Author Archives: ruthek

Amazing how quickly time passes

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All the books were finished in October, but I didn’t get my copies until the middle of December.

Here is a picture I received in October of the finished books.

WSW celebrated its 50th anniversary in November, which accounts for the delay. As a recent resident I was mentioned and pictured in some of their promotional material. The local NPR station, WAMC, published a story here. HYPERALLERGIC published a long piece here and used my picture at the top.

HYPERALLERGIC made me 2 years older and WAMC went down a rabbit hole about older women being invisible, which had nothing to do with my book. Unfortunately WSW went down the same rabbit hole but also gave me a nice write-up here.

In the meantime I visited the Newberry Library and found a book structure I want to use. Not sure exactly what I want in it, but I’m stuck on how to make it. I’ve looked at it and photographed it three times at the library but I will have to make at least one more visit. More about this latest obsession next time.

Back to reality, but not finished

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I’m back in Chicago. My experience at the residency was wonderful and I loved every minute. I loved being with all of the younger women, the change in my routine was great and the need to work full days, no naps, was stimulating and energizing.

I still have one more decision before the book is finished by Chris Petrone and the great people at WSW. The cover image and color remain a question. We began with this sample and played with different paper colors and whether the image should be positive or negative.

Finally decided to go with blue, but which blue and again positive or negative remains to be seen. Chris ordered the paper and will send a printed sheet to me for the final decision.

Last day

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Tomorrow I go home. There are still a few things to decide about the cover, which makes me a little unhappy. I spent time today scoring; tedious, labor intensive work that has to be done right or the books won’t fold properly.

The ruler is lined up with the hash marks and the bone folder is pulled twice against the ruler creasing the paper and insuring a clean fold. Each sheet gets scored in 19 places. After all of the scoring is finished the sheet will be cut, each book will be folded individually and hash marks will be trimmed off.

Books will probably not be completed for another month. A plate will be made to do the letterpress printing on the cover. It will then be diecut, scored, folded and the text block will be inserted into the cover. Women’s Studio Workshop will handle sales and distribution.

Next step

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All of the books are signed. They will be numbered after all of the scoring, folding and trimming is finished and we know how many books are actually completed. Sixty books were printed; we are hoping to get at least 50. Scoring and folding are done by hand. Trimming can be done in a more mechanized fashion.

Vertical lines are guides for scoring and folding. Horizontal lines are trimming guides. All will be trimmed off.

We are still working on the cover. It will be letterpress printed, diecut, scored and folded. Final decisions wil have to be made tomorrow or Saturday before I go home. Here are pictures of some of the sample prints and the printing press.

Women’s Studio Workshop

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Located within a small group of houses next to the Wallkill rail trail in Ulster County New York, these two buildings house printmaking, paper making and ceramic studios. I have been working in the bindery and will also be in the printing studio when we work on the cover of my book. I am living in a house just down the road.

In the nineteenth century this area produced Rosendale cement, which was used in such famous landmarks as the Brooklyn Bridge. Today the quarries are evidently covered in water and all that remains is a chimney, kilns and a few other stone ruins.

I have been walking on the Wallkill Trail, much different experience than my daily walks in Pittsburgh during the covid lockdown and my recent walks in my new neighborhood in Chicago.

What’s next?

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Most of the work to bind the book will be done by someone other than me. Each of those sheets are about 70 inches long and have four books printed on them. There are 15 sheets plus three test sheets. The sheets will be cut by hand. None of the mechanical cutters is long enough to take the entire sheet.

The finished book will be an accordion inserted into a folded, diecut cover. After the first cut is made the sheets will be scored to insure the folds are made at the proper distances.. All of this will be done by hand–a huge amount of work. After scoring each sheet will be cut again by hand in the long direction. Finally the books will be folded and trimmed. I will not be doing any of this. All of it will be done by the wonderful people at the Women’s Studio Workshop.

Most of my work was done before I came to the Workshop. I created the pictures and I hand wrote the captions. Now I am here to make decisions: the color of the paper, the color of the ink and the picture used on the cover. I created a line drawing from one of the photos but we are not sure it will work. The cover will be letterpress printed and the plate requires a particular kind of image. I don’t have an answer on that yet.

I will also be signing each book. We are hoping for a yield of fifty books. The thought of signing my name fifty times is daunting. Each book will also be numbered and a record kept of the purchaser or recipient.

Sometimes Amazing Things Happen

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The Women’s Studio Workshop in Kingston, New York, noted for publishing artist’s books, is publishing one of my books. I am amazed this is happening, that I am here for a residency, that anyone is paying attention to this old lady. We did half of the work online. planning the book, deciding which pictures to use in what order and finally I hand wrote the captions. The inside of the book was printed and we picked it up today. Now for the cover.

My images with Chris Petrone from WSW, who will do all the cutting, folding and cover-making.

On A Roll–More Books

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Raja kept a blog for many years. In fact she inspired me to start a blog. Her blog was smart, funny and filled with incisive observations about herself and her environment. While I continue to write for a minute audience, Raja stopped in 2014 and deleted her blog..

We both left Chicago about the same time: Raja to live in Kentucky; New Jersey and finally Pittsburgh for me. Over the years we met frequently but not the last four or five years. Raja returned to Chicago at the beginning of the year and I was sure we would get together again but Raja died unexpectedly. I went looking for her blog and finally found about half of it in the Internet Archive. I put whatever I could find into this book and gave it to her family.

The book is bound with hand-made printed paper; flowers and beads for Jan.

While I was working on Raja’s book the Supreme Court killed off Roe v. Wade, effectively making all women second class citizens. My anger knows no bounds and an idea I’ve been playing with for many years came to fruition.

The book has a drum leaf binding. There is no actual title but it should be ANGER. The spine is covered in book cloth. Images on the covers are printed on Strathmore Bright White Wove and painted with Matte Medium to protect the ink. Digital collage was done in Photoshop and Affinity Photo.

More Books

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I started keeping a blog in 2005 on a platform called Live Journal. It was called Moving Music and was about my move from Fort Lee, New Jersey to Pittsburgh. At the end of the year, move completed, I began blogging at Typepad so that I could add photos and changed the name to Fat Old Artist. My friends said I wasn’t fat, which I was–much fatter at that time; that I wasn’t old–Ha Ha. No one said anything about the artist part; that was the one I wondered about–am I really an artist?

I haven’t moved from Pittsburgh but the blog moved to WordPress and the name changed to Studio Ruthe after I found a link to the blog on a site about fat lady porn. Sometime in 2013 I stopped writing much about my life, started writing about the books and changed the name to 100 Books Before I Die. Pictured above are books number 104 to 110–the blogs in book form through August 2012.

This has been a big lesson in book creation. Translating content from simple chronology to double sided pages in signatures is not easy. Each book has five signatures with six folios in each signature–a total of 30 leaves and 120 pages. This is an arbitrary size that worked out pretty well. Signatures are sewn over tapes and open almost flat. My technique improved with each book. If I make 4 or 5 more (which won’t happen), I should be an expert. The last one opens beautifully, but I didn’t get the spine glued straight. Two more books are in the works. One continues from where this left off and awaits more content. The other will have a different format and be about the books.