions and entire books made only from polymer clay. I’ve found it to be a flexible and interesting medium and one that allows me to create almost anything I can imagine for artists’ books.

The first book, Tropical Dreams, has a polymer clay medallion mounted on the cover of an accordion book. The clay medallion was made using a series of fondant (like for cake icing) molds and then glazed with a satin glaze after baking.

The second book, Lace Journal, was made by debossing the lace pattern into the clay using a pasta press and then emphasizing the pattern with fluid chalks. The polymer clay panels are then glued onto a pamphlet stitched book made of Rives BFK.

The last book, Tea at Grandmother’s,  is made entirely of polymer clay panels. After marbling two colors of purple with some green clay, I cut out 6 panels and baked them. I stamped the black images onto the clay using Staz-On ink and baked the panels again. To make the images part of the panels I painted them with liquid clay, which turned translucent after a third baking. Finally, I cut black panels the same size as the original marbled panels and embedded, between the sets of panels, two black ribbons the length of the book. The black ribbon acts as hinges for the finished accordion and went through the final baking process just fine.

There are so many more techniques to play with, I can hardly wait! I think a 5 week class is going to fly by and leave us wanting more time to play with the clay. If you’re interested, the 5-week class runs on Wednesdays from July 6th to August 3rd, you can sign up for the class through Palo Alto Art Center by going to their website: http://enjoyonline.cityofpaloalto.org/Activities/ActivitiesDetails.asp?ProcessWait=N&aid=16471 or by calling 650-463-4900.

~Ginger

www.gingerburrell.com

4 Comments

Posted in Art, Artists' Books, Handmade Books

Tagged , , , ,