Crafty

When I took my first bookbinding class in college I must admit, I was a bit skeptical at what I’d learn as an artist. Being enrolled in the graphic design program, there seemed to be this air of “seriousness” that needed to be produced in your art. My three dimensional design professor told me in front of the entire class everything I made was too cute and crafty and that I needed to break out, hence the beginning of my belief that you needed to be a tortured soul to produce good art. How wrong I had been. Nothing from that class survives to this day. I understand that she was trying to get me to uncover different emotions, but I was confident with who I was or so I thought. The more chaotic I tried to be with my art the more restricted I felt.

It was the discovery of bookbinding the renewed my love of working with my hands. I signed up for Art of the Book my junior year because I had heard many graphic design students learning how to construct their portfolios through this course. It was there, thinking about different structures and binding techniques, that I felt a renewed joy of art expression. My first book I felt was so obviously crafty with my use of fabric and buttons, those feelings of rejection crept back in, but the environment to really explore the deeper meaning of the structure was more nurturing for me to go on and produce quality books. That is what I believe books provide us. They nurture us with a great swell of information and understanding of the human soul. Nurturing who you are as a person and expressing yourself in ways that are challenging and reflective. The personal time you’ve spent sewing its pages together to hold great things developed a sense of intimacy I had never felt before.



Recently, I constructed a gallery book in the accordion style to be used as more of a frame of photos to sit on a shelf than a book. I struggled getting the pages glued properly, the slots cut correctly for photos and was just plain frustrated with the overall end product. I felt crafty and cute, like I was making a scrapbook. I didn’t even want to attach its covers at the end because I didn’t feel connected to its purpose. I hadn’t liked what it became for personal reasons.

As I’ve looked at the unfinished product sitting in the corner of my work space these last few weeks I did a lot of thinking. I was judging this book based on its purpose to be crafty and cute. Its purpose is to hold pictures and provide a way to store memories. Just because I didn’t like the emotions associated with its purpose didn’t mean it didn’t deserve to be finished and passed on to someone who enjoyed it. What I needed was to nurture the structure for what it was becoming and not hold back its growth. I felt like that teacher who held back my growth to be what I set out to be because she didn’t agree. That’s what I like about books. You don’t always like what they have to express to you, but it’s an expression that a person deemed worthy of notice and hoped to share with the world.

Each book hand crafted is different and holds special properties based on the contents it provides. Books don’t care if you are cute or chaotic. They just wish to protect the content you deemed worthy of expression. It could be a private journal, the next great American novel, a family vacation scrapbook or recipe entries. I should note that I am not opposed to crafty things. Forgive my long association with the word to meaning you weren’t really trying to produce good art. It’s good art if you like it.