fall down seven, stand up eight!

Give us the fortitude to endure the things which cannot be changed, and the courage to change the things which should be changed, and the wisdom to know one from the other.
~ Oliver J. Hart

I have been busy working on a few projects over the last few weeks
I am sorry that I can not share with you this book in its entirety, but I can share with you some of my creative process when I work on a large or small project.

for the most part I do start with a pallet... almost always have a theme be it a poem or image in the case it was the photos of my grandmother that I used as a starting point.
then I picked out some fabrics, I then begin to pull objects that complemented my theme

I have a vast collection of carved mammoth ivory, bone, and wood beads and a amazing netsuke collection that I pulled onto the mix. I could not stop myself so I add some vintage lace!

I sorted through my rubber stamp collection and put out some words that could be used, I pulled a old Japanese book off of my book shelf and I scaled down the size of my images and printed them out on silk and transparencies.

Now once I start working I get lost in the process so there are no photos to share but for the most part I will lay out all of my spreads play with them a little then I decided how I will connect all the parts together.

Now in the end this book has 10 pages counting the front cover and is compiled of four signatures
I also had to make up four spacers because my pages are very thick.


Here they are all stacked up so I can mark were my holes need to be punched out

and here is the view of all the signatures ready to be bind.

I used waxed linen thread and a needle because the binding was so thick

I also needed to use my awl to help me find my way to the end of each hole.

and here is my completed binding of this book.

and this is what the side view of the book looked like before I added a cleaver closer to keep the book under control!

in the end I would say that I only used about 20% of the supplies that I laid out from the "pallet" that I created and this is true of most of my work I tend to start out with a lot of possibility's then really edit things down and try to tell a story with my work.

Here are the last 2 pages of the book the image is one of my grandmother laying down on the grass and I could now help but use one of my favorite Japanese Proverbs:

" Fall down seven, Stand up eight"


Because in the end its always about Courage!

"I have lived on a razors edge. So what if you fall off,
I'd rather be doing something I really wanted to do. I'd walk it again."
~Georgia O'Keefe


Keep your fears to yourself, but share your courage with others.
~Robert Louis Stevenson