On January 1, 2010, I set out to write a poem a day and make a book a month. The daily poetry component petered out in mid-June, with continued fits and starts for the rest of the year, but the book-a-month project continued all year through…a whole year of handmade books – quite exciting!
January: a map-inspired book that I gave away before snapping pics…
February: a flower-inspired book that I also gifted pre-photos…
March: caught and gone: a conversation
April: bloom
May: forget-me-not
June: love.
July: A miracle somehow
August: mountain girl
September: I don’t have a pic of the September book, which is a shame, because she was a beaut and created with my favourite Nepalese paper.
October: letting sunday in
November: fall joy
December: …you’d be home by now
It was so exciting…and somehow so manageable to create at least one book a month. I found myself really looking forward to the whole process – compiling the writing, sketching out the cover ideas and layout ideas and most excitingly, playing around with ideas I’ve always been meaning to try – paper cut covers (in March and November), letterpressing (in June and July), collage (in December), accordian books (in October and April), incorporating pressed flowers (in May), and even a softcover (in August) which was only because I ran out of coverboard, but something I’ve been meaning to play around with for awhile.
All in all, a pretty fabulous 2010. So exciting, in fact, I’m going to continue the book-a-month project for 2011.
I’m thinking some collaborations might be in the works…
(ps: some more book-a-month musings on The Paper Place’s blog…)