A Weekend in the District

Over the Memorial Day weekend I had a wonderful trip to Washington D.C. and Baltimore.  I enjoyed the company of great friends, family and some great culture.

I always have mixed feelings when visiting D.C.  I am very much a big skyline person and I always want there to be more skyline in the city.  But skyline aside, I do love D.C. more and more each time I visit.  A friend at work told me to check out the National Museum of the American Indian, which we had about a half hour to spend in enroute to the International Spy Museum where we immersed ourselves in the Spy Adventure of our lives. Both were great experiences in their own way.

The architecture in the National Musuem of the American Indian was stunning, appropriate, bold and beautiful.  I couldn’t get enough of the lines and curves reflecting the beautiful landscape that the Native Americans have called home for so many years.  We also spent a bit of time looking at some of the exquisite dresses and ceremonial clothing with their detailed beading that must have taken hours upon hours to complete.  The International Spy museum was quite a change of pace, and loads of fun.  Who hasn’t dreamed of being in some sort of spy movie, we were hoping for a cross behind Breach and Mission Impossible and we were not dissapointed.  Operation Spy, had us riding creaky freight elevators, sifting through secret documents in a suspects vacant office, and dismantling surveilance cameras.  It was great fun and definitely tested the limits of what you could make a group of fairly sane adults do with a little bit of coaxing.

Oh, but the adventure didn’t stop there, we ended with a tasty meal of non-other than grasshopper tacos, and other more edible authentic mexican goodies.  Yes, I ate grasshoppers for the fun of it without throwing up and wouldn’t recommend it to anyone.

Thankfully I also got a dose of skyline with a brief excursion around the harbor and aquarium in Baltimore.  I always have such fond childhood memories of Baltimore everytime I visit the downtown.  As kids my siblings and I always looked forward to summer visits with Grandmom and Grandpop, that often included a trip to all the best places downtown.  Yesterday took me back—it was great.

I’ve posted a few of my favorite shots from the past few days.

Postcard Book – The Finale

I’ve finished my first book! I am thrilled with how it came out, especially my first one ever made. Aside from a few shiny glue spots the quality is rather good. I’ve been having a great time showing people my first hand bound book creation. I’ll take you through the last steps below…

Creating the spine was the next step. The folding ended up being much easier than I had expected. The paper was a bit heavier than normal text and had a nice fiber to it, so it folded very easily. The spine pictured above is actually a composite of six seperate pieces all glued together with PVA. This was my first experience working with PVA and they don’t lie when they say it dries quickly and there is little room for error.

Next step was taking all the pages and inserting them into every other crease in the accordian. I brushed PVA inside the “valley” fold and then inserted the pages. It really was so rewarding to get to this step and see everything coming together. Wax paper in between each page helped to separate any extra glue seeping out of the edges.

Creating the covers was my favorite part of the entire project. Actually cutting the board was not so much fun. If you’ve ever been sliced by an Xacto or Utility blade (as I have), one is always a little bit nervous cutting something with so much tension. But I got the pieces cut out almost perfect for this book and the second book. Then I used some of a hand marbled paper I recently purchased backed with a thin piece of white cotton archival paper to give a little more support.

After the cover paper was complete the book was attached via the last fold of the spine and a smooth black endpaper was applied to finish off everything and give extra security to the cover and the spine.

So there we have it folks. The first Matthew Wolf original handbound book. Ask to see it in person the next time you visit.

Postcard Book – Part 2

As I continue on with my first book I am quickly realizing that the craft is a constantly evolving process. I decided, after much back and forth to split my one SUPER BOOK into two smaller books. All my postcards I have collected come from North America and Europe so I am going to seperate postcards by continent. The book would have been simply too large as one unit. The process is at times very methodical but relaxing, and enjoyable. It is great to see ahead a vision of what I want to accomplish and do each step at a time. I am also thoroughly enjoying selecting the colors for the sheets, as well as the binding, cover, and end pages. There are so many levels to this and this is just a simple book.

So all the pages are created and the binding is all cut to size. Next step is folding the binding which is a bit tedious but I did a test binding on some scrap sheets and it is going to look really super when it is all complete.

Postcard Book – Part 1

Tonight I started the design of my first book. I have been really on a postcard collecting binge lately. So many of my friends are travelers and I really love receiving postcards from their destinations. I also love seeing different postmarks from all over the country and the world, as well as the diversity of stamps. Until recently I’ve been hanging most of the cards I’ve received on my fridge, but its getting a bit crowded so I thought a perfect first book to make would be a simple “postcard holder.”

The book I am making is a simple pocket book, with an accordian spine. So far everything is going quite smoothly and I am having a blast making this. Its so great to be working on such a hands-on project.

I’ll check back soon to show the progress as I put the different pieces together.

Its in Our Hands

I’m totally in to creating music mixes—who isn’t though. I’ll gladly share this latest mix with anyone. I’ve had this in my head for a few years now, collecting song after song, and finally decided to get it down on a disc.

Its in Our Hands

1. It’s In our Hands — Bjork
2. Lover — Devandra Banhart
3. Arc of Time (Time Code) — Bright Eye
4. The Tallest Man, The Broadest Shoulders… — Sufjan Stevens
5. 1, 2,3,4 — Feist
6. On the Radio — Regina Spekto
7. Failsafe — The New Pornographers
8. Silver Lining — Rilo Kiley
9. Sea Lion Woman — Feist
10. Where Its At — Beck
11. Love and War (11/11/46) — Rilo Kiley
12. Weave Me the Sunshine — Peter, Paul and Mary
13. Catch My Disease — Ben Lee
14. Mushaboom — Feist
15. I Was a Daughter — Basia Bulat
16. With Arms Outstretched — Rilo Kiley

Aren’t songs with lots of clapping the best!