books/cards | Beth Emmott

This is the archive for the ‘books/cards’ Category

Documentation

March 13th, 2023

This has been a very difficult time personally and I haven’t been in my studio for a while. In one month, I both broke my tibia and worst on March 4th lost my brother, Senter, to cancer.

I still haven’t been able to work but have started to document some smaller work I’ve done this past year in a small sketchbook. Mostly mark making, collage, and simple printing, resulting in mixed media books and other explorations. Some of this work was done in courses lead by Lorna Crane and by Sally Tyrie through Fiber Arts Take Two. Revisiting work is calming, a chance to slow down and think about my direction – how will this work influence future projects. I still have a ways to go with this documentation but here are some results to date. It’s a work in progress.

Image of Mark Making Book Image of Marks on Fabric
Mark Making Explorations: 1. Mark Making Book, 2. Painted Fabric Samples

Image of Print-Incoming Tide Image of Marks and Prints
1. Print: Incoming Tide, 2. Small collage using various types of simple printing

Image of Nature Studies Image of deconstructed explorations
1. Prints, acetate images and machine stitches, from a series of 14, 2. More explorations, didn’t go with these

Image of Artist Book-Closed Image of Artist Book-Open
Three earlier fabric books, combined together with a leather cover. I’m still working on the cover.

Exposition Catalog and Other Bits

February 15th, 2022

Things have been pretty busy and I realized I didn’t post about the catalogs from my exposition at iMPeRFeCT Gallery this fall. I designed them and am very excited how they turned out. The exposition included both paintings and fiber work and was titled, “Beth Emmott: Places.Spaces, Paintings and Stitches”

Front Covers
Catalog Covers

and two inside spreads:

Catalog Spread Showing Paintings Sample of Fiber's Spread
Samples of Painting and Fiber Pages

If any one wants one they are 8″x 8″ and 48 pages and are available at $15.00 each plus shipping.
For more information contact me at: beth@emmott.com
Again I want to thank iMPeRFeCT Gallery for my exposition!

In the mean time, I finished the Alice Fox workshop. We used our rusty dyed fabrics in finished pieces.
Here are two of mine.

Finished Fabric Finished Fiber
“Yellow” and “Plain and Fancy”

They are small and both used old fabrics from my grandmother’s stash. The yellow bit was weighted silk that was splitting and mainly became a tie-dye from the binding it was wrapped with – there was little rusty marking. It was finished with french knots and a simple running thread. The other work consisted a piece of a cotton napkin and old patterned silk with a couched cord. It was a very fun workshop and a good distraction from the cold weather.

I’ve also gotten back to working on my one-a-day sketch book I stopped in June when I as sick and doing a lot of drawing. Now to get working on my painting!

and now it’s 2022…

January 10th, 2022

Last post was in November – then Thanksgiving and after that my exhibition at iMPeRFeCT Gallery ended. There was work taking it down etc. and December was busy – someone snuck some holidays in there and now it’s 2022. Decorations are down, it has snowed, and now it’s very, very cold outside.

First snow 2022 – A perfect time to get back to work.

I’ve been working on various projects and I had signed up for a workshop online with the English artist Alice Fox. It’s dealing with rusty dyeing which I do a lot of but I love her work and wanted to take this workshop with her. Also I can sometimes use a kick to get me going.

So, last Friday was the first day and mainly Alice gives how to’s and and suggestions on experimenting – then you have the week to work on it before the next set of information. You can get feedback via the web.

I did a lot of tests on different types of papers and fabric. Was happy with some and others not so much. But one thing I’m trying to wrap my head around is when I’m learning something and experimenting, don’t just put the results in a drawer but do something with them. So… I decided to make a book of my samples and as they were all different sizes I had to work with that. The result is different than my regular books and it added to the project.

The top paper on the front of the book is much thinner than the others and I like the way the wrinkles add texture, contrasting with the rest of the book. After all this is a book of experiments!

Front Cover and Open Book

It has an accordion construction with the tallest pages in the front, decreasing in height as they go to the end of the book – they also vary in width. Reading it like a regular book there are three different spreads as you turn the pages.

First Spread Second Spread
Pages 1-4

Second Spread
Third spread with earlier pages peaking out and the final closed book

We also worked with dying fiber this week, but that’s a post for another day!

Never Ending Story Book

March 12th, 2021

The final book in the project (from the previous post) is a “Never Ending Book” in that it can double back on itself in a circular fashion, thus “Never Ending”. Constructed like the others, only with seven sections rather than eight, the paper pages are then covered with fabric in a crazy quilt fashion using bold stitches, resulting in a very textured piece.

Image of handmade book
Fabric and spines in place

Two sections have enlarged spines to accommodate extra pages (I may have enlarged mine a bit much) and the front and back covers are slightly padded. Once the stitching is finished the book is filled with the additional paper pages (not sewn in at this point) and is stuffed with leaves and/or onion skins – I added rusty objects as well, and the whole bundle is compressed between two tiles, tied and placed in a dye pot with boiling water.

Image of handmade book
Before and After

I used an iron pot and added tea bags. The hardest part is leaving it alone for several days with out peeking. This morning I lifted the bundle out and removed the tiles.

Image of handmade book
Unveiling

Then the unwrapping begins carefully, opening each page to remove the dye materials and setting the book and loose pages aside to dry.

Image of handmade book
Drying (The dark bit in the first image is the main book structure. More pages in the second.)

All is currently pretty soggy but I’m excited with the results. Some of these pages were tests and I will now dye some additional pages and then assemble the finish project! That will take awhile and will be in a future post! This has been a very fun project with lots of fodder for future projects.

A Winter Diversion

February 18th, 2021

As a break from all the cold and snow of February, I’m taking an online workshop with Australian artist, India Flint. Titled “February Project 2021” it’s basically making folded books from found materials, dyeing them, adding pages and just generally having fun with people all over the world. Her gentle way of explaining things warms up the coldest day.

Here are a few of my early books.

Image of handmade book

The first red book used a mixed media experiment I had done on watercolor paper. The paper was much too thick to fold as shown so it turned into an accordion book with added fabric to reinforce the folds. It has been put aside for now.

In the second picture, the top left book was also a bit thick for the suggested folding but I was able to open it up and expand the spine. Pages of color have had extra blank pages sewn in creating a small journal/sketchbook. The remaining books are similar but without the need to increase the spine. Some additional pages are in signatures, some fold out to make larger areas to work with. The small bundle includes the books shown in the video below.

These have been dried and are waiting to be finished.

Other artists have stitched fabric to their pages before dyeing them or have added pages from previous dye experiments resulting in a most wonderful range of books —all so different, interesting, and inspiring.

This simple structure is addictive to the point that a solicitation that arrived in the mail yesterday is currently being pressed into a small book. Best use I can think of for junk mail!

And… there are still lectures and video, unavailable until the scheduled week, but listed as a tease of things to come.

A wonderful winter break from all that’s going on. Thank you, India!

Washing Paper!

August 30th, 2019

I was tearing some large sheets of Arches 300 lb. watercolor paper to work with next week and remembered a little sketch book I made with that paper several years ago. It’s a simple accordion structure and I wanted to have it to sketch things in my garden. Wanted heavy paper so I could work on both sides of the accordion pages. I hadn’t worked with paper that heavy and my watercolor didn’t take to the paper very well. It made an interesting texture but wouldn’t do what I wanted. I was busy and set it aside.

Today I remembered reading (John Pike’s book, “Watercolor” that had belonged to my mom) about heavy watercolor paper having a sizing on it that might be washed off, so… I washed my paper. Just a simple run through with slightly warm water and then gently sponged off with a clean soft sponge. When the water first hit the paper it beaded up like crazy but after the sponging, nothing! No rubbing or soaking, just a gentle sponging to remove the excess water. Then laid on paper towels to dry.

Also did a quick test strip—just rinsed and sponged half the strip. When dry I took a brush full of watercolor and swooshed over both washed and unwashed areas. On the blue sample I also did a dab of color on each side.

Mystery solved! Now I need to rinse my book without making a mess or messing up the existing sketches. A job for another day. But I did wash my prepared papers today!

Thought I’d share this as others might run into the same thing. I’ve studied watercolor formally years ago in school but then I used lighter weight paper that I stretched on a board. Since then I’ve used water color blocks of about 140 lbs. as I mostly take them for quick sketching. Other than my early work I’ve been mainly self taught in this media and missed this bit of the watercolor world! Always something…