As you may already know from my Facebook and Twitter updates, I have two pieces accepted into Everson Museum of Art for the coming Fit to Be Bound, part of Everson's Biennial alternative, The Edge of Art: New York State Artist Series.

First of all, there is Rapunzel. I couldn't be more proud and honored that it is featured on Everson's website:


Then, there is Duotone. I simply love this piece. Need I say more? I am simply overjoyed to have both of them in the show.

Fit to Be Bound will open next month, from April 17 to July 11 at the Everson Museum of Art in Syracuse, NY. Hope to see you there!

A recent thread on the book arts mailing list discussed a number of books for use in a book arts class.

The following books provide samples and techniques:

1. 500 Handmade Books (Lark Books)
2. Creating Handmade Books (Alisa Golden)
3. Books, Boxes & Portfolios: Binding, Construct and Design, Step-By-Step (Franz Zeier)
4. Hedi Kyle Festschrift
5. Bookcraft: Techniques for Binding, Folding, and Decorating to Create Books and More (Heather Weston)
6. The Penland Book of Handmade Books: Master Classes in Bookmaking Techniques (Lark Books)

The following books provide studies and critique on book arts:

1. The Century Of Artists' Books (Johanna Drucker)
2. No Longer Innocent: Book Art In America 1960-1980 (Betty Bright)
3. The Cutting Edge Of Reading (Renee Hubert and Judd Hubert)
4. Artist/Author: Contemporary Artists' Books (Cornielia Lauf and Clive Phillpot).

February seems to have just flown by in a snap. Where did the entire month go?

Chinese New Year, perhaps? I feel that I have spent almost the whole month preparing for and recuperating from the holiday. My Chinese New Year, as usual, started with a series of seemingly non-stop shopping trips, followed by the cooking marathon. I cooked a lot and ate a lot this year. Sounds like Thanksgiving, doesn't it? Traditionally, Chinese celebrate the Lunar New Year for 15 days, and this year it will end on February 28.

On top my that, one of my closest friends from college came to visit me in New York; we talked a lot, ate a lot, which also made the days went by faster.

And then there is Art D'Eco. The Shopping B(ag)ook is travelling again. From now through April 3, it is being shown in a show called "Art D'Eco" at Gallery 125 in downtown Trenton, New Jersey.


Not to mentioned that I was just being notified that 2 other pieces have been accepted to another upcoming show in a couple of months. More details to come.

This month just flew by.

Throughout the month of December last year, I was working on a piece that I hoped would help me to try working in an obsessive mode. Rapunzel involved cutting up about half a mile of cotton twine into 3- to 4-feet pieces, and gluing them individually onto a two-needle coptic bound book. If stretched wide, it spans about 7 feet, and is definitely the largest piece I've done so far.

Rapunzel is the first piece in a series that re-tells familiar children stories though books, but only through the physicality of these books. Every material in this book is white (or off-white), so the viewer is confronted with its physical form, and forced to address it. Embodied into its binding and form, the essence of Rapunzel can be seen and touched through the physical book.

See more pictures of Rapunzel on Studio CaiLun.

These books have been sitting around for a little bit over a year, waiting patiently for their home. I've finally made a box to put them in. They seem kinda happy, don't they?

My dear friend Ong just came back from Thailand and brought me some great paper and paper goods. Yes, he got me a few sheets of the elephant dung paper that I've wrote about before. Though not from the same factory, these sheets of paper were also made from the high-fiber content elephant dung.

Apparently elephant dung paper is commonly known as "umbrella paper" because it is mostly used for making umbrellas. The sheets that he got were made at a paper factory of one of his acquaintances near Chiang Mai, located at the north of Thailand.


On top of that, I also got a couple of bags of ultra-cute miniature paper flowers made from the same paper and a ton of dried leaves. Not sure what I am going to do with them just yet...

I have finally caught up with the questions that you've asked in the comment section. Be sure to check out the "Latest Comments" column on the far right of the site (below the Amazon ad) for your answers.

The holiday season is over, so my hiatus is over, now back to action! Happy New Year!