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?

BABA book share meeting in gameboy camera photos

Thursday we met for the bimonthly book share meeting.




Lots of interesting discussion, before, during and after the meeting.


There is always a little time for socializing.







We meet in a Foothill college classroom, this one seems to be a geography class.




The hallway. Cubberly is a typical California grade school (now decommissioned). The halls are covered walkways, but open to the air.
You can view larger version of these photos here.

Added January 24: Actually Cubberly was a high school, the grade school is nearby.