Book Arts Jam - mission accomplished.

Welcome book jammers!!! It was nice meeting all of you at the book art jam. What a fabulous experience!!! So many interesting and engaged people to share ideas with. Awesome. Much to my surprise I was given two round tall tables instead of a 5 foot rectangle at dining height. Panic ensued! How will this work? Well, we artists can adapt. Right? Right. Actually the height worked well for altered books, it put them right at a good reading level. Only the short visitors had problems looking at them.

I had on display the books, What's Love Got to Do With It, Pleasure of Ruins, White Crosses, My Fair Lady, The Bookmakers (otherwise known as Doors and Windows), Headaches, and Surviving. Some of these were made a couple years ago, but I have never shown my books there before, so I wanted to show a variety - even though I had to leave just as many books home. I also tossed in a couple fabric books at the last minute and was pleasantly surprised how many people held and caressed them. Photos of these works can be found on my picture trail site www.picturetrail.com/artsngardens. The photo of me shows some of the books on the table. I made new little keepsake business cards for the show and I know they will now be living in studios around the area, like little muses to remind you how much fun you can have with your art.

Here are some photos of the day. This is only one room - I never got around to meet everyone or see the other tables or the other rooms. You will note in the photos how interactive a day it was. Everyone shared a common passion in one form or another, and having a venue where we could be together was brilliant. I didn't get to the presentations, I was kept pretty busy chatting and enjoying meeting other book artists who stopped by. If you were there as a visitor, you probably saw a lot more than I did. A photographer was documenting the event and took pictures all over the room. I am not sure what will become of them - but perhaps it will be on their website later. I hope so, because I missed a lot of what was going on. The colorful young man here is Eli from Monterey who was there taking a class that day. I just alter books, he has altered himself! Sorry the lighting and focus were so bad for this Eli!

The book rests worked perfectly. Many thanks to my friend Rosemary who sewed 5 of them using ribbons to tie the ends. Very nice!!! My friends Nancy and Sally were there too, their first time selling some of their new products. Some of our friends from California Art Girls were there and some from Mixed Media Artists of California came down from Sacramento for the day. It was a good day all around. Now, about next year....... hmmmmm.......