I have been to most of the temples, shrines and gardens in Kyoto. While the family went to Fushimi Inari, which entails a lot of climbing, I went to Kamiji Kakimoto, an elegant paper store where I had made an amazing purchase on a previous trip. I bought a small roll of paper, not too expensive and easy to carry home. Only recently I began to use it for bookbinding and decided I needed more of this amazing stuff. Before I left Pittsburgh Karen Gerhart told me it was a special Kyoto paper. It is indeed special, strong and light; great for tabbing sheets together. I will be going to paper stores in Tokyo as part of the workshop I’m taking, so I only bought one other paper roll and an interesting manuscript book, intended for calligraphy but I think I will find another use for it.
I had a long walk from the subway to the store and passed antique shops, furniture shops and some other craft places. After making my purchase I had lunch in a non-fast-food place, no English, not even the prices, and I chose my lunch from the models outside the door. It had a large piece of shrimp tempura, two tempura string beans and lots of rice with possibly egg, cheese and something else. It was good, but remains a mystery.
Met the family at Konchi in Garden, a sub temple of Nanzenji. They had a great time climbing at Fushimi Inari. Charna and Robin bought fox masks, the fox being the guiding spirit for Inari shrines.
We went into the Nanzenji grounds, looked at some of the buildings and did lots of people watching. Finally took a taxi back toward Nishiki Market, walked around looking at shops, found the canal at Pontocho, then headed for Sou Sou, where Robin wanted to do more shopping.
On the way we came upon this wonderful Rube Goldberg machine for making bean paste cakes. I wanted to stay there all night.
The curl has been infinitely frustrating to me. Fitting, since frustrations with curls is the point of the book. But I wanted the curl on the cover to look like the one printed under Never Shirley.
Never Shirley is the story of my childhood desire to have curls like Shirley Temple. My hair was dark, almost black, coarse and completely unmanageable. Like many young girls I wanted something I couldn’t have: blond curls.
In 1990 Richard and I bought a printing/copy franchise. The business seemed to consume my life, but it also gave me some opportunities: first to learn to use the computer; then to make a book. This book, titled Alas Art Aches Awesomely, was made entirely on the computer or a copier. I don’t remember all of the details of its creation or the number of copies I finished. Possibly I made the entire book on the computer and printer using only the shop cutter and stapler for binding. It has a transparent cover, text weight paper, folded, and is bound with a single staple. Size is approximately 4″x 3½”. I used CorelDraw, the only program I knew at that time.
Recently (2016), I decided to redo the book. I now use a more powerful computer, a much more sophisticated program, Adobe Indesign, an archival printer and carefully selected papers. Much of the original book is a kind of plaintive rant. I modified the new book to reflect my more relaxed attitude.
This book has proven very popular with friends. I made five copies and gave away two of them. The one above was the first one I made. The translucent paper I used doesn’t show up well in the photo; it’s really beautiful. Unfortunately I don’t know where to get more. This copy is a tabbed accordion, 4″ x 5″, printed on Talas unbuffered bond with Epson Claria inks.
My last attempt is 5″ x 8″, single sheet stab binding. I like the way it looks but the book doesn’t open easily.
Using a single sheet format limits options for binding. Folded signatures provide many more choices. I have been struggling with this since I began seriously making books.
100 Books Before I Die 