Veneering Book Coves

I'm really excited about my glue. I found some new glue that is heat activated for laminating Burl type veneers to substrates of odd shape. The glue wasn't cheap at 40 dollars a gallon. It came and I immediately tried a test out on a scrap tube. After heating up the iron, and allowing the glue to lightly dry I positioned the glued veneer onto the glued tube substrate and ironed away. It worked fabulously. Next I began on the real deal, coating the beginnings of the sculpture/book cover top and veneer, then rough cut to fit. Very exciting to have a product that worked so well and I was no free from using a very expensive vacuum press that i've been avoiding buying for years.
The Veneered book cover to the scroll I want to do, came out great, not a hitch, except for burning the tip of a finger slightly on the iron. Now for the top side...
The Japanese Tamo ash really has a topographic image to it, Its own intrinsic nature really translates into the context of these landscapes. After the top piece is laminated i'll begin to cut out the absent shapes of the snow fields and glaciers, then seal the veneer surface with a coat of polyurethane.

Veneer 101

Sweet! I got my veneer,that came last week, unpacked today and its super nice.
One sheet is a Tamo Ash from Japan and the other is a lot of plane sliced Redwood Burl. The veneer is quite exotic and will work well on the outside of the two new sculptures i've been slowly finding my way on. Its sort of hard to work in an away that is conducive to process when so much of the early fabrication involves thoughtful procedures. Gee this sounds like grad school.
This week I should get some heat activated construction adhesive for the burl veneer so I can start veneering the outer covers to the pieces. Mary's been hard at work in her studio working on some new linocut blocks and prints. we were at artist and Craftsmen shop for some new engraving blades.

Slip Covers

I finished the Slip Covers I was fabricating for the two book sculptures this week. After a few set backs with the poly finish, I was able to buff them out and yow, they feel great.
I finished the ends of with scanned topo and shaded relief maps. I was able to find in the maps to correlate with the titles of the sculptures. One is Wilderness and the other Evolution.
Now I need to finish sand all the edges and clear coat them for that Modernist appeal. Maybe i'll actually paint with color some of the inner edges of the Evolution book for more signifiers.

Evolution Book

I decide the other day that the book that is now called Evolution needed a slip cover. The name came about sence most of the imagery came from that segment of the JMT that I hiked this summer. I started off by making the cover with a 1/4 euro-ply and veneering the inside with Topographic maps of Evolution Basin. These maps were printed with my Epson 2200 printer on Matte Hahnemuhle paper. After all the insides were finished I need to decide on an exterior veneer. Hmm... that was tough, but I came up with some fine pieces of Quarter sawn Eucalyptus. Good thing I have lots of clamps. The process has taken all week with careful glueing of all the surfaces so not to get glue on sides not meant for glue.

landscape book

The book is going well but making the pages has become tedious and drawn out. Each page takes a day at least to make, thats one side of the page. Once I started to gluing down the leaves and dirt from the trail I need to press it under some heavy things like paint cans and tools.
Its been hard today to get anything done Reba has been nervous keeping an eye on Luna in the shop and studio. Luna keeps wanting to eat the scraps of paper and glue on the floor... total puppy.

Snow-ku

Snow, glorious snow!
I don't have to go to work;
I don't have a job.

Guest post
John Marsh
freelance writer, Seattle WA

In The Studio

Over the summer, I was able to experiment on journal making while I was on the trail. I wanted to explore translating the experience of the landscape into my small daily book. I have often found it hard to commit in the endeavor of Journaling for more than a couple of weeks, I would loose interest and begin working only on larger piece, or sculptures.
My Trekking trips afforded me the focus to work small and intimate. Keeping focused on 1 day at a time, I got to play with different forms of seeing and translating the environment on to the pages.
Now that the summer has passed, I’m excited to take elements from those journals and assemble them into new pieces. One in particular that I’m working on is a series of cut out’s. The shapes are of the snowfields that I encountered from the trail along the JMT. Specifically the snowfields in the Black and White Divide area of the Sierra Nevada Crest. The snowfields here feed a series of lakes, which are the photos that I use as the ground from which I cut out the snowfield shapes.
Below these, are the insects that I collected from the journeys around the vicinity of this landscape. The collected insects are sealed and preserved in small vials of alcohol.
In addition to these Snowfield cut outs, I began working on a landscape book that somewhat chronicles another section of my trek. First, I came up with a visual narrative and then cut out segments in some of the panels to represent elements in the landscape. Eight panels are to be hinged together and accordion or fold together.
I think that some of its panels will be writing from the journal entries and others will be photographs laminated to the surface, maybe dirt from the trail also.