Two new artist books

Over the weekend, I started to create two new artist books and I just finished them last night.  I printed "The Jacket" series and "Another Me" in tintypes.  The tintype series is printed on smaller 8"x8" handmade paper.  I bought the paper as a part of a book making kit.  It originally came pre-bound as a book block.  I ended up just deconstructing the book block and printing each page individually from my printer.  The deckle-edge was what caught my eye and I found that it lent itself nicely to the tintype aesthetic.  The inner pages are of handmade paper as well.  After the prints were made, I hand-bound the book again and cased it utilizing the same wine red bookcloth that I originally made my "Another Me" series in.

The second artist book was easier to make since I've made a few like it in the past.  I bought Canson Etching Rag this time and was very pleased with the printing results.  (Last time I bought Hahnemuhle watercolor artist inkjet paper and I found that the ink would smear after some time.)  I found some retro-y inner pages and an old burnt orange book cloth for the cover.

Both books are clean and very seamless.  I can't wait to show them off at SPE!

By Any Means

This beauty is going to the Florence Quarterly Gallery at the Southwest University of Visual Arts for their latest exhibit:  By Any Means:  Alternative Photographic Processes.  The exhibit is up from March 15th to April 12th.  I was elated to find that they choose four of my tintype pieces and I knew that I would want to present them all together.  So, after one really long and bleary-eyed night staying up late trying to find suitable tintype presentations, I finally discovered the possibilities in medal display cases.

Originally I was thinking of something more traditional, with a Victorian tintype metal frame/holder, but the problem was in quantity.  Most antiqued frames hold only one tintype at a time.  I checked out some custom frames and the costs were beginning to far out-weigh my ideas...

So in came Amazon and it's lovely "Recommendations" filter running at the bottom of my searches.  (I was also looking at simple shadow box picture frames at the time.)  Once I saw the medal display case, I knew that it would work out to compliment the tintypes.  And when it came, I couldn't have been more happy.  The wood was of high quality and the glass was glass.  (Not clear acrylic!)  I love the simple latch detail and the wood color is really beautiful, bringing out the warm tones in the tintypes.  Perfect!

It took me a bit to think of the simple mounting guide.  Besides having the images smack-dab in the middle of the frame, I also wanted them evenly spaced between each other.  I finally just realized that the space that I wanted to create could easily be replicated in Photoshop as a cross, printed, cut out and placed into the frame to use as a guide for placing each tintype.

And since I didn't want the tintypes to be adhered permanently, I used Velcro to stick them onto the back of the display case.  This way, I can easily take in and out each individual tintype.

If you're in Tuscon, check out the exhibit!


This week I'm heading to SPE for the 50th Anniversary National Conference.  I'm pretty excited since last year was so spectacular.  I've made my business cards, a couple artist books and have my camera/lenses ready.  Chicago here I come!