Braided Tapes and The Shopping B(ag)ook are traveling back to Indiana. This time, they are going to Ball State University. They will be shown alongside with work from other artists: painting, drawing, mixed media, printmaking, photography, ceramics, sculpture, jewelry, and video.



Reclaim, Reuse, Renew
August 25 - September 26, 2009
Atrium Gallery, Art and Journalism Building
Ball State University
2000 W. University Ave, Muncie, IN 47306
http://www.bsu.edu/art/atrium

Visit Studio CaiLun for more pictures of Braided Tapes and The Shopping B(ag)ook.

As I previewed before, a new addition to my repertoire is a book made entirely out of my own handmade paper. This book uses 3 sheets of handmade denim plus corn husk paper (the bluish pages) and 1 sheet with "Angel Wings" botanical elements (the yellowish pages).

The binding is a single-sheet onto tapes, allowing each page to be fully opened flat. Since each sheet was made with a substantial thickness, it gives the book a strong body and allows it to stand firmly on its own.

The tapes used are linen tapes, which are often used in traditional bookbinding. They do not attached to any cover board, in fact, this book doesn't really have a cover. I realize that I tend to skip covers for my sculptural work, as most of the time the book block (the group of signatures) seems to be sufficient as a piece by itself.

It's interesting for me to see that the entire book block is being displayed. It's true that exposed bindings such as coptic allow a peek of the signatures, but the covers also cover up most of them. As for a sculptural piece, which is not being used daily, why not taking the covers away so that the we can see and admire the entire book block at its bare form?


Visit Studio CaiLun for more pictures of Braided Tapes.

With the 4 sheets (no joke, only 4) of paper I made recently, combined with some leftover handmade paper I made some years ago, I made another sculptural book called Braided Tapes. More pictures and description will be posted soon.

As I mentioned before, I have been making paper recently. Making paper is generally not an easy thing to achieve at home, that is, if you want to have an efficient process and good result.

At home, I don't have a deep vet to hold the pulp, but I have a big plastic storage container for the purpose. By the way, pulp is the basic ingredient of paper. It's the a mixture of cellulose fibers and water. When the water is drained away, the left behind fibers is essentially paper.

In this pulp (and the resulting paper shown here), I've added denim cotton (for indigo the color), corn husk fibers (for the texture) and recycled paper pulp. In place of a professional beater to break up the fibers, I use—of course, like most paper-makers at home—a blender. Small batches of fibers are blended and added into the vet to create a workable amount of pulp.

Leftovers pulp is drained and frozen for next time's use.

Hello everyone! It's been almost a month since my last entry. So what exactly have I been doing these days? I have to admit that I haven't been making a lot of books in the last month. I have made perhaps only 3. I have been distracted by other things.

Aside from being distracted by the usual professional interactive design and development work that I have been doing, I have been making paper. I attened a great workshop at Dieu Donné in SoHo, got some great techniques and ideas and I have been firing up my blender at home crazy.

I have to say that the paper I make now is of much better quality than those before. At the very least, I now have a better idea of the density of pulp and various techniques of drying the paper.

Rest assured, I will be sharing some ideas and techniques here shortly.

I wanted a thick and substantial book. So, I put 20 sections in this book, stitched together by long-stitching. The cover is a Sanskrit script print paper, wrapped around a card stock. By wrapping the thick handmade paper around the card stock a few times, the cover becomes tough but flexible.

The cover is first cut out on Canford cardstock, the spine is cut open to allow the stitches to go through. The flaps on the spine also act as reinforcements for the spine and the stitches (see the trapezoidal flaps on the spine). The handmade Sanskrit script paper is then attached to the cardstock cover, cut and turned in.

Here is a trick: while the flaps on the cardstock open up and down so as to reinforce the spine for the stitches, the outermost Sanskrit paper has it flaps wrapped around the card stock sideways to cover the exposing edge (see close-up picture below).

The stitching "hides" the exposed horizontal edges of the card on spine so it doesn't require a cover. But the vertical edges on the side could be exposed, therefore the excess flaps on the Sanskrit script paper can be tucked back into the cover and covers the exposed edges.

Here is another trick: to achieve the best result when folding along a partially cut edge, cut first, and then fold. On the spine, perform the cut-outs first before folding the spine. Also, when folding parallel to the cut, fold a little big away from the cut. This not only prevents it being ripped, but also makes the job a lot easier to handle.

I finally made it to the Kinokuniya Bookstore at the Rockerfeller Center in New York to pick up some chiyogami. Last time I was (almost) there it was the night of X'mas tree lighting, all the roads were blocked and I just couldn't get into the store. Anyway, it's been almost a year now and I've finally made it!

What is great about Kinokuniya's stock is that they have little packs of assorted chiyogami, so if you simply want to use them for a few paste-downs, it is very economical to buy that instead of the big full sheets which cost a lot more. I bought 2 packs of chiyogamis, each of them has 4 assorted designs and each sheet is around 260x360mm, large enough for 2 paste-downs.

Shinwazome chiyogami ($11.55):


Yuzen chiyogami "komon" ($11.55):

Golden Leaf is a set of 2 books in long stitching, with soft covers. "Golden Leaf" was just a random thought that came to mind when I completed the books, somehow when I see paper with gold foil I think of golden leaf. I have no idea why.

I found the golden paper for the cover at Kate's, and I think it has a great stressed and worn quality. The golden prints are random, stressed and organic; the paper also has a green tint of rusted tone. To accompany the style of the paper, the edges of the cover are not trimmed and are left pleated. One of the books have 8 sections while the other has 4. This idea is random, and there is really no need to make them identical. The bindings of both books are long stitching with slitted spines.



To see more pictures of the books, go to Studio Cailun.