From the Christmas Gnomes

Christmas gnomes ttv photo. There are a few more in my flickr ttv set. If you like ttv check out the flickr group. However you celebrate the holidays, remember to enjoy the people you love, and who love you.

Book Arts Jam 2009

A few photos of my "Simple Wire Edge Binding" demo for the Book Arts Jam. Taken with a Brownie Hawkeye camera. It was also World Toy Camera Day.


Jim stood on a table to take the first two shots. The film is Tri-X, respooled onto 620 spools. Processed in D-76 in my garage.


Before the demo - looking at the samples.

Peninsula Art Museum Opening

Some photos from the opening, taken with a Brownie Hawkeye camera. Ilford Delta 3200, developed in D-76.

A box, a hole, some photo paper - Magic!

Tyrannosaurus photoventris, ©2009, 7 x 4 x 6.5 inches. That's a lens cap/shutter on his navel. He takes pinhole photos of the late Cretaceous using paper negatives.

My two brass pinhole cameras, some of my old snapshot camera collection, my funky pinhole cameras and one of my father's cameras will be shown in the collections room of the Peninsula Art Museum until November 22nd. You can also see photos from some of the cameras. The funky pinhole and snapshot cameras are the inspiration for my brass pinhole cameras. My childhood memories of my dad's darkroom are the beginnings of my interest in photography.


A photo of the late Cretaceous, taken by Tyrannosaurus photoventris. This photo is groundbreaking in many ways. It is, of course, one of the first photos of the late Cretaceous. And it also reveals a surprising first sighting of Godzilla!


The Memorycam is the first pinhole camera I made. It uses photo paper as film and takes photos of memories.


Memory 436, taken by Memory cam.


A few of my snap shot cameras and one of my ttv contraptions. From left to right: Baby Brownie, Sabre 620, an Anscoflex with a gutter pipe contraption, Ansco Shur Shot, Traveler 120.


A photo from the Traveler 120. When I get a new camera I put film in it and rush out into our garden to try it out. This was also an experiment in creating sepia toning in Photoshop. I develop the black and white film myself, then scan it into my computer.

The show is up now, and runs through November 22nd, 2009. The opening is September 13, from 1 to 4. You may know this museum as Twin Pines. It is located at 10 Twin Pines Lane, Belmont, California 94002. Hours are Wednesday-Friday 12 - 4, Saturday, Sunday, 1 - 4.

The Book Arts Jam - show your work or attend and have a ball

I am working on a project I want to finish by the end of the month, so I haven't been posting. But I wanted to tell you about the Book Arts Jam, which happens in Los Altos, California, US.


The deadline to apply for a table at the 2009 BABA Book Arts Jam is July 31. Speaking as a member of BABA, I'd love to have you exhibit and/or sell at our eighth annual fun, educational, lively, interesting, event. For info click here. Please note that in these days of high priced crafts fairs, the Jam is free to those who attend ($2 for parking). The cost of renting a table is $50.00 if you will be selling your work at the Jam and $25.00 if you will be exhibiting/demonstrating only.


Mark your calendar for Book Arts Jam 2009, Saturday, October 17th, 10 - 4 pm. This years Jam is our 8th Annual Regional Celebration of the Book Arts, Print Arts and Paper Arts. The Jam is sponsored by the Bay Area Book Artists and Foothill College. For event program, schedule and directions, be sure to visit the Book Arts Jam web site.

Open Studios Photos

The forecourt of the Zymoglyphic Museum. The Museum is in the yellow shed at the right, my studio is through the gate.


Another view of the forecourt.


My studio.


Some of my dinosaurs and Godzillas.


Some of our visitors. I loved getting to talk to people about the book arts. I have a new, and supposedly better camera, but it's too much for me. . . In these indoor shots I got a lot of noise, and I have no idea what I did wrong.





This was a very successful year for us. The weather was nice, there were lots of people, all in all a great weekend. There is a set of photos on flickr with more views.

Open Studios Part 2

Bird Life ©2009 - 2.75 inches high. My original drawing was scanned and resized in Photoshop. I used a Canon Pixma inkjet printer to print it on either Wassau Cottonwood or Balsa. The cover is museum board and Thai banana paper. $10. Click on either book title to see more views of the book.

As part of the BABA book share meeting, we exchange simple books. The only requirement is that they are (sort of) under 3 inches in any direction. This has inspired me to think about making fairly quick, paper books. Of course, nothing I make is really quick. Whether I spend many hours in Photoshop or actually cutting out parts, they seem to be time consuming. I will have a few of these books for sale during Open Studios this year.


Where Am I? ©2009 - 4.25 inches high. This book was inspired by my 64th birthday. I used a Canon Pixma inkjet printer to print it on 100% cotton paper. The cover is cardstock. $5.

In my previous post I omitted the most important piece of information: a location. So here it is:
A map to Studio 19 is here.

Photos of our previous open studios here.

And check out the Zymoglyphic Museum curator's blog entry for Open Studios. I love his poetic writing.

Open Studios and Free Stuff

The members of Studio 19 (myself and the Zymoglyphic Museum) will be participating in Silicon Valley Open Studios May 16 and 17, between 11am and 5pm.

I will be giving away 20 copies of my one sheet artist's book, "My Studio" (shown above) to the first 20 people.

We will also have some interesting stuff to give away: old books, found objects, old comic books, magazines, basically the kind of junk artists collect.

Added 4/27: You can find a map for Studio 19 here. And photos of our previous open studios here.

Making a brass box for a pinhole camera

I'm working on this box. It's 3 inches tall and 2.25 inches on each side. At first I couldn't get enough heat from my acetylene/air torch to solder on the bottom.


Here's the solution. The walls and base are solderite pads. I can build a lot of heat around the back left corner of the brass box.

Another take on Spirits under glass

Recently we went to the de young museum to enjoy the ethnographic collection. Jim is particularly a fan of the New Guinea works. I have come to appreciate them more and more by seeing them through his eyes. I took my Gameboy camera, and he took our "big" digital camera. Photography is allowed, but no flash or tripods.

My de Young flickr photoset is here.

Jim wrote a very thoughtful blog entry about the visit. An excerpt:

"Encased in the sleekly modern architecture of the museum we see organic figurines, made of wood, clay, stone, or feathers, once living spiritual objects, extracted from dying cultures, forever frozen in action in their vitrines."

Worldwide Pinhole Photography Day

World Wide Pinhole Photography Day is on April 26th this year. This poster will be available on the website for download.

Now is the time to make sure you have your gear together. And it doesn't have to be a film image, you could make a solargraph. There are lots of links on the WPPD site under "resources." A few more links:
Solargraphy on Flickr
Diego Lopez Calvin's beautiful solargraphs.


Memory 436 - the image I submitted to WPPD two years ago. It was made in my MemoryCam. I used a paper negative which was developed and scanned into my computer. It's semi-digital.

Free For All!

Dreaming made Easy, included in Free For All, an exhibit of downloadable artist's books at Fiji Island Mermaid Press. If you have a computer and a printer, you can have, for free, books made by eight talented artists. It's a fantastic show - wonderfully varied and inspiring. Below is Marc Snyder's press release:

"The Fiji Island Mermaid Press is proud to present “FREE FOR ALL”. This online exhibition of artist’s books invites the viewer to download and assemble the books on display. The eight artists who have created books for this exhibition are Pati Bristow, Ginger Burrell, Warren Craghead III, Marti Haykin, Adele Henderson, Robert Hirsch, Judith Hoffman, and Marc Snyder. The exhibition will remain online indefinitely.

Each book in the show is available as a downloadable file. The viewer typically prints no more than one or two pages of artwork and text, which are then trimmed, folded, and cut to create miniature books. The artists have provided instructions for the viewer for the entire process.

The exhibition explores the boundary between cyberspace and “the real world”, as the show is only finished when the visitor to the site has downloaded and assembled his or her own books. Essentially, the exhibit exists wherever someone creates their own collection of books.

Brief biographical and professional information about each participating artist accompanies the artist’s book in the online exhibition. Links to view more of his or her artwork are also included.

For additional information about “FREE FOR ALL”, please contact Marc Snyder at marc@fimp.net"

Judy Times

From Sally Cruikshank's blog, here's a font generating web site that will make a free font in your handwriting. Download a template, write your letters on it, scan it, upload, and presto-chango! you have your own font. Imagine making a "handwritten" artist's book on the computer.


There is a part 2 of the template that allows to to make unusual characters - like an "a" with a tilde over it. Instead I made some dingbats. Warning: I couldn't find a way to type all the characters on their template, so I only filled in the ones that I knew I would be able to find later. I'm using a character palette app that comes with the mac.

Am I a Gamer?

Synasthesia, (check out his photo set Abandoned Haven) on flickr, asked me "I am curious how you came about your decision to experiment with your GBC (Gameboy camera). Are you a gamer?"


Two Jennifers, taken in 1999, probably scanned from the Gameboy Color.

I am a gamer, sort of. My gaming experience goes back to Pacman on my son's computer. When I tried my nephew's Tetris on the old grey brick Gameboy, I was hooked on the Nintendo. I was happy with Tetris for years. Then I got hooked on the Zelda games. I do have a few other games, but don't play them much. There are times when complete absorption in solving puzzles is a nice distraction from the stress of life. I also like to read, knit or watch movies in the evening, so I don't think of myself as a hardcore gamer.


Jeffrey, taken in 1999, probably scanned from the Gameboy Color.

About 9 years ago I bought my first gameboy camera on ebay. They seemed expensive when they first came out, so I was pleased to find a used one. I took some photos and scanned them into my computer, but then did nothing with them. Recently I was asked to participate in an online exhibit of downloadable, assemble-it-yourself artist's books. I have been experimenting with ttv and pinhole photography, so the Gameboy seemed like a good camera to use to make a quick trial book. (The exhibit will be going online soon, I'll announce it here.)


Florence - my 92 year old mother-in-law.

The simplicity of the Gameboy photos make me focus on the big picture (pun intended - the Gameboy picture is tiny on the screen) and details are not relevant. I find it all freeing in some way. It's a camera I carry around to take quick snapshots. They doesn't have to be straight or perfect. It's a moment in my life. Sometimes it's a moment of thinking "those old chairs are actually appealing in a rustic way." Or "that ladder looks beautiful in the sun." Or that moment of tenderness you sometimes feel when you look at people you love.


Jim and Florence

Gameboy Camera Tutorial

Two chairs, taken with Japanese version of Gameboy camera.

I put a five page Gameboy camera tutorial on my website. Since then I have discovered the Japanese version of the camera. As you can see above, the images are four shades of brownish orange, not the green and blue of the American version below.


The sun creeping across the floor.


Same image in greyscale.

Solargraphy

My first solargraph scan.

Joanne Koltnow sent me a link to an site on solargraphy. It's such an amazing process. You expose a piece of photographic paper in a pinhole camera for a long time - weeks or months - depending on the size of your pinhole and your patience. Then you remove the paper in dim light and scan it. No chemicals! Repeated scanning degrades the image pretty quickly.

The images can be expressive and dreamy. Great potential for an artist's book. They are negatives, but can easily be inverted with photo editing software.


Second scan. I didn't make notes, but I think I hit the "auto" setting this time. Also made the selected area smaller to keep the scanner from running so long and shining excess light on the paper. The third scan was terrible - I increased the resolution so much that the scanner kept pausing, which made bands as the paper got bluer. My fourth scan was a much darker blue, and most of the details were gone.

All these images are from one piece of photo paper. I took them with my oatmeal pinhole camera, the pinhole was about .33 mm.

Neo-Vintage Photography workshop

Karen takes a digital photo.

The first Sunday of this month, Linda Stinchfield and I presented some techniques and gadgets -- ttv (through the viewfinder), Gameboy, Lensbaby, and zoneplate/digital pinhole -- to the Bay Area Book Artists. It was a fun day, and I think we piqued some interest.


Karen, Meggie and Diane working on a set-up.


Part of the enthusiastic BABA group.


Joanne is an accomplished photographer. On the left is a contraption I made from expanding gutter material.


People brought treasured toys and objects to photograph. They seemed to say a lot about their owners.


All these toys have both obvious and more subtle meanings.


Isn't he sweet?


An Ansco Panda. It has a medium sized viewfinder, isn't it nice looking?