Jaffe Center for Book Arts

Two View Movie Review: Ratatouille

2012-02-29T13:39:00.000-05:00

Ratatouille is a delectable, computer-animated story about Remy the rat (voiced by Patton Oswalt,) who, unlike his brethren, aspires for fine dining & gourmet cooking. After getting lost in Paris, Remy comes across his deceased cooking idol's restaurant. There, he meets Alfredo Linguini (Lou Romano,) a hopeless kitchen cleaner who desperately needs the job. Linguini learns that Remy can cook & the two strike a deal: since a rat can't be in the kitchen & Linguini is a bad cook, Remy stays under Linguini's chef hat & controls him using Linguini's hairs like strings on a marionette. Instantly, Linguini is the new talk of the town, but there is trouble. Skinner (Ian Holm), the owner of the restaurant, learns that Linguini is the illegitimate son of Auguste Gusteau, the founder of the restaurant. This would make Linguini owner of the Gusteau brand & Skinner believes that Linguini is going for a power struggle (but Linguini doesn't have any knowledge of this.) Also, food critic, Anton Ego (Peter O'Toole), has it out for Gusteau's restaurant, as he deemed the place as part of "the tourist train," & Ego's previous poor review may have been the cause of Gusteau's death.

Ratatouille is Pixar Animation Studios' eighth full-length feature & the second to be directed by Brad Bird & I would say is one of their best. The computer artist recreated Paris with a fine detail, including the rest of the mise-en-scène of the film, except for the characters, which contain cartoony proportions that display their personality: Linguini is lanky & awkward, Skinner is diminutive & petty, & Ego is pencil thin, because he only shallows food if he loves it. The visuals are top notch & are a feast for the eyes.

Bird has created a perfect family film, because it is for the whole family. Kids will like it because of the physical comedy & action sequence, which Bird is an expert at choreographing. Older viewers will enjoy the biting, witty dialogue & the themes explored in the film, which includes regular family film themes like overcoming social status & following your dreams, but also include pretension in the critical community & animal rights. One part that I enjoyed was the shifting notion in the film that "anyone can cook," as many characters have changing & varied thoughts on that maxim.

What is great about Ratatouille is that it doesn't talk down to the viewer, whether it's a child or an adult. It's a light-hearted, well written comedy that doesn't go for explosions; it is subtle, yet savory, like a great dish. This is a love letter to food, the French, & maybe, rodents.

Paradise Parking by Peter Lippmann

2012-02-27T14:30:00.000-05:00

I'm inspired to write this post because one, Arthur Jaffe's car show project comes to an end March 23rd, when vintage cars will be displayed on FAU's new football stadium; & two, cars decaying in nature is a fascination I didn't know I had. It's beautiful to see them deteriorate & be broken down to the simple minerals that these cars started as & is a good example of nature vs. industry. Photographer Peter Lippmann traveled around in search of these deserted cars, which brings up questions like how the cars ended up there, but these abandoned car photos bring up feelings of nostalgia & either triumph or defeat.

Center Paige: Le Petit Chaperon Rouge

2012-02-16T11:01:00.000-05:00

Le Petit Chaperon Rouge (Little Red Riding Hood) was created by the legendary illustrator, Warja Lavater. The book is accordion bound between maroon linen covered boards. It was created in 1965 & is executed in original color lithography. The first page features a key in French, German, English & Japanese that explains the symbols in the book. The red dot represents Little Red Riding Hood, the black dot represents the wolf, etc., and that is the only text in the book. The symbols tell the story.

Presenting a story with symbols makes the storytelling universal. Even if one doesn't speak the four languages in the key, if they know the story of Little Red Riding Hood then they would understand the book. The method makes for an artistic & dynamic recreation, particularly during the part of the story when the woodsman kills the wolf; the wolf explodes like lava shooting out of a volcano. The book can be unfolded & stretched out & viewed like one piece of art.

The book is an interesting study in semiotics & symbols. We, as a culture, know the story of Little Red Riding Hood & we see the symbols in the book & by elimination & combination, can flesh out the narrative. The symbols allow interpretation, giving the reader the chance to create their own dialogue & motivation.

Lavater created many books like this about fairy tales & there are a number of them here at the Center. These books were sold at gift shops in museums, like the Louvre, & they allowed people to have a little pieces of art in their hands for about $15. These books may have inspired many future art aficionados & collectors.

Graphic Novel of the Month: Batman: Hush Unwrapped

2012-02-08T10:32:00.000-05:00

Batman, "The Dark Knight" & "Caped Crusader" of Gotham City, has a stalker who is teaching his old enemies new tricks. Villains like Killer Croc, Poison Ivy, Harley Quinn, Scarecrow, & The Joker pop-up, all refurbished in different way & Batman knows that someone is helping them out, who is a wrapped stranger who goes by the name "Hush". Feeling this constant shadow, Batman begins to reevaluate his relationship with those closest to him, including his sidekick, Robin; his ex-sidekick, Nightwing; his friend, Superman; & the anti-hero, Catwoman. Batman & Catwoman's relationship begins picking up some heat, but Batman can't help but feel that their new romantic feelings appeared the same time that Hush began lurking around.

Batman: Hush Unwrapped is the same story created by comic superstar creators Jeph Loeb & Jim Lee, which was Batman: Hush, but this Unwrapped version contains only Lee pencil drawings with no inking or coloring, except for the sound effects & Batman's internal dialogue. These raw drawings show off Lee's incredible talent. They are detailed, clean & kinetic. Critics may not like his mainstream approach to his characters that contain unrealistic anatomy for both female & male characters, but Lee is the best of the blockbuster artists. He tries his hand with painting with great results at times during Hush, & his splash pages are particularly noteworthy.

Loeb is known for his work with Batman, writing the best-selling Batman: The Long Halloween & Batman: The Dark Victory. Hush is similar to his other Batman stories; they contain a large array of characters from the Batman mythology with a mysterious enemy in the background. This allows staple characters to react in new ways not thought of in the past. Loeb takes advantage of what the Batman character does best: be a detective. Batman is constantly pondering, as is the reader. The mystery is real & the threat is ever growing, while the character relationships are believable. The interactions between Batman & Catwoman are my favorite parts of the novel.

This is a fantastic collaboration that resulted in one of Batman's most torturous stories, both physically & psychologically. If you're a Batman fan or just a fan of superhero comics, this is a must read & non-superhero comic readers should pick is up for its thrilling style & mystery.

Packing Tape Portraits

2012-02-01T10:15:00.000-05:00

Max Zorn is an artist that uses packing tape as his medium & he decides to recreate people with this form. It is done with meticulous layering & cutting away & I'm sure it is not an easy medium to work with, as anyone who has tried to tape up a package knows that tape is a pain. But, Zorn has a great eye & great patience & his pictures are surprisingly photo-realistic. And while it seems like using tape is a waste & pictures could be done in a different manner, I respond to the dark browns & golds that are created from the tape. Let's hope we see more from tapework & Max Zorn.

Five Favorite Films of 2011

2012-01-30T13:50:00.001-05:00

Last week, the 2012 Oscar Nominations were released, with Martin Scorsese's Hugo winning 11 nominations & Michel Hazanavicius's The Artist with a close 10. It's interesting that these two have the most nominations, because these two are similar in themes. Many reviewers have said of both films that they are love letters to cinema, but isn't every film a love letter to cinema (as one reviewer said that Fast Five was a love letter to film). Even so, here is my short love letter to the films of 2011 that I found significant.

5. Poetry- Directed, produced, & written by Lee Chang-dong, Poetry follows Yang Mija (Yoon Jeong-hee), a grandmother who is searching for the beauty in life. Mija found out that she has Alzheimer's disease & her mental condition is expected to get much worse. On top of that, her grandson & his friends raped a schoolmate, which lead to her suicide. In order for the victim's family to keep quiet, the boys' parent must pay them off & money is something Mija doesn't have. Still, the poetry class she is taking causes Mija to look at the world differently & inspires her. Jeong-hee gives one of the best performances of the year in this film, which makes unexpected yet quiet turns in this sad & elegant film.

4. The Artist- This film has been making quite a stir because it is a modern-day silent film, but it is not just a gimmick. Director & writer Michel Hazanavicious wanted to transport the audience back to the day when silent films were dying & talkies started popping up. He does it with a story about a silent film star (Jean Dujardin) who loses everything when he isn't able to transition to the new Hollywood films. The film is charming, romantic & proves the old cliché that "silent films were never silent" & silent films aren't really dead.

3. Beginners- Inspired by his father, Mike Mills created a bittersweet film about an artist, Hal (Ewan McGregor), whose father, at the age of 85, declares that he is gay. Hal starts a relationship with a French actress (Mélanie Laurent), but their past relationships & the relationship of both their parents cause uneasiness with the new couple. The film is assembled with many interconnecting flashbacks that give greater depth to characters who are searching for what we're all looking for in life: happiness.

2. Melancholia- In this apocalyptic film, a Justine (Kirsten Dunst) is miserable on what is supposed to be the happiest day of her life. Her wedding turns out to be a complete failure thanks to family tensions & the bride's depression. Also, a rogue planet, Melancholia, is heading directly to Earth, threatening to destroy everything. Anyone who has seen a Lars Von Tier film knows that they are emotional, uncomfortable, & unique & this may be the clearest vision I have seen from the Danish filmmaker. It is a depressing film, but that's what you get from a film that is an allegory of depression.

1. Tree of Life- Tree of Life may be one of the most controversial films this last year, not because of its content, but because of its form. Sean Penn, who had a supporting role in the movie even said, "The screenplay is the most magnificent one that I've ever read but I couldn't find that emotion on the screen." What he's talking about is the film's jump cuts, the arbitrary lines spoken over astronomical visions & the soft plot center, which is what I loved about the film. It follows a boy, Jack (Hunter McCracken), who has a complicated relationship with his father (Brad Pitt). We view a year in the life of Jack & his family living in Texas during the 50's, yet we are also met with a 17-minute, creation of Earth sequence & juxtaposed together, we get a spiritual journey that is reminiscent of 8½ & 2001. I viewed Tree of Life as visual poetry that is meditative, epic, & enlightening.

Graphic Novel of the Month: Signal to Noise

2012-01-19T15:12:00.000-05:00

Signal to Noise tells the story of a nameless film director who is dying of cancer. Struggling with the idea that he only has a couple of months left, the director debates over writing his final script; the script & the film that he has been wanting to make for years. He storyboards the magnum opus in his head & eventually writes the film, knowing that he won't see the finished product. In the end, he states that he feels better, not because his cancer has remitted, but because he came to terms with his immortality, because "the world is always ending for someone."

Neil Gaimen wrote Signal to Noise & the artwork was by Gaiman's frequent collaborator, Dave McKean. The novel doesn't really have a clear plot center; the story often goes in & out of the director's head as he plans out the film, which is about villagers in the year 999 a.d. who think that the world will end at the start of the new millennium. The narrative juxtaposes conversations the director has with those closest to him along with the narrative of the screenplay.

McKean's artwork is something to behold in this work. It is often a collage of painting, drawing, photographs & digital art & contains many visual metaphors that go along with the narrative. McKean, for the most part, keeps the panels, which breaks up the images. Each page is its own artwork, but the panels become a piece on their own.

Signal to Noise is heady, cerebral, & expressive. I think it is flawed of me to call it a narrative, but rather a reading of an emotion. It shouldn't be viewed as a graphic novel, but as graphic poetry, where you read it & consider the works possibilities.

The Origami Art of Brian Chan

2012-01-12T10:39:00.000-05:00

I've discovered some fascinating origami figures from artist Brian Chan. These realistic insects shown below are all from one sheet of paper. Also, later this year, we're planning on having a origami exhibit involving origami from various artist & incorporating them with books from the JCBA, so start looking forward to that.

Flying Grasshopper

Mayfly

Design for the Mayfly

Dorcus Curvidens

Allomyrina Dichotoma

Locust

Water Strider

The Ink Dial by Terrence Chouinard

2012-01-04T14:03:00.001-05:00

I'm looking for some help, fellow JCBA fans. Terrence Chouinard is hoping to make an Ink Dial, a machine that will disperse ink for printers. No more eyeballing, guessing, or weighing when mixing & trying to get the color ink that you want. It would be a great invention for all our letterpress printers & book artists, but Chouinard is having trouble raising money for the machine. His goal of $35,000 is coming up next week, & he has less than $10,000. If you donate $35, you'll help out with this great project & you'll get a letterpress print out of it, too. Not to shabby.

The Ink Dial

Two-View Movie Review: The Triplets of Belleville

2011-12-29T23:45:00.000-05:00

The Triplets of Belleville is a French animated film by Sylvain Chomet that follows a grandmother & her grandson, who has the dream of winning the Tour de France. During the race, a pair of blocky, suited men kidnaps the grandson. The grandmother & her dog follow the kidnappers all the way to Belleville, a grand metropolis at the other end of the ocean. In a unknown land, the pair get help from the Triplets of Belleville, an aged singing group from the 30's, now poor & left with eating frogs. They find out that the grandson was kidnapped by a mobster who created an underground gambling ring with bicyclists' endurance & life being bet on.

Chomet's film is highly artful & creative & he combined drawing & computer-imagery to created the very distinct & fluid nature of the characters. All the characters have their own physically tendencies & movements in which we get the characters' personalities from, since this is a dialogue free film. The characters talk in squeaks & squawks that are indiscernible, making this a universal film special for this global economy. That may be why it has become such a cult favorite. Anyone can pick it up & enjoy it. The film pokes fun of the French, by overly emphasizing their love of the Tour de France & frog legs, & America, by displaying the populous as being fat & loving hamburgers. It is also a worldwide hit probably because the film is funny, touching, & features some really great, stand-up-&-boogie music.

Center Paige: Direction of the Road

2011-12-22T12:32:00.000-05:00

Direction of the Road is a favorite among JCBA fans & employees. Science fiction & fantasy writer Ursula Le Guin wrote the story & artist Aaron Johnson constructed the book, box & images. The book is made out of over-beaten homemade linen paper & bound together in a long stitch. The text is letterpress printed & paper leave are pasted on every page. The book is held in a portfolio box & on the inside of the box's cover is a woodcut image. On the inside of the spine of the box is a tube covered with reflective polymer.

The story follows the life of an oak tree that lives in a field by a road. It has solitary life by the road with the exception of the occasional squirrel or bird. The tree also has a job to fulfill. It must grow larger as things get closer to it & smaller as things get further away. The tree can even grow larger on one side & smaller on the other as things travel down the road & the tree can do it in its sleep. The tree gets use to people traveling on horses & wagons, but soon notices loud, horseless wagons more & more. One of these high-speed cars caused the oak to leap in front of the car, causing the tree to make the decision to kill the driver. The tree was not happy about the mortal decision it had to make, but the driver didn't follow the North-South rules of the road. The tree had to kill him, but it is not a job that oaks are made for.

The whole story not only takes an interesting perspective, that of a tree, but also the way the tree sees the world is interesting. The tree sees itself the way we would see a tree. The tree grows bigger & smaller, or the tree moves slowly or at sixty miles per hour, depending on your ride. We also see the changes in the tree's world that come from changes in ours. The air smells, birds that travel to the tree lessen, & the tree gains new jobs. It not only has to provide shade to travelers, homes to animals, but also kill those who don't follow the rules.

Aaron Johnson took the story's unique POV & incorporated it with book. For one, the over-beaten pages make a rustling noise, much like that of leaves blowing in the wind. The leaves pasted on the pages turn green to brown as the story goes on, conveying life transitioning to death. But the most surprising & creative aspect of the book is the woodcut inside the box, which looks like a warped image of indistinct lines surrounding a circle. If you place the reflective tube on the circle, you realize that the woodcut is actually a warped image of a tree that has to be viewed on the tube & details like birds & a man sitting under the tree become clear. It is an anamorphic image, anamorphic meaning "to transform" in Greek, & is an art form first experimented with by Leonardo di Vinci.

Everything about Direction of the Road, from the box to the story to the art to the paper, is to convey & reiterate Le Guin & Johnson's themes. That is why is a favorite here at the center & new audience members always get a kick out of this book.

Graphic Novel of the Month: In the Shadow of No Towers

2011-12-14T12:48:00.000-05:00

"Waiting for that other shoe to drop!" That is the theme for Art Spiegelman's first page of In the Shadow of No Towers & ultimately the theme of the whole book, which is Spiegelman's graphic essay about the anxiety & paranoia that came about after the 9/11 attacks on the Two Towers. When open, the book is too be read length-wise & is newspaper sized. The 10-page book starts from Spiegelman's thoughts on the attacks to the coming year filled with odd politics & fear-mongering. Spiegelman claimed he created the book to get over his post-traumatic stress disorder caused by being in New York City during that tragic time.

The pages contain many of the characters from Spiegelman's other books & he will often randomly turn into a mouse, much like his highly popular & highly acclaimed book Maus. The glowing, ghostly frames of the towers are incorporated throughout the book. At the end of the book is a number of old comic strips that Spiegleman helped get him through creating the book, including The Yellow Kid & Little Nemo in Slumberland. In the Shadow of No Towers is a fine example of an artist working through his inner & outer demons.

Little Nemo Animation

2011-12-13T15:43:00.000-05:00

I found this short animation clip of Little Nemo in Slumberland by Windsor McCay. The fluidity of the movements is incredible & it notes McCay's amazing detail to lines & transitions. This was made in 1910, which happens to be 18 years before Walt Disney's Steamboat Willie, if that helps put it in perspective. Animation has came a long way, but this is still pretty impressive.

"Shut Up, Paige Turner": 3-D Movies

2011-12-08T14:59:00.000-05:00

I went to see Hugo this weekend (great film, by the way) & I was set on not watching that movie in 3-D, which was hard because the only movie theater within a 15 mile radius had only two showings of the "2-D" version on Saturday. Every other theater had the 3-D version of the film, which I will not support & here are my reasons why.

For me, the 3-D image doesn't add anything to my movie experience. If anything, it takes away from it. I feel less immersed in the cinematic world because I'm aware that I'm in a theater. The best part about a film is getting sucked in, but with digital images flying at my face & pictures that look like I'm looking through a tunnel book, I fully aware that I'm in a moldy theater seat. For them to be called 3-D films & 2-D films is faulty. Films have always been in three dimensions. They've always contained depth & texture & we were watching movies just fine before 3-D came along.

There is something to be said about the flatness of the screen. It allows us to view the depth of the real world, but the picture's flatness allows us to get more involved in the narration, otherwise, it would be like seeing a play, where you're more aware of the reality of the real world. Psychologist Hugo Münsterberg wrote in 1916 about the pros of film's flatness. "We want to keep the interest in the plastic world & want to be aware of the depth in which the persons move, but our direct object of perception must be without the depth. That idea of space which forces on us most strongly the idea of heaviness, solidity & substantiality must be replaced by the light flitting immateriality." This flatness is a plus, not something that needs to change.

Good Movies Always Come in 3-D

Also, I don't like they way it alters the picture. The projectors for 3-D movies have to be dimmer for 3-D projectors & changing a 3-D projector to a 2-D projector requires a specialist to come to the theater, which cost thousands of dollars, so the theaters just keep them at their 3-D setting, making all films dimmer. Remember the time when the film could light up everyone's face in the theater, now it's a glow. Check it out next time you're at the movies.

Also, it's just another way for the studios to get extra money out of you, particularly if they're cheaply made 3-D films or animated films. Films like Avator or Hugo were shot with a 3-D camera that is highly technical & thus, highly expensive, making the hiked price a little understandable, but only a little. But for old 3-D films & newer films like Clash of the Titans, the film is sent overseas to digitally cut the film and layer it. That's why those films look like a science project diorama. You're paying for a poor product. As for animated movies, all they have to do is change a code, which is why all the animated blockbusters now are in 3-D, because it cost no extra money to make them that way.

You can keep on going to 3-D movies & I won't judge you, just do some research before you see a film & decide if the extra cash is worth it. But I will say this, if you badly need physical reality for your stories, go to a play & if you really want motion-sickness & objects flying at your face, go on a roller coaster.

The End of Lawrence & Julie & Julia

2011-11-30T14:02:00.000-05:00

My favorite meta-text has ended today. The Lawrence & Julie & Julia Project is a blog about a movie about book about a blog about a book, where Lawrence Dai, a film studies student watched the movie Julie & Julia every day for a year & wrote a blog post every day. What seems like a stupid, pointless project turned into a study in the film process, which includes everything from editing to the title font. One of my favorite segments is Random Actor Tuesday, where he features a supporting character that say one or two lines. I wonder, after a year of having to watch a film, which Lawrence calculated to equaling a month of his waking life, what do you do when the you don't have to push play anymore?

Two View Movie Review: Ladri di biciclette (The Bicycle Thieves)

2011-11-29T14:56:00.002-05:00

Taking place in the bombed-out & depleted post-W.W.II Rome, Ladri di biciclette follows Antonio Ricci, an unemployed husband & father of two, who receives a job pasting movie posters in the inner city, but the job requires a bicycle. Without a bike, Antonio's wife pawns of their bed sheets in order to buy one, because this job comes with overtime & allowance for the family, meaning the Ricci's will never have to worry about eating again. But, one his first day, Antonio gets his bicycle stolen & barely sees the thief. He goes to the police & gets no help from them. With his neighbors & Bruno, his son, Antonio searches high & low for the bicycle, which finding or not finding the bike could change the coarse of his life forever.

What can I say about the The Bicycle Thieves? Nothing, I guess. Time to go home.

Just kidding. The Bicycle Thieves is one of my favorite films & was highly acclaimed when released & is still considered the best Italian neorealist films & one of the best films ever. Italian neorealism came after W.W.II & received its name because the directors used real locations, not sets, & non-actors, which director Vittorio De Sica also did. The neorealist made their stories about the poor & working class & showed the tough mental & physical conditions that were affecting the people.

This came about when Europe was going through this big change after the War. People didn't know how to react to such an extreme situation & they were living life next to buildings that were falling apart & new buildings were being constructed. It probably seemed like there was no way to pick yourself up, causing severe psychological & moral questions to be placed.

Center Paige: A Line

2011-11-22T16:04:00.001-05:00

A Line is a wood cut & linoleum cut story by Suyeon Kim about "a blind fisherman, his dog & the bond between them." The book was printed by Incline Press & bound in an accordion fold & features sixteen prints. Along with the book comes a simple signature pamphlet bound book with the colophon & the written narrative of the book.

The story follows a blind fisherman who uses a line to go out to sea & collect his nets, but a seagull steals the line. The fisherman's dog turns into a bird to take back the line, but as the bird releases the line, a gigantic fish steals the line. The fisherman transforms into a fish, just as the dog turned into a bird, to reclaim the line, but a shark comes to eat him. The bird turns into a rock barrier to protect his friend. Reclaiming the line, the fish transforms into the dog & the rock barrier transforms into the fisherman, now with the line intact & a big fish in a net, a worthy prize to take home.

The story is about a fishing line, but also the lines that connect us, "lifelines & friendship lines & the inexorable line of narrative that makes a satisfying story" says Kim. The cut images are beautiful & well printed & the book is a worthy addition to the Jaffe Collection.

The Books of Occupy Wall Street

2011-11-21T09:23:00.000-05:00

Everyone knows that the book & the written word is a powerful machine for ideas, otherwise there wouldn't be book burnings. "Life transforming ideas have always come to me through books"-Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. The protesters of the Occupy Wall Street movement is aware of this facts & have created a makeshift library for the protesters to read. The Art & Design faction of the protesters have even created an artists' book using protest signs. There is a blog for the library, where you can get up-to-date details or find out how to donate books to the library. Keep this library & movement going by showing your support, because nothing is going to change if we don't stand long & strong.

Graphic Novel of the Month: Tintin in Tibet

2011-11-15T10:10:00.000-05:00

Boy adventurer & reporter Tintin gets a horrible premonition involving his good friend, Chang, and a plane crash in the Himalayas. When it turns out that his vision is true, Tintin and his allies, the graceless Captain Haddock & Tintin's white terrier, Snowy, head to the Himalayas in search of Chang. The locals make it clear that the mountains are dangerous & Captain Haddock repeatedly states that the trek is most likely fruitless, but Tintin won't stop until he finds his friend. The three get a guide, Tharkey, and three porters to help with the expedition, but the porters run when there are signs of the fabled yeti. At the plane crash site, Chang isn't anywhere to be found, but Tintin doesn't give up hope, as little clues lead to party further into the mountains, but they have to weather the cold, wind, & the abominable snowman.

Tintin in Tibet is the 20th book in the Tintin series created by the Belgian Hergé. It follows the Tintin trend created by Hergé: cartoony characters with realistic backgrounds, flat-coloring, international adventure, & slapstick humor, usually created by Haddock. Fans and critics of Tintin find Tibet to be Hergé's best work. Tintin has never been braver, & the same goes for the usually cowardly Haddock. This book also features one of the few times Tintin has ever cried in the series, who is usually an unshakable character. There is a good deal of drama and drive in this book.

The personal history revolving around this book is interesting. Hergé was experiencing nervous breakdowns while going through a divorce from a marriage of twenty-five years & he was experiencing reoccurring dreams of nothing but white space. His therapist advised Hergé to quit the Tintin series, but Hergé sought out to finish his current story, which turned out to be therapeutic. Hergé set the story in the Himalayas to convey the lost & emptiness he feels during his dreams, making Tibet the most colorless book of the otherwise vibrant series. After he finished the book, Hergé's breakdowns lessened, he married his new wife that year, & he never experienced anymore dreams of white.

Patrick Gannon: Cut Paper Art

2011-11-02T10:10:00.002-04:00

I've discovered an amazing paper artist, Patrick Gannon. He has aspirations to release a 12-Month Calendar for 2012, but he needs some help, so he opened up a Kickerstarter account in order to get his project rolling. If you donate just $30, you will get the calendar. Help him out, or just take a gander at his amazing skills.

Two View Movie Review: Dr. Strangelove, or How I Stopped Worrying & Learned to Love the Bomb

2011-10-26T10:53:00.000-04:00

President Muffley

Set at the height of the Cold War, Dr. Strangelove begins when Air Force General & Commander of the Burpelson Air Force Base Jack Ripper (Sterling Hayden) orders all B-52 airplanes to enter the Soviet Union & bomb it with nuclear weapons. The order was given under a special code that would follow after the assassination of the President. But the President wasn't assassinated. General Ripper made the order out of fear that the Soviets were fluoridating the water supply. President Merkin Muffley (Peter Sellers) meets with General Buck Turgidson (George C. Scott) & other high ranking officers in the "War Room" to figure out a way to stop the apparently unstoppable planes while General Ripper's executive officer, Lionel Mandrake (also Peter Sellers) tries to persuade General Ripper to call out the abort orders, because they learn that if there is a nuclear strike on the Soviet Union, there is a automatic doomsday device to be released by the Soviets.

Group Captain Lionel Mandrake

If you ever want to see a film about the Cold War, this would be it. It perfectly satirizes those nerving years & comments on the ridiculousness of the situation, which is why this is such a great comedy. And since this is a Stanley Kubrick film, there are a lot of sexual undertones, despite there only being one female character in the whole film. The opening sequence features an airplane getting fueled up during flying (featuring phallic symbols), the reasoning behind General Ripper's paranoia (he claims fluoride makes him impotent), & the President & the officers' backing of Dr. Strangelove's post-nuclear war plans (in which 10 women to every man would live in mineshafts) are just some of the subtle sexuality featured.

Dr. Strangelove

Speaking of Dr. Strangelove, which is Peter Seller's third & most hilarious character in the film, he is the President's scientific advisor, as he was an ex-Nazi physicist. Crippled & suffering from alien hand syndrome, Dr. Strangelove accidentally calls the President "Mein Führer" on a number of occasions, & Strangelove's explanation of a polygamist's society is extremely funny. He takes pleasure in the fact that the Nazi's two worst enemies, the USA & the USSR, might end up destroying each other causing a Nazi paradise where only the strong survive in a hyper-sexual world.

Dr. Strangelove has aged very well & is still relevant today & is considered one of the best political satires, if not the best.

Cheese or Font

2011-10-24T09:48:00.001-04:00

It's Monday morning & I'm sure most of you don't feel like doing any work right now, so if you feel like taking a break, trying your hand at Cheese or Font. It's pretty simple: you get a word & you have to figure out if it is a cheese or a font. If you think that sounds easy, it really is not.

Center Paige: Anxious Homes

2011-10-17T11:33:00.001-04:00

Do you cringe at the thought of having to clean your house for a mandatory party? Does a guest usually catch you off guard while your house is a disaster? Are you a modern woman who doesn't have the time to make your residence look pristine every damn minute? Well, we have the artists' book for you. Jackie Batey's Anxious Homes is the perfect guide for anyone who wants to appear to be tidy. Each book is inkjet printed & bound with a simple signature pamphlet stitch. Presented in a matter-of-fact, domineering tone, you will learn how to create vacuum lines on a rug or carpet, how to clean the taps in your bathroom, & methods to hide your hosting anxiety. This guide will "give the impression of a clean house in under 20 minutes," but if you have less than that, there are also steps for those with 10 minutes or 3 minutes. Now is your chance to be the falsely confident host your mother was.

The Alternative Hair Show

2011-10-12T09:37:00.001-04:00

Traveling the world is the avant-garde Alternative Hair Show. Created by Tony Rizzo to raise money for leukemia research after the death of his son, the show started in 1983 & has become more popular every year. The show highlights leading hairdressers & hair artists with a knack for offbeat & innovative hair designs.

Graphic Novel of the Month: City of Glass

2011-10-11T10:10:00.000-04:00

"It was a wrong number that started it all..." which is the line that starts City of Glass. In the graphic novel adaptation of Paul Auster's book of the same name, mystery writer Daniel Quinn gets a puzzling phone call asking for detective Paul Auster. After many nights for the same request, Quinn decides to play along & gets a case from Peter Stillman, a mentally abused man-child, & Stillman's wife & speech therapist, Victoria. They tell him that Stillman was locked in a dark closet for years by his father, Peter Stillman Sr., a professor who was seeking out the original language before the fall of man in the Garden of Eden. After serving time for child abuse, Peter Stillman Sr. is being released & the couple is worried that he may show up to get revenge, so they pay Auster (Quinn) to follow Stillman.

That is the overall narrative structure of the novel, but this is more than just a detective story. There is much to say about this novel & I wrote out five paragraphs of analysis with more on my mind, but I deleted it all. It's just too heavy of a novel to be discussed in a couple of statements. There are assertions & contradictions in the novel about identity, authorship, & semiotics, along with many visual themes & motifs. If I were to teach a class on comic theory (which may or may not be a class anywhere, sadly) I would have this as part of my required reading. I also didn't realize this, but City of Glass perfectly pairs up with last months G.N.o.t.M., Understanding Comics. I would recommend reading that one first, and then hit City of Glass. It will help you with the match shots & panel transitions that are fill the pages, making City of Glass quite cerebral & technical.

To put it into perspective as too how much effort was put into this novel, it took four people to adapt it from a written novel to a graphic novel. Paul Karasik wrote the script, David Mazzucchelli drew it, Paul Auster supervised the adaption & Art Spieglman organized it. I haven't read the original, but as a work on its own, it is something of a revelation.

Letterpress Appreciation Day-Open House

2011-10-04T09:44:00.000-04:00

For all of you JCBA fans, you'll know that September 18th is Letterpress Appreciation Day because the standard height for wood and type is .0918, hence 09/18. We had our second annual Open House for Letterpress Appreciation Day & guest were able to use the our cast iron Washington Press to make a broadside with the quote "Don't Forget to Live Today." Also, our Vandercook Press was up & running as guest were able to print our 19th Century image of a flying time machine that we've been using since Arthur's birthday. Attendance was good; some say we had close to hundred people, & some say a couple of hundred. We lost track after eleven. If you weren't able to make it this year, mark your calendars, because this will be an annual event. It's free and fun for all.

Two View Movie Review: Spirited Away

2011-09-28T12:27:00.001-04:00

In this animated fantasy-adventure film, ten year-old Chihiro whines & complains to her parents about their move to a new home. On their way to their home, they come across an abandoned amusement park. While walking through the park, they see some deserted food, & to Chihiro disdain, her parents start to feast on it. Wandering the park, Chihiro spots a grand bathhouse; but, at nightfall, spirits start to appear in the park. She runs back to her parents, only to find them turned into pigs. A boy named Haku finds Chihiro & tells her that the place is a bathhouse for spirits & demons. In order for her to stay alive, she must get employment from the bathhouse's manager, the witch Yubaba. While working at the bathhouse, Chihiro comes across many ancient creatures, including Kamaji, the six-armed boiler room worker; No-Face, an empathetic wraith that feeds off the emotions of others; & a stink spirit, the worst customer to ever enter the bathhouse.

Spirited Away is my personal favorite Hayao Miyazaki film, who some would say overthrows Walt Disney as the supreme animator. Miyazaki presents to us a frighten & fussy girl who is forced into another reality & must learn to use the resources around her in order to survive. There was a moment in the film when I realized that Chihiro grew up at a point when she bravely trekked across a water pipe that was outside & overlooking a cliff. Earlier in the film, she was had trouble just climbing down some steep stairs. The film belongs next to other fantasy, coming-of-age stories like Alice's Adventure in Wonderland & Pinocchio.

Besides following a liminal progression, Spirited Away contains many themes often seen in Miyazaki's films, which includes pollution (symbolized in the stink spirit), greed & gluttony (symbolized in Chihiro's parents), & the losing of customs & cultures in a global society. The later is a major point in the film, as Chihiro is isolated from the outside world & comes face-to-face with Japanese mythological creatures. And there are many Japanese symbols & customs shown in the film that may make it hard to follow for non-Japanese, but that is kind of the point. Chihiro doesn't understand most of it either, showing a decline in traditions.

This is great family film, as adults will be able to catch the social commentary & the weird creatures & action sequences will transfix the kids. Plus, anyone can enjoy it for its imaginative images & animation. It's just awesome.

Center Paige: Fun Sun Facts

2011-09-23T10:06:00.000-04:00

This month's artists' book, Fun Sun Facts, comes from FAU student Kiran Trivedi & may be the only student artists' book that has been purchased by the JCBA. Made for a summer artists' book class in 2005, Trivedi went above & beyond the class' requirements, making a box & 50 copies of his book. The pages of the book are bristol boards that were laser engraved and cut by a 40 watt, carbon dioxide laser. The pages are shaped like a ray of sun, held together by a metal post screw & contains slits, which allows the book to look like a full sun when opened. The book is housed in an acrylic box that is also laser engraved & laser cut.

This book lives up to its name. All of the nine pages contain cool (more like, hot) information about the sun. And since I'm a sucker for time & space, here are some fun sun facts in the book:

"The Sun is 4.5 billion years old! If you think 4.5 billion years as the length of a 12 inch ruler, then the time humans have existed wouldn't even be the width of the lines marking the inches." (Page 6)

"The northern lights, or aurora borealis, are moving, dancing curtains of light that occur in the night sky near the North Pole. The aurora is caused by energetic particles from the Sun." (Page 9)

I don't know if the facts influenced the shape of the book or if the idea of the shape came before the text was brought to Trivedi's mind, but Fun Sun Facts is the perfect example of joining form & contain. And here's a fun fact; Kiran means "rays of sun."

The History of English in Ten Minutes

2011-09-21T11:26:00.000-04:00

The Open University released on Youtube a funny & informative animated series about the English language. All the chapters speak of certain events in history that have transformed the way we speak, starting with the Germanic tribes entering Britain all the way to the Internet age. These are some of my favorite chapters.

Sapling Press & Dear Blank, Please Blank

2011-09-19T09:49:00.001-04:00

I came across some hilarious letterpress cards creating by Sapling Press with the text being from the snarky website Dear Blank, Please Blank, where anyone can post their short letter, usually just to get something off their chest. Here are my favorites.

Graphic Novel of the Month: Understanding Comics

2011-09-13T10:19:00.000-04:00

Scott McCloud is a comic book writer & artist who experienced some minor fame & success with runs on various comics & with his own creation ZOT!, in 1993, McCloud decided to break out of fiction & try to theorize the confusing & misunderstood comic book. Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art was his graphic novel where he defined the comic & its vocabulary, gave its history & theorized the various elements of the comic & their uses. It was a groundbreaking graphic novel because it was comic theory in comic form. Most comic theory books before this were text-based, but McCloud wanted to emphasize the power of the medium.

This graphic novel does have its controversy, especially when McCloud defines the comic & what he considers art. His definition of art includes "any human activity that doesn't grow out of our species' two basic instincts: survival & reproduction." This definition opens a whole can of worms that many will find engrossing. Still, McCloud realizes that he theories are just that & hopes that this novel will open up a debate.

McCloud makes the novel fun to read & look at. He draws himself & the panels as simple as needed, but shows off his drawing muscle from time-to-time for examples. As much as he tries to make it digestible, there is a lot of theory & thought in every page & is not a read-in-one-setting kind of book. This one requires a couple of reads in order for you to retain a good portion of the details. Still, I highly recommend this book for comic lovers, art lovers, & book lovers (so pretty much everyone), as it will change the way you look at comics forever.

Be A Writer, Not A Reader

2011-09-02T15:39:00.000-04:00

I've recently read Roland Barthes' S/Z & I thought that I would convey an important & metamorphic thought from the essay. One should absorb text as a writer, not a reader (text including writings, artwork, movies, music, etc.) To view text as a reader would include being passive & interpreting the text in only the author's vision. Viewing text that way creates a one-sided conversation, with the author acting as an authoritarian figure (see what I did there.) You often see authors or directors talking about their purpose & vision for their text, which I think is good to have a thesis for your text, but their vision may not be relevant for everyone, since we're all individuals. Also, an author has to realize that when their text leaves their head & becomes part of public display, it is not their text anymore. It becomes part of the cultural language.

So, a better mindset is to view text as a writer would view text. Use your background to create your own interpretation. You may have thought of some deep meaning in a little part of the text that the author didn't think of. Actually, the writers of Lost would go on the fan sites & look at the speculations & plot devices that fans created & the writers would use them in subsequent episodes. So create a dialogue & don't get upset if no one agrees with you. There is no "truth" out there. Just be "honest" in your opinions.

And that is my short essay of S/Z. Thank you.

Two View Video Game Review: Limbo

2011-08-24T14:27:00.000-04:00

W-w-what? Video Game? That's right. This last summer, during Fourth of July, I was with the family at my brother's house. He had an Xbox 360 & was playing a game called Limbo & I was enthralled. I use to be a game geek in the past, but now, I don't have the time or money to bother, but I still have that itch to pick up a controller every now & then. Well, let me say, I did not spend too much time with the family that holiday or watched any fireworks. Luckily, the game is short & I was able to feel satisfied when I completed it.

You play the game as a nameless boy who is looking for his sister in Limbo. You take him through a forest to an urban landscape while encountering other ruthless boys & a relentless, hungry giant spider. Dead ends seem common, but often the pull of a lever or the push of a switch causes the earth to rotate or gravity to reverse, opening up a new path.

I picked a video game this month because of Roger Ebert's statement that "video games can never be art," which I find striking for him to say because critics said the same about cinema upon its dawning. Limbo wasn't released when Ebert made these statements, otherwise, video game fans would have a strong example as to why his statement was wrong. I haven't seen a video game with such a clear art direction. Its heavy influences include German Expressionism & film noir, with the main color palette being black & grey. Not only does the shadowed atmosphere look menacing, but also everything is potentially deadly, & trust me, your character is going to die when you play it & the creators, Playdead, created many ways to show the death of the protagonist. Puzzles require many tries in order for you to figure them out & Playdead made these puzzles more nerve racking by making lethal leaps only obtainable by mere inches. Luckily, this is Limbo & death is never final. You start back right before your last dangerous task.

The game costs about 10 bucks & even if you don't have an XBox 360, I'm sure you know someone who does. Persuade them so you can borrow it & the game takes about 6-10 hours to complete. I know, that even if you don't play video games, you'll enjoy the eerie mood the game creators made for you. Because, if this isn't art, I don't know what is.

Center Paige: The Alphabet of Time

2011-08-22T11:25:00.001-04:00

Jim Machacek & Sibyl Rubottom's The Alphabet of Time is their abecedarium involving different theories, thinkers, & symbols involving time & space. The book is accordion bound with a red cloth covered board. The images are letterpress printed on polymer plates & wood type along with collage, hand painting, marbling & silk screening. I enjoy how the book uses many techniques in order to convey the message of each letter. Every page is different in design & often contains layered printing in different typefaces & colors. My favorite pages particularly are "B" for its striking hand painting combined with inkjet transparent waves, "O" for the handsome drawing of the oak tree & "T" for the removable time cards printed with quotes (which include the lyrics to "Time-Warp" from The Rocky Horror Picture Show.)

A is for Astrolabe & Aristotle
B is for Black holes
C is for Clocks & Joseph Cornell
D is for Decay

E is for Evolution

F is for Fossil
G is for Greenwich Mean Time
H is for The Hubble
I is for Infinity
J is for The Julian Calendar
K is for Kronos
L is for Longevity
M is for Music, Moment, & Mozart
N is for Nocturnal
O is for Old Oak

P is for Marcel Proust

Q is for Quantum Theory

R is for Relativity

S is for Seasons

T is for Time

U is for Universal Time

V is for Vanitas

W is for Water Clock

X is for Expressionism

Y is for Year

Z is for Time Zone

*As you can see we have a new name for the "Artists' Book of the Month" segment. This was created by blog reader Jessica, so thank you Jessica & also Amy Letter for your suggestions.

Graphic Novel of the Month: Little Nemo in Slumberland

2011-08-09T10:52:00.001-04:00

The King of Slumberland, Morpheus, invited six year-old Nemo to be a playmate for his daughter, the Princess. Slumberland can only be gained when Nemo is sleeping, so every night, King Morpheus & his attendants find ways to get him to the kingdom, but Nemo's dreams quickly turns into nightmares & he wakes up, usually falling out of his bed. He gets woken up right before some sort of serious injury, like falling off a flying horse or being crushed by giant mushrooms, or by running into Flip, the mischievous son of the Sun & nephew of Dawn. Flip is competing with Nemo for the Princesses attention, despite being an outcast in Slumberland. Every time Nemo sees Flip's "Wake Up" hat, he wakes up. Nemo does make his way to Slumberland, but he gets lost in the Palace. In the Palace, reality isn't a factor & every room is a new funhouse, with the rules of physic being forgotten.

Winsor McCay created Little Nemo in Slumberland in 1905. It first appeared in the New York Herald every Sunday, and then moved over to New York American where the strip changed its name to In the Land of Wonderful Dreams. McCay definitely has the creativity & the skill to pull off the surreal. He drew some of the most imaginative images ever in comics, at a time when the comic strip was still in its infancy. These creative images are so striking because McCay's artwork contains clean lines & flat coloring that caused the large & highly detailed backgrounds & weird characters to stand out from the rest of the other comic strips. A strip titled "Night of the Living Houses," where Nemo gets attacked by walking houses, was the first comic strip to be entered into the Louvre.

Readers will have to overlook the racially influenced caricature of the Imp, whose face resembles minstrel show make-up. Fans of the strip state that the Imp is treated positively & is not shown any form of humiliation throughout the tales. Also, McCay followed the method of "draw first, write later" causing the text to be sometimes squeezed in the bubbles & in the gutters of the panels. Fortunately, McCay sometimes numbers his text, so the reader knows where to go.

Nemo has been reprinted many times, but it is best seen in the So Many Splendid Sundays! edition, as the comic is shown in its original scale & is an impressive display of the illustrations.

Interview w/ John Cutrone: Parte Due

2011-08-03T09:27:00.000-04:00

Here is the second & more personal part of my Q & A with Director John Cutrone

What is your education background?
I received a BFA in Art & a BA in English from FAU in 1995 & in 2001, an MFA in the Book Arts from the University of Alabama. The in-between years involved many amazing months at the Penland School of Crafts in North Carolina & I've attended a few sessions of Paper & Book Intensive, as well, which is held in various places across the county each summer.

What are some of your favorite books in the JCBA?
My favorite books are the ones where the artist has really created a unified whole; where the text informs the structure & the choices of materials & type choices... everything that the book brings to the table. Some of my favorites are In the Presence of Absence by Harriet Bart & Möbius Circle by Coriander Reisbord & I am totally enamored with a book we've just recently acquired: A Line by Suyeon Kim.

Bart's book is perfection in the way the concept is brought together: this text, about the importance of what is absent, is presented in a manner that astounds me every time I see it. (I don't want to spoil it for anyone who hasn't seen it.) Reisbord's book is, I think, perfect in its simplicity & form. What better way to discuss a bad relationship you can't get out of than through an infinite loop? And as for the new book Suyeon Kim: this book brings to mind, for me, everything that brought me to the book arts in the first place. A wonderful story, told with care, presented almost as a silent movie. I can't get enough of it.

What about your books at home? Give me three books that you always go back to.
Oh, you're making me choose just three? Okay. In no particular order: The Sketchbook of Geoffrey Crayon by Washington Irving, Dubliners by James Joyce, Assassination Vacation by Sarah Vowell, Quite a Year for Plums by Bailey White & Lake Wobegon Days by Garrison Keillor. Is that five? Well, too bad.

New Name for Looky Lookie

2011-07-27T09:07:00.000-04:00

Contempt for "Looky Lookie"

For the dozen of you who read the JCBA blog, you'll know that every month, I feature a book from the collection & that segment is called "Looky Lookie." I never thought that title was too clever or cute & those disdainful feelings grow more & more. So, dear blog readers, come up with a new title for the "artist book of the month" bit. Post it in the comment section & I'll choose the one I like the most. Maybe you'll win something, maybe you won't. I have to think of something for you to win first. But, fire away!

Two View Movie Review: 4 Months, 3 Weeks & 2 Days

2011-07-26T11:46:00.002-04:00

Christian Mungiu's 4 Months, 3 Weeks & 2 Days follows two college students, Otilia (Anamaria Marinca) & Gabriela (Laura Vasiliu) in a Romanian town. Set in 1987, towards the end of the Communist Ceauşescu regime, abortions are illegal & committing an abortion after 3 months of pregnancy is considered manslaughter. When Gabriela gets pregnant, she asks for Otilia's help in getting someone to perform an abortion. They get in contact with an elusive & rightfully cagey Mr. Bebe (Vlad Ivanov,) who has clear, set instructions as to the preparations of the abortion. Gabriela manages to screw everything up & when Mr. Bebe finds out Gabriela lied about how long she's been pregnant, he demands more money, but the girls are out of money & time.

4 Months isn't a film about abortions in the sense it doesn't preach one way or the other on the topic. It's just a plot point. I would say the point of the film is to focus on faith in one's friends, as Otilia considerably risks herself many times in the film for her helpless friend (helpless in both senses of the word.) Marinca carries the emotional weight of the story & does so amazingly. Yet its Ivanov who steals every scene he is in. At first, he seems harmless, but the audience will learn that even if he doesn't shout or howl, he's a brute.

The acting is minimalist & natural, with the actors only doing what is required for each scene, a feature that is evident in all aspects of the film. Cinematographer Oleg Mutu uses a hand-camera skillfully to capture the grittiness of the time, which is helped by Mungiu's appropriate recreation of late '80's Romania. Mungiu uses limited editing & long takes, which builds suspense. My favorite scene, which is a seven minute long take with eight actors, is when Otilia is visiting her boyfriend at his parents' house during a dinner party. Obliged to join in the dinner, Otilia faces persecution for being both young & from a rural area by the parents & their friends. The long take allows the viewer to notice Otilia getting irritated from the judgement & the events going on outside the scene, too.

I've read descriptions of the film, with some calling it a thriller or a horror movie. Mungiu does offer hints in the movie as to what may or may not happen, which does create an atmosphere of dread, but I wouldn't put it in either of those categories. 4 Months is more subtle, more graceful, & in a way, more gut-wrenching.

An Interview w/ John Cutrone: Parte Una

2011-07-21T15:22:00.000-04:00

If you're a fan of the JCBA, then you probably know John Cutrone. Cutrone has been a part of the JCBA for some time, teaching classes, giving presentations, creating exhibits & sending out emails. He's the voice of the JCBA (besides myself) & this year, he's been appointed director of the JCBA, so I thought that I would have a little chat with Mr. Cutrone on what's in store for the JCBA.

First off, what does the JCBA mean to you?
Well, I think of it as a great experiment. JCBA is still very much in its infancy & we are most definitely still wending our way, trying to find our place. I think as Seth & Arthur & I have developed the place, we knew very much from the start what we did not want to be & so we've always built from that. We did not want it to be unapproachable. We did not want the books locked in a cage.

Moving beyond that has been this very interesting process of deciphering what JCBA can be. We know we have a lot to do if we are to get to the point where we can offer all the educational opportunities we hope to. This involves acquiring more metal & wood type for the Letterpress Studio, as well as another Vandercook press & it involves acquiring more special tools for the Book Studio & even though the Paper Studio is not yet open, we know there is more necessary equipment to acquire there, as well, if JCBA is to be a viable working research facility in the book arts.

We have many book arts centers across the country to look up to & aspire to, but we are aware that we have a clean slate to work from. For instance, we have the very awesome Book Arts Gallery & so we have learned to use what we have in creative ways. I don't think Jane Siberry has performed salon concerts at many other book arts centers, for instance. But, I have always thought of JCBA as not just a book arts center, but as a center for creativity in general, a place where ideas are exchanged, be it through books or music or film or performance or whatever anyone wants to bring to our table.

A 1932 pop-up edition of Pinocchio to be seen in POP!

What hamster wheels are turning in your head regarding future events & exhibits?

We've got a few really exciting exhibitions in the works, all of which have only working titles right now... so the titles may change as the exhibition research progresses. In the spring of 2012, watch for Motor City, which we are presenting as part of FAU's 50th anniversary festivities. This university began as an experiment in non-traditional education & part of that was a campus focused on commuter students (a fact that has changed only in the last decade.) Motor City will feature artists' books that deal with cars, maps, bridges, roads, & other motoring ideas & will also include a one-day antique automobile show at the new FAU stadium in March & perhaps a film series, too.

After that, we'll be unveiling the new Arthur J. Williams Pop-Up Book Collection, a recent gift to JCBA's permanent collection. The working title is POP! & it will be exciting & dynamic, because really good pop-up books can't help being anything but exciting & dynamic. This exhibition will certainly include some workshops in paper engineering & hopefully a gallery talk or two with some great paper engineers.

I'm already at work researching our exhibition for Autumn 2012, which explores the connections between paper folding, science, math, engineering & creativity. This exhibition, which I am particularly excited about, is inspired by the Green Fuse film Between the Folds, which looks at the traditional paper folding art of origami & how, in the hands of offbeat thinkers, origami is reshaping ideas on creativity & the relationship between art & science. Paper folding workshops & screening of the film are natural events to link this exhibition.

Other upcoming events include our annual print shop open house in celebration of Letterpress Appreciation Day (September 18) & the opening of JCBA's new Handpapermaking Studio some time this fall. Also, what might be our best fundraiser ever, involves pie, because there's nothing better than pie & coffee & a good book. The Elephant House, or the Home of Edward Gorey exhibition that we put up in the fall of 2009 will be at FAU's MacArthur Campus Library at the end of August. I'd like to do something with ghost stories, too, around Halloween...but we shall see about that.

A more personal, second part of the interview will be coming soon, so look out for that.

An Enigmatic Book Artist

2011-07-20T11:14:00.000-04:00

Someone has been showing off their cutting skills in Edinburgh, Scotland. Anonymous altered books have been popping up in the city, all at book friendly locations, including the National Library of Scotland. All the altered books conceived are from mystery writer Ian Rankin's books & often contains a note. The note juxtaposed with the sculptor containing a dragon in an egg says, "Once upon a time there was a book & in the book was a nest & in the nest was an egg & in the egg was a dragon & in the dragon was a story." There have been numerous speculations as to the identity of the Bansky-esque culprit, ranging from graduate students to installation artists to book artists, but no one has came forward & sometimes, it's better that way.

Looky Lookie: Space + Time

2011-07-12T16:06:00.002-04:00

Space + Time is Ken Leslie's project where he marked off 52 equally spaced points from one place in his garden, then sitting in the same spot, shot a photo once a week facing each successive point & created a circular foldbook. The book is housed in a slipcase featuring a photo of the photos joined together.

Last month's "Looky Lookie" section featured Shinsuke Minegishi's The Tale of Three Black Boxes, which was also a study in the relationship of time & space (I didn't realize this when I picked this month's featured artists' book. I must be watching too many episodes of The Universe.) While Minesgishi is way more subtle with its dealing of the subject, Leslie wanted to make it clear that space & time are clearly closely related, despite being completely opposite concepts. This is proven by his different sides, one marked space & the other marked time, but the photos appear to be the same: the same standing grounds but objects appearing at different moments of the year.

On each side, Leslie studies one of the two concepts. On the space side, Leslie notes that the world comes full circle & references Magellan. Leslie notes that Magellan traveled around the world to end up where he began & Leslie stayed in one spot & ended where he began. On the time side, Leslie notes that his daughter & he perceive time differently. A year to his ten year old daughter is only 10% of her life, which seems like a long time, yet a year to Leslie is 2% of his life. That idea blew my mind! It does seem to me, that my year in Kindergarten felt like forever; but now, semesters fly by me. It makes me wonder, if humans are someday able to live 200, 300, or 500 years because of advancements in medical technology, would a year feel like a week? How can you build relationships with people hundreds of years younger than you if you feel like the trends, cultures, politics & people are whizzing by? Ultimately, time moves faster, but do we go anywhere?

Graphic Novel of the Month: Hellboy: The Chained Coffin & Other Stories

2011-07-01T15:45:00.006-04:00

During W.W. II, the Nazis tampered with anything that would allow them to change the tide of war. One attempt included summoning a demon from hell. They were successful in summoning a demon, but it was a demon infant. The infant was intercepted by Allied forces & raised by Professor Bruttenholm & the Bureau of Paranormal Research & Defense & is named Hellboy. In The Chained Coffin & Other Stories, Hellboy travels the world solving supernatural mysteries for the B.P.R.D. as the "World's Greatest Paranormal Investigator."

In the story The Corpse, a family needs Hellboy's help in order to get their baby back from faeries. In order to do so, Hellboy must bury the thieves' dead friend in sacred ground, but nothing is as easy as it seems. The Baba Yaga features Hellboy dealing with a Russian witch who counts dead men's fingers. In The Iron Shoes, Hellboy confronts a redcap from Border folklore who lurks in an abandoned tower. The winter special, A Christmas Underground, has Hellboy fulfilling a dying woman's final wish by rescuing her daughter from a prince of the underworld. In The Chained Coffin, Hellboy receives a vision of a nun & a priest protecting their dead mother from a demon, while learning a little about his past. The Wolves of Saint August contains a trip to a village filled with the ghosts of werewolves. The Almost Colossus story focuses on Hellboy tracking down a homunculus in order to save one of his teammates.

Hellboy is an interesting mix of super heroics, folklore, & horror. The stories are often humorous, weird, spine-chilling & monster packed. Mike Mignola plays with comic conventions in subtle way, such as word balloons, which may be designed according to the character's speech pattern. The most notable thing of Hellboy is Mignola's artwork, which is a mix of old-school flat coloring & German Expressionism. Mignola is also a master of shading & color, using shadows to create an eerie atmosphere. This collection features the best of Mignola's talent, most significantly The Corpse, which is probably the best comic story telling from the last 15 years, & A Christmas Underground, which is an oddly sweet holiday story that I will cherished along with my other holiday favorites, A Christmas Carol & The Gift of the Magi.

Two View Movie Review: The Passion of Joan of Arc

2011-06-23T10:55:00.019-04:00

Most people know the story of the historical figure & saint Joan of Arc, but most probably aren't familiar with her trial & execution. That is the focus of Carl Theodor Dreyer's 1928 film The Passion of Joan of Arc. Joan is brought to trial because of her involvement in a couple of successful campaigns against the British during the Hundred Years' War. The Church, who were in favor of the British, held the trial. The judges try to discredit her believe that she was told by God to drive the British out of France. She often has quick, smart answers for her arbiters, such has why she wears men's clothing or how she hears the voice of God. The trial becomes grueling for both Joan & the judges, so they offer her amnesty if she declares that she is a fraud, or she will be executed.

Dreyer took some risk when he created The Passion of Joan of Arc. Silent films at the time featured mostly medium or long shots & rarely close-ups, yet Joan of Arc is made mostly of close-ups. Dreyer also had the actors wear no make-up, disabling any sort of "beautification" allowed by the camera. Also, you may notice that the mise-en-scène is very neutral to any sort of style or time period. Dreyer didn't want to make this any sort of costume-filled, period piece, thus making it a historical film that stands out on its own without any reference.

Probably the most prominent aspect of the film is Renèe Jeanne Falconetti's role as Joan. She shakes & quivers with unspeakable emotion that one has never seen before. While surrounded by her tormentors, Falconetti displays this wide-eyed gaze of fear & horror, like she's anticipating light to explode out of her eyeballs. Even during less emotional scenes, there is an underlying pain in her movements. Stories from the set reveal that Dreyer emotionally tortured Falconetti in between takes. It is also rumored that Falconetti never acted again after the film because of this reason.

The Passion of Joan of Arc has had an interesting life. The film was originally banned in Britain because of the film's depiction of British soldiers. The Archbishop of Paris also condemned the film because its depiction of the Catholic Church. Along with that, the original version was lost after a fire destroyed all the negatives of the film. Dreyer reassembled the film using outtakes & surviving prints, but it was believed that the original film was lost forever, until in 1981, a copy of the original was found in a janitor's closet at a mental institution in Oslo, Norway, which I am thankful for. Roger Ebert states, "you cannot know the history of silent film unless you know the face of Renèe Jeanne Falconetti" & I couldn't agree more.

"Shut Up, Paige Turner:" Bravo's Competition Shows

2011-06-20T15:23:00.000-04:00

A couple of weeks ago, the TV network Bravo released its new reality-show, Platinum Hit. The show features singer-songwriters as they face challenges that test their creativity & drive with the end result being a $100,000 prize & a record contract. Challenges include writing a love song, creating a dance anthem hit, or creating the perfect road song. And I find this very vexing. A show seems to focus on quick writing & prescribed inspiration, which we can all agree, does not make a lot of great songs (for example, Huey Lewis & the News' song "I Want a New Drug" was written in a couple of minutes & it sounds like it.)

This isn't the first anti-process reality show on Bravo. In Work of Art: The Next Great Artist, contestants must spit out art in a day or two along with following a theme. In episode 5, the contestants must create a piece of art based on their Audi experience, because nothing is more authentic & true as a product placement. The challenges in Top Chef are creative but hardly practical. In the fourth episode of season two, the chefs must whip up dishes using only food from a vending machine, which happens all the time in up-scale restaurants. Just kidding, that never happens. The chefs at Pizza Hut won't even do that no matter how many tantrums & quarters I throw.

So, Bravo, I get what you're doing. You're trying to reach out to the TV viewing demographic who think reality shows like The Jersey Shore is the end of society, but I won't be tricked by you showing me images of lobster foam (who wants to eat lobster foam? I know I don't.) I don't doubt these contestants are creative. They would have to be! But, these shows make writing songs, creating art, & cooking food more about pleasing the buyer & sacrificing your aesthetic in order to win. We live in a world where instant satisfaction is a plus, but for me, instant art isn't a must. So, Bravo, until you create a reality show where these contestants can mull over their work for over a week, I'll put on my top hat & my monocle & say, "Good day to you!"

Looky Lookie: The Tale of Three Black Boxes

2011-06-13T13:55:00.000-04:00

Shinsuke Minegishi's The Tale of Three Black Boxes is made up of spare text juxtaposed with six engravings created by the artist. The six pages were sewn together with a black, paper wrap with a single signature pamphlet stitch (those who have taken our Book Arts 101 classes know what that is.) Along with the storybook, Minegishi included a companion case that includes the six prints from the engravings incorporated with colored woodcuts of windows where the engravings can be seen. These prints are textured because of multiple inkings.

The story of the family of black boxes is simple. They are outcast in an all white-boxed city, so the black boxes decide to explore the world, where they encounter various animals in numerous locations. The black boxes ultimately end up living on the moon. The story & images make the artificial & geometric stand out against the living & biological, which are two opposites that humans try to put together all the time (example, trees in the city.) This idea is explored further in the extra prints, when the engravings are seen through the "peek-holes," which are created out of unnatural shapes & objects. These "peek-holes" transcend time & space, as the boxes do in the story, yet the boxes are three-dimensional & cannot actually travel in time. Another contradiction.

The World's Most Mysterious Manuscript: The Voynich Manuscript

2011-06-08T10:50:00.000-04:00

The Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library at Yale University is the home for the vexing Voynich Manuscript. Thanks to carbon dating, we know the manuscript was created between 1404 & 1438, but little else is known about it besides that. The text resists all translations, & even the top linguistics & cryptographers can't figure out the meaning of the text. They know it isn't gibberish, as gibberish is actually obvious & quite hard to create. Still, the double or triple word combination throughout the text (ex. appleappleapple) stumps experts.

The manuscript contains 240 vellum pages, many of which fold out & are covered with illustrations. There seems to be six sections: herbal, astronomical, biological, cosmological, pharmaceutical, & a section of recipes. Still, the illustrations are unclear; the plant life is unidentifiable & zodiac charts come from an unknown calendar. There also appears to be images of stars & planets seen through a telescope & biological cells seen through a microscope, both scientific devices that didn't appear until the 17th century.

There are many theories about the Voynich Manuscript. Some say that it may have been a hoax manuscript, meaning that the author created the manuscript for a wealthy buyer & passed the text off as part of a lost language. Others think is just may be text about modern medicine during the Medieval Period. The more radical theorists (the Bigfooters & the Nostradamus fans) think the text may be a way to predict the future or means to contact aliens. All that we know is that the Voynich Manuscript may be one of the first artists' book, in the sense that the text & purpose of the manuscript may never be known, but we can still appreciate the manuscript for its design & illustrations.

Graphic Novel of the Month: Quimby the Mouse

2011-06-03T13:57:00.001-04:00

Quimby the Mouse is a collection of strips by Chris Ware during his college years at the University of Texas. The strips features Quimby, a mouse that is modeled off other famous characters like Mickey Mouse, Felix the Cat & Ignatz Mouse, but Quimby isn't a happy-go-lucky character like they others. Quimby is often depressed, insecure, or cruel. Juxtaposed with the strips, Ware writes about his life at the time, which includes his time away from his home town, Omaha, NE, & the death of his grandmother. Ware's text explains a lot of Quimby's random occurrences, such as Quimby being "Quimbies," which is two Quimby bodies sharing a pair of legs, but one body is withering away. The text also brings further insight into the relationship between Quimby & Sparky, a body-less cat that Quimby acts either maliciously towards or benevolent. Quickly, it becomes clear that Quimby is less about a cartoon mouse & more of Ware's confession.

The single-page strips are presented beautifully & features Ware's talent to play around with font & the comic book form. The layout of the panels often challenges the reader to figure out where to go next. One strip in particular doesn't feature a beginning or end. Often, the words become the frames for the strip, or the strip will be featured in a house or building, with each panel being contained in a different floor or room. If you're a fan of Ware's most famous work, Jimmy Corrigan, Smartest Boy in the World, then I recommend quickly finding a copy of Quimby the Mouse (mostly because I think Quimby is the better of the two.) But for non-Ware fans, Quimby is an inventive autobiography that is both somber & humorous (& by humorous, I mean, amusing melancholy.)

Lewis Wickes Hine

2011-05-26T14:32:00.004-04:00

I've wanted to talk about Lewis Wickes Hine for a while, but I haven't gotten to it yet, until now. Hine was a photographer & sociologist that used his photographs as a means for social reform & is one of the better known photojournalist. Starting in 1906, Hine photographed the working conditions faced by immigrants & children & his photographs were highly influential in changing child labor laws. Other projects of Hine's included his work with the Red Cross during W.W.I. & photographing the construction of the Empire State Building (which he risked his life for.) You may not have actually known his name, but I'm sure you have seen his photographs. Here are a few of my favorites, some awe-inspiring, others horrifying, but always powerful.

For more of Hine's work, the New York Public Library created a digital library from their collection.

Two View Movie Review: Gosford Park

2011-05-24T11:53:00.000-04:00

Set in 1932, Gosford Park (2001) is a multi-layered story about wealthy Britons & their servants who go to a Manor in the country for a hunting party. The servants get together & gossip about their bosses & each other, while the upper class reveals the skeletons in their closets more & more as the weekend goes on. Things reach a climax when someone winds up murdered & everyone is a suspect.

The movie plays out like a whodunit, but it is more than a murder/mystery. Similar to the film The Rules of the Game, Gosford Park studies the class system in Britain & focuses on how much the upper class relies on the lower class; or in the film, the people who lounge upstairs & the people who work downstairs. A number of other themes include the decline of the British Empire, British life between the two World Wars, & sexual issues like homosexuality. The film would be considered a humorous, mystery drama. The film takes itself quite seriously, but that hard-to-imitate British wit is infused in every scene (Maggie Smith is a perfect example of this quality.)

Gosford Park was Robert Altman's second-to-last film before his death in 2006. Altman & cinematographer Andrew Dunn filmed the film in subtle yet interesting ways. During scenes with a large group, they had two cameras running at the same time, out of each other's shots, of course, which would require some choreography, as the filmmakers also never had the cameras standing still. Altman stated he did this in order to create a natural setting for the actors, causing them to talk amongst each other & not to the camera. The actors also wore portable microphones instead of using a boom mic so that the dialog could be overlapped, again, so that the scenes are as natural as possible.

The film is without a doubt convoluted, as the film contains over 20 characters, each with their own progressive storyline. Still, Gosford Park is the perfect "Two View Review" film, as it requires a second view, but don't get me wrong, the first view is enough for the actors (which includes every great British actor working at the time) & the filmmakers to convey their love for their craft. The subsequent viewings are just layers added to a delicious cake.

Celebrate Harvey Milk Day

2011-05-22T11:35:00.000-04:00

May 22nd is the second annual celebration of Harvey Milk Day. For those who still may not know, Harvey Milk was the first openly gay man to be elected into public office in California when he was appointed the position in 1978. Harvey Milk fought for a civil rights law that outlawed discrimination based on sexual orientation in San Francisco, where Milk held office. Milk also fought against the Briggs Initiative, a proposition that required the firing of gay teachers & teachers who supported gay rights. Milk campaigned long & hard against the proposition & the proposition didn't gain enough votes.

On November 27, 1978, Harvey Milk & San Francisco Mayor George Moscone was shot & killed by former Supervisor Dan White. Milk only served as a supervisor for eleven months & he accomplished so much in that short period of time that benefited the LGBT community. Without Milk's tireless campaign against the Briggs Initiative, the proposition may have gone into effect & if a state like California was signing anti-gay laws into effect, then it could have easily spread out the whole U.S. This is all rhetorical, but I can't help but wonder what would have happened if he was still around. The LGBT community definitely needed a leader during the early years of AIDS/HIV. Fighting against Proposition 8 would have been Milk's main objective in 2008. Maybe Milk would have moved onto bigger things, like becoming a Representative for California, fighting against policies like Don't Ask Don't Tell in the House. All I know is that he left too soon & there is still work to be done. That is the purpose of Harvey Milk Day: to remember what one man did in a short period of time; what can you do in order to carry on the fight?

Looky Lookie: Triumph eines Hosenverkäufers

2011-05-17T12:34:00.000-04:00

Triumph eines Hosenverkäufers (Triumph of a Trousers Salesman) was created by Veronika Schäpers in 2002. It is an edition of 15 copies. The book contains inkjet text & images printed on clear polyethylene foil pages. The pages are held together with gum cords that also bend the cover. It is housed in a clear polycarbonate cover housed in a inflatable air-cushion with red titling on front & black titling on back, which is also housed in a white fleece bag.

The book is inspired by the text, which is a poem written by Heiko Michael Hartmann. When the book is first viewed, it looks like blurs of red & the text becomes lighter as you descend to read it. But, as you turn the first page, you realize that the red is a silhouette of two boxers fighting & the lines of the poems appear one at a time on each page. So, as you turn the page to read the text, you see the two boxers continue their bout. But what does boxing have to do with selling pants? The poem, which is in German, is in the salesman's point-of-view, who approaches the job as a boxing match.

Here is a rough translation of the poem:
Immediately after I
stumbled into the ring unguarded
there was I have something for you
certainly you may
the sheer force of springy ropes pushed me
in the dressing-room I turned weak
rather than suspicious
my suggestion for outside I staggered
under the cuffs of his endless
concern to settle the score
I kept nodding keep going I thought
only the price kept me on my
feeble legs just feel the
high-quality material & the excellent
workmanship will look fabulous
after some alterations
with my city shirt mustering
what strength I had left I whispered I'll take it
you have made the gong saved me
chosen well

Graphic Novel of the Month: Gods' Man

2011-05-10T11:07:00.001-04:00

A poor, struggling artist makes a deal with a mysterious, masked stranger. The stranger gives the artist an ancient paintbrush used by the greatest painters of the past. All he has to do is give the stranger his previous art & sign a contract. After this meeting, the artist's luck changes when he moves to a big metropolis, where he starts to gain attention because of his artistic depiction of the city's monumental buildings. The artist is quickly seduced by his new upper-class status, but quickly realizes that fame & fortune is abusive. He escapes back to nature in order to find the innocence that he lost in his craft & himself, but it may be too late.

Lynd Ward's Gods' Man is the first of six "wordless novels" he created. Made in 1929, Ward's novels, along with the novels of Franz Masereel & Otto Nuckel, are thought to be some of the earliest graphic novels, despite Ward reporting that he never read comics. The novels are made out of wood engravings & Ward's woodcuts are dramatic, featuring a combination of Art Deco & Expressionism. Ward's greatest strength is creating rays of light with these woodcuts that not only radiate through the darkness of the clouds but also radiate off the pages, despite being stark black & white images. Gods' Man is a breathtaking piece of work. Truly a masterpiece in a class & medium of only a few.

Check out Judith Klau's analysis of the book here.

New Exhibit: Time Flies When You're Having Fun

2011-05-09T13:52:00.002-04:00

Hey, blog readers! Sorry for my staggering appearances during the last couple of weeks. It has been rather busy here at the Center. Fans probably already know, but Arthur Jaffe's 90th birthday was Saturday, May 7th, & he's retiring, too, so we threw a big party this weekend in his honor. We also asked artists from the collection to donate books for the celebration. We received many great items & we placed them on display along with some of Arthur's favorite items from the collection. The Time Flies When You're Having Fun exhibit will be on display all summer long throughout the whole library.

Also, you can celebrate Arthur's birthday & retirement by coming to the Time Flies Open House on Saturday May 21st. From 1PM to 4PM, you can chat with Arthur with a side of cookies & coffee, create a print with our Vandercook Printing Press, & receive one-of-a-kind poetry from the Miami Poetry Collective. Members of the Collective will be scattered across the Center so you can buy a poem (name your own price) based on a topic or theme of your recommendation. While you're here, you can look at the Time Flies When You're Having Fun exhibit & the Stories on the Skin: The Photos exhibit on the first floor, west wing of the library. No need to RSVP; just come, have fun, & leave with some cool pieces.

Two View Movie Review: The Diving Bell & the Butterfly

2011-04-30T18:51:00.001-04:00

Jean-Dominque Bauby was a well known author, journalist & editor for the French edition of Elle magazine, but at the age of 43, he suffered a stroke that left him completely paralyzed except for his left eye. The condition is called lock-in syndrome, which means the mind is fully intake & awake, but the body is immobile. Hope is not lost for Bauby, as therapists give him a way to communicate by blinking his left eye when the alphabet is dictated to him, allowing him to spell messages, one letter at a time. Bauby eventually finds solace when he decides to write a memoir on his experience.

This unique biopic is inspired by Bauby's memoir of the same name & screenwriter Ronald Harwood translated it for the screen brillantly. There are many key moment in the film that are frustrating, humorous & moving. Notable scenes include Bauby's ex-wife translating Bauby's eye blinks for the girlfriend he left his wife for; or Bauby talking with his father, who is also locked-in, as he is too frail to leave his apartment. Director Julian Schnabel & cinematographer Janusz Kaminiski create dazzling effects & beautiful shots thoughtout the film to capture a picture inside Bauby's imagination. The film is often put in Bauby's point-of-view which leaves the viewer feeling hindered, uncomfortable & claustrophobic. This is an inspiring biopic about the power of the human mind with an art-house sensibility.

Happy Earth Day!

2011-04-22T13:23:00.000-04:00

Just wanted to remind everyone that today is Earth Day, a day for everyone out there to start making more of an effort to lower your carbon footprint: turn out lights, TV's, & other appliances when they are not in use; use the car only when needed & when you do, carpool; recycle what you can, but also make sure you follow the rules for your recycling pick-up (taking labels & lids off containers, following the plastic code, etc.) But, most importantly, take in the glory of nature & bask in all the wonders that nature grants you & think about what you can grant it.

Steampunk

2011-04-21T14:55:00.002-04:00

A couple of weeks ago, I talked about the graphic novel Scarlet Traces & it's ties with steampunk, which I explained briefly. I'll discuss more about this retro-futuristic art movement. Steampunk is heavily influenced on the culture & fashion of Victorian Era Britain & the steam-powered technology of the Industrial Revolution. Many works of Steampunk are considered science fiction, with the technology featured being anachronistic technology & modern-day inventions imagined as the Victorians would design them, like airplanes, elevators, or computers.

The Nautilus from Jules Verne's
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea

A steampunk-altered laptop computer.

Steampunk artists & designers originally got their inspiration from science fiction novels of the Victoria Era, most notibly from works by H.G. Wells & Jules Vern, along with the scientific romance novels from the likes of Mark Twain & Mary Shelley. The term Steampunk was coined in the late 1980's as an alternate version to cyberpunk, an art influence focusing on futuristic, high technology & low life. Since then, steampunk has been seen in fiction (The Wicked Gentleman,) comic books (The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen,) films (The Prestige,) television (Wild, Wild West,) video games (Final Fantasy VI,) music (Panic! at the Disco's music video for "Ballad of Mona Lisa,") & performance art (The League of STEAM.)

Here at the Jaffe Center, we don't have any steampunk-influenced books, but if you know any steampunk-influenced artist, send us some info. At the bottom, I've posted a short animated film, The Mysterious Exploration of Jasper Morello.

Looky Lookie: Gay Myths

2011-04-11T14:20:00.002-04:00

Gay Myths by Edward H. Hutchins is a catalog of misconceptions about gay people. The book contains twenty-four photocopied pages with four foldouts. It is hand-stitched with a black faux leather paper cover with a white title and pink triangle pasted on the front. The message is pretty simple: everyone in the LGBT community has heard these hurtful phrases. And I mean everyone. The phrases are juxtaposed with black and white images to emphasize the text. The gay myths are:

1. We deserve AIDS.
2. We molest children.
3. We hate straights.
4. God doesn't love us.
5. Equal rights are special rights.
6. We're not fit to serve.
7. It's just about sex.
8. It's just a phase.
9. You can pick us out.
10. We hate the opposite sex.
11. You don't know a gay person.
12. We all love opera.
13. We have no history.
14. We don't make good parents.
15. We all know one another.
16. We recruit.
17. It's our parents' fault.
18. We're not fit to teach.
19. We all have good taste.
20. We're "butch" or "femme."
21. We're not happy.
22. We want to change.
23. Our unions aren't sacred.
24. We're going to give up.
25. Bigotry doesn't hurt.

In the colophon, Hutchins states, "For all the marchers missed when the park service ran out of fingers & toes." This is a reference to the March on Washington, 1993, where organizers estimated in attendance one million while the National Park Service estimated three hundred thousand.

Gay Myths is part of the copier art movement. JCBA has a huge number of copier art books, including the complete run of the International Society of Copier Artists Quarterlies. To read more about ISCA and copier art, click here.

Gina Lotta Post Artistamp Museum

2011-04-07T09:50:00.000-04:00

I wanted to give a blog shout out to the Gina Lotta Post Artistamp Museum. Artists who work in the postage-stamp format will create either full sheets or Cinderellas, a single stamp. Artist Ginny Lloyd is collecting these stamps & posting them on the blog to create a virtual museum. The stamps can be humorous or erotic & feature satire or irony. Some artists even go to the lengths to create stamps that look official in order to fool the postal authorities, but most artist use the artistamp as a form of artists' mail. Artists can send their artistamp to Ginny to get published or you can just check out the Museum & gander at this creative medium.

Graphic Novel of the Month: Scarlet Traces

2011-04-01T16:33:00.000-04:00

Scarlet Traces (written by Ian Edginton & illustrated by D'Israeli) takes place 10 years after the events of H.G. Well's The War of the Worlds & Martian technology exists side-by-side with Victorian era Britain. Because of reverse engineering, the British Empire covers two-thirds of the world. Hansom cabs in London now operate with robotic crab legs, & the government has the power of heat-rays on their side. Still, things aren't so sunny for the British Empire, as bodies of women start washing up in the Thames River, with blood drained from them. The public fears it may be a vampire, but adventurer Captain Robert Autumn & his manservant, Archie Currie, think otherwise & investigate the situation.

If you're a fan of steampunk, this is the graphic novel for you. For those who do not know what steampunk is, it is a subgenre of science fiction that creates an alternate history, usually in the 19th Century or Victorian Era Britain. There is an emphasis on overly mechanical, impossible steam-powered machines, & Scarlet Traces is no different. D'Israeli has created a world where old meets the unearthly. His technological designs are intricate & require a second look, while his styling of characters, locations & events are distinct, vibrant & sometimes frightening.

Edginton definitely cares about the source material & reuses many of the themes from W.o.t.W. Edginton's script makes a commentary about quick advancement in technology & the price of these advancements. The story makes note of the reversal for Britain. While Britain was being eliminated & colonized by Mars in W.o.t.W., in Scarlet Traces, Britain has total control over a majority of the world. Who is to say that Britain's globalization attempts will not result as it did for the Martians? Although lessons in colonization is less of an issue this day & age, Scarlet Traces is a lesson in disregarding the caution signs of history.

Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty

2011-03-25T13:22:00.002-04:00

100 selected dresses from the late Alexander McQueen will be displayed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. The exhibit runs from May 4th to July 31st & will feature garments from his 18 highly acclaimed years as a designer. I may add that I'm not much of a fashionista. The fashion industry changes taste & trends too quickly, that regular people find it too exhausting to keep up. Plus, the industry can often be a very shallow & pretentious.

Still, I'm a huge fan of Alexander McQueen. He took the straight-forward runway & created an event out of it. He often shocked & awed the audience not with just his experimental outfits, but with the set-up of his runway shows. Some shows included ice-skating, a carousel, or models acting as chess pieces. He wasn't afraid to be expressive with technology, also, as he had machines spray paint over a white, linen dress or featured a life-sized hologram of Kate Moss floating, which became a ghostly study in the movement of the garment.

Even though these expositions could of had the potential to overpower the clothing, the shows were extravagant & exciting because the cloths were. McQueen drew inspiration from many cultures & eras. There was everything from Russian royalty, to British Victorian, to 1950's sci-fi. He created elaborate headdress that included paper butterflies, model airplanes, or trash. He also set wearable, everyday clothing trends like the "bumster," which set the trend for low-rise jeans, or the kimono jacket.

Here at the JCBA, we believe that narrative comes in many forms, & McQueen was a master storyteller in his medium. This comes from the combination of his stylized clothes & the performance of his exhibits. He sew stories that were often romantic, futuristic, & terrifying. This exhibit is a well deserved honored for McQueen & I wish I was making a trip to N.Y.

Two View Movie Review: Ran

2011-03-22T09:24:00.001-04:00

Ran (1985), written & directed by Akira Kurosawa, takes place in Japan during the Warring States Era, which lasted from the 15th to the 17th century. In the film, the warlord Hidetora splits his kingdom into to three parts to give to his three sons. The two eldest sons, Taro & Jiro, honor their father's decision, but the youngest son, Saburo, thinks it's a bad idea. Saburo reminds Hidetora that he gained power through violence & betrayal, & his brothers will do the same. Hidetora banishes Saburo for his words, but soon, Hidetora learns that Saburo was right, as the Taro gets influenced by his treacherous wife, Lady Kaede, to dispose of his father & his brothers.

Ran was Kurosawa's last epic film & was the most expensive Japanese film at the time. Kurosawa was inspired by the story of the warlord, Mori Motanari, who had three faithful & talented sons, but Kurosawa wanted to imagine what would happen if they were terrible. When writing the script, Kurosawa realized that the story was much like Shakespeare's King Lear, & he was inspired further from that text. This wasn't the first time Kurosawa has worked with a Shakespeare play, as Throne of Blood was adapted from Macbeth. It seems like those tragic stories were made for Japanese film, particularly with the acting. While most of the acting in Ran contains conventional method, some characters, like Hidetora & Lady Kaede, follows the Japanese Noh theater method of acting. This included heavy make-up & sudden, violent body language.

Still, Ran strays in the themes of King Lear. In the play, Lear was rather innocent for the pain that he suffered, while Hidetora was a cruel & murderous ruler. This is a definite tale of karma, as well as chaos & warfare. This is most prominent when Taro & Jiro attack the Third Castle, Hidetora's residence. Kurosawa had all sound removed besides the muted & atmospheric score of Toru Takemitsu. It is a jarring & disturbing scene, as is the rest of the film, but it is a great success.

Happy Ides of March (And Happy St. Patrick's Day)

2011-03-17T10:06:00.000-04:00

I was walking to my car the last night & I realized something: I didn't write about the Ides of March. How could I have not? I've discussed the Krampus & the Chinese New Year, two non-celebrated holidays to the traditional American, & the Ides of March is my favorite non-traditional holiday of all. So, here you go, you're getting "Happy Ides of March" on St. Patrick's Day.

I guess I like the day mostly because I'm a history buff, & most of all, Ancient Roman history. For those who do not know, the Ides of March is March 15th, & on March 15th, 44 BC, Julius Caesar was stabbed 23 times by members of the Senate. The 60 Senators sought to gain back power to the Senate that Caesar had taken. Caesar was popular with the lower & middle class, & Caesar's sole heir, his nephew, Caesar Augustus, was politically skilled. These two factors stopped every civil war that started up & Augustus set himself as the first Emperor of Rome, which I'm sure Caesar's assassins didn't have that as their goal.

It's an interesting story of murder, treachery, & rebellion. To celebrate it, I suggest watching a particularly stabby movie, like Psycho, or you can tape a paper dagger on someone's back, like what happened this year to JCBA student assistant, Jonas McCaffery. Hopefully, if it happens to you, you'll find it sooner than three hours later.

Looky Lookie: Book 91

2011-03-11T11:54:00.000-05:00

Book 91 (The String Book) by Keith A Smith is study of light, shadows, moment & sound. Every page of this wordless book contains a different geometric shape or design, which comes out of the way the strings & the hand-punched holes are placed. But, this book isn't just about each page; it's about the task of turning the pages. With every turn, you hear the rubbing of the linen thread against the pages & some are louder than others, visually & aurally. Shadows create new shapes with the turns as light glides through the holes and slices through the strings. A triangle can appear out of a single string.

Book 91 challenges the idea of a book. Although the mainstream thinking of a book means to contain words or a narrative, I believe a book only needs a beginning & an end. In Book 91, it feels like there is a string being pulled from the beginning to end, encountering other strings & collaborating with them. You can feel the tension of the stings, almost like building tension during in a plot.

For further reading & pictures, here's a link to Judith Klau's analysis of Book 91 at the JCBA website.

New Exhibit: Dialogue

2011-03-07T11:51:00.002-05:00

A new exhibit will be featured at around the Wimberly Library & the JCBA. The exhibit will contain the work of local artist, Helen Salzberg & her pieces will be companioned with an artists' book from the collection, making it a dos-a-dos exhibit. Salzberg's material are paint & collage on canvas. This is an interesting exhibit because Salzberg work is up for sale & the proceeds all go to the Center. The paintings are priced between $350 & $600, so check it out & if there's something you like, you can take it home. The exhibit runs until March 22nd.

Graphic Novel of the Month: Madman-The Oddity Odyssey

2011-03-04T10:50:00.000-05:00

Madman is a superhero who doesn't know where he comes from. All he knows is that he was killed & then stitched back together. The resurrection granted him uncontrollable precognitive & empathic powers. Taking the name Frank Einstein (say it fast) after Frank Sinatra & Albert Einstein, Madman seeks out the help of Dr. Flem & Dr. Boiffard to learn more of his past, but the malicious Mr. Monstadt, who wants the doctors' notes on life & death, interrupts his plans. With his trusty yo-yo & slingshot, Madman must confront zombies, gangsters, & rednecks to figure out who he is.

The Oddity Odyssey collects the first three stories of the Madman series. Mike Allred definitely likes to combine genres, as the narrative contains science fiction, humor & romance, & has the feeling of the underground comix of the 70's while containing the old-school, super-heroic mentality. Allred's artwork is clean & distinctive with blue-grey shading that gives the book a pulp-noir feel. The book presents itself as containing one of the weirdest heroes in comic history, & I don't doubt it. Its weird, its quirky & its fun.

FYI: I don't know if I've ever mentioned, but the graphic novels featured during the "Graphic Novel of the Month" is part of the JCBA & can be viewed anytime.

"Shut Up, Paige Turner:" Apples

2011-03-01T10:25:00.000-05:00

Apples: they keep the doctor away, much like garlic does to vampires. They make for great ciders & even greater pies, or they can be useful snacks because of their portability & sweetness. They have influenced our culture, more than any other fruit & probably more than any food. They show up in religious stories, fables, myths, & scientific discoveries.

One of the most popular use of the apple is in the story of Adam & Eve in the Garden of Eden. Although the Bible never states that Eve picked an apple off the Tree of Knowledge of Good & Evil, the fruit is always represented in paintings & pictures as being an apple. This gives us the term "Adam's Apple" for the laryngeal prominence mostly seen in men & gave the reputation that the apple is a seductive, forbidden & evil (the Latin term for apple & evil are almost the same.)

Apples pop up in Greek Mythology numerously. The most known story resulted in the Trojan War. The Goddess Eris tossed a golden apple at a wedding party that said "for the most beautiful one." Goddesses Athena, Hera & Aphrodite all claimed the apple. In order to decide who should receive the apple, they asked the Trojan Prince, Paris, to be the judge. Athena & Hera tempted Paris with gifts, but Paris prefered Aphrodite's gift: the most beautiful woman in the world. He gave the apple to Aphrodite & she gave Paris Helen. Afterwards, throwing an apple to someone became a symbol of affection.

Hercules holding the apple
Hesprides; his eleventh task
was to fetch them from the
Tree of Life.

Apples show up later in story telling. In the Brothers Grimm tale, Snow White, Snow White gets tricked by the Queen three times, but it was the Queen's third ploy, a poisonous apple, that killed the girl. In American folklore, Johnny Appleseed went around Ohio, Illinois & Indiana throwing apple seed as he walked (there was a real Johnny Appleseed, John Chapman, but he didn't wear a pot for a hat & he was a successful business man who grew orchards at new towns.) And let us not forget about Sir Isaac Newton, who came up with the theory of gravity when an apple fell & hit his head.

Now, why is one fruit so important? Why didn't Adam & Eve eat an orange? Why didn't Eris throw a golden pineapple? Why wasn't Snow White tricked into eating a poisonous kumquat? This isn't rhetorical; I'm actually asking why the apple plays such an important role? I also want to know what other tales & stories of apples being used as a plot device there are.

Coming Events: Workshops, Workshops, Workshops

2011-02-22T11:30:00.003-05:00

Mark your calendars JCBA fans, there are a number of workshops coming up. The workshops are great ways to immerse yourself into art, whether you're an aspiring artist, an artistic master, or you're looking for a fun afternoon. They also work as fun date ideas. I went to a Book Arts 101 with my boyfriend, Jack, as a first date. We had a ball. We ended breaking-up (its not a miracle worker,) but I highly recommend it.

Advance Copier Art
On Satuday, March 19th, from 9:30-4:30 pm, Instructor & Fluxus artist Ginny Llyod will be teaching more copier art techniques. This class is appropriate for those who haven't taken the other copier art classes, but for those who have, you will be learning new techniques. The techniques you will learn involve hand-cutting pages, perforated pages & tricks to learn on the computer.

Book Arts 101: Vernal
On Saturday, March 26th, from 12:30-4 pm & on Thursday, March 31, from 5:30-9 pm, John Cutrone will host another of our popular Book Arts 101 sessions. In this class, you'll get an in-depth view of the book in the collection, then you'll move over to the letterpress studio to print off a cover page. After that, you'll learn how to make a Single Signature Pamphlet Stitch. In this session, the books featured are inspired by the vernal equinox.

Natural Dyes for Book Art Applications

On Saturday, April 16th, from 10-5 pm, John Cutrone will be teaching a class on creating dyes to be used for your artistic endeavors. Paper that will be used includes hemp cord, linen thread, handmade paper& muslin. The dyes will include brazilwood, black walnut, osage orange, madder, red & yellow onionskins, marigold, turmeric, cochineal & kakishibu, a Japanese dye created out of fermented persimmons. And since the workshop is close to Easter time, if there's time, you can bring eggs to dye, also.

In order to sign up for these classes, contact John Cutrone at jcutrone@fau.edu or call the front desk as 561-297-0455.

Two View Movie Review: Pan's Labyrinth

2011-02-15T11:47:00.000-05:00

Pan's Labyrinth is a Gothic fairy tale set in the WWII Franco-controlled Spain. The story follows young Ofelia (Ivana Baquero) as she moves to the forest of Spain with her pregnant mother (Ariadna Gil) so that the baby will be born with its father, Captain Vidal (Sergi Lopez.) Captain Vidal is cruel & malicious & holds a post in the forest to delete the Spanish Maquis guerrillas. One night, Ofelia meets a fairy that draws her into an old, stone labyrinth where she meets a faun, who tells her that she is a princess reincarnate, & in order for the girl to sit on her throne in the underworld kingdom again, she must accomplish three tasks before the next full moon. Using the Book of Crossroads as her guide, she begins her quest, but, can she fully trust a faun, who are known to be tricky & mischievous, & how will the Captain interfere with Ofelia's tasks?

Director Guillermo del Toro was extremely inspired by the fairy tales from the Brothers Grimm & Aesop. In their tales, they were often moral lessons for children & showed the effects of obedience & disobedience. Magic was never explained; it was just there, & the fables were often gruesome. For example, in the tale of Snow White, Snow White gets her revenge on the Queen by making the Queen dance on hot, iron shoes until she drops dead. Pan's Labyrinth doesn't shy away from the gore, as the film shows that the true casualties of war are the children & that sometimes fantasy monsters aren't as bad as the real monsters in our life. This is portrayed beautifully in the film through creative art direction in the film, attractive cinematography & the young Ivana Baquero drives the film & hold it on her shoulders with great skill.

Looky Lookie: Sudden Flutter & An Interview w/ Carol Todaro

2011-02-10T11:08:00.001-05:00

Sudden Flutter by Carol Todaro is bound in the yotsume toji style within a spine made of hand-made paper coated with black sumi ink. The book can be opened & placed at the spine so that the pages can flutter like bird wings. The book was designed, printed & bound by Todaro. The image & text was created with Adobe Photoshop & printed with archival inks on coated Mylar using an Epson Stylus Color printer. The end sheets are hand drawn with sandpaper & the pages are hand-cut.

In this months' segment of "Looky Lookie," I also decided to include an interview that I conducted with Carol. She is a local artist & a dear friend of the Center & was happy to humor us. It will allow us a little insight on Sudden Flutter & Carol's life as an artist.

JCBA: First off, how do you feel Sudden Flutter relates to other pieces of yours?
Carol Todaro: Sudden Flutter is one of the first books that I made & it is a touchstone for me in the sense that it is my first use of a fundamental image that I've returned to in other work over the last decade. In two larger installation pieces, for example, I've used the image of pages-as-wings.

JCBA: Who or what influences you regarding the content, the materials & the techniques that you use for your pieces?
CT: Many teachers have influenced me, from high school forward: Donald Saff had a profound influence on me in graduate school. Keith Smith was the first book artist that focused my attention to the genre & his books were my first teachers in book arts. Buzz Spector is another book-influence, through his writings & his work.

JCBA: What is your schooling background?
CT: I have an MFA in drawing & printmaking from the University of South Florida.

JCBA: What are your current projects?
CT: I'm starting a new collaborative piece with Peter Borrebach that will be on view during "O, Miami," the city's new poetry festival, in April this year. It's a piece made for the second-floor window space at Art Center/South Florida on Lincoln Road in Miami Beach.

JCBA: Besides that project, what are your extracurricular artistic activities?
CT: I'm married to an artist, Tom Lopez, & when we travel we make art, teach art seminars & see exhibitions. I teach at New World School of the Arts. I write, mostly poetry & belong to the Miami Poetry Collective.

JCBA: Since we like to stretch the definition of the book here at the JCBA, what is your definition of a book?
CT: My definition of a book is the very specific & traditional bound volume. Artists' books riff on all of the given physical & conceptual qualities of books & therefore an artists' book can be anything that refers back to those qualities. I like Johanna Drucker's direction, that artists who make books should "interrogate" every part of the book in order to tease out new ideas.

JCBA: With new technology, like the Kindle or the eReader, what do you think is in store for the book format?
CT: I don't know, but here are some thoughts on the topic:
Artists made digital forms of artists' books a part of the genre years ago. Books made for the screen & desktop printer have, in many ways (not all), fulfilled the promise of the artists' book as a democratic multiple.
I've seen a couple of articles recently (one in the New York Times magazine) about books as interior decoration, which I find depressing. I'd hate to see books become nostalgic collectibles. Books are inert without their content, whether that content is carried on pages or embedded in the object as a work of art.
What's evolving right now is a relationship between print media & digital media & I think that's where we need to focus our attention. It seems that publishing as an industry will be most profoundly changed by wide spread screen-reading. One question: how will the end of trade editions (if it comes to that) affect other forms of book production? It seems that small presses can do what they've always done. Is it possible that some materials & products (ink & paper?) will become dear if they are no longer used by mass media? We can make them from scratch, too!

JCBA: Finally, what advice can you give to aspiring book artists (besides "get out while you can?")
CT: My advice is just the opposite, to all artists: make a book. Artists' books are great companions to other art forms, allowing artist to open their processes & expand the line of inquiry. If an artist approached making a book not as a collection of images, but as an image itself, a thing complete, a time-based piece, it can change her work in profound way.

Thank you again, Carol, giving us some little tid-bits & don't forget to check out Carol's work at the art Center/ South Florida this April during "O, Miami."

Graphic Novel of the Month: Barefoot Gen Vol. 1: A Cartoon Story of Hiroshima

2011-02-07T10:29:00.000-05:00

Its 1945 in Hiroshima, Japan & W.W. II is starting to close. That is the setting for Barefoot Gen by Keiji Nakazawa. Nakazawa tells the story of young Gen & his family's struggle during the war. Japan is suffering a food shortage & Gen & his siblings, Shinji & Eiko, sacrifice their portions so that their pregnant mother can eat. Gen's father, Daikichi, suffers persecution from the authorities because of his anti-war stance. Gen's elder brother joins the air force, only to learn that he has enlisted to become a kamikaze pilot. It seems that the war has engulfed every aspect of Gen's life, but Gen's family holds on to what is important & stick together through the worst of it. That is, until August 6th.

Barefoot Gen is similar to last month's graphic novel pick, Persepolis. They both follow the themes of family ties & resisting the hegemony during a time of change that devastates a country. Nakazawa draws heavily on his experiences of growing up in Hiroshima. He shows what everyday life was like during his childhood & that may be the reasoning behind the cartoony nature of the novel. It follows traditional manga (a Japanese comic) cartooning, with the rounded faces & big eyes (think Mickey Mouse,) but Nakazawa also uses every comic convention, from speed lines, sweat beads (to represent emotion like embarrassment or confusion,) & "cross popping" veins (to represent anger or irritation.) Still, the drawings are simple, which is suitable to here; the story doesn't need elaborate illustrations. This is the first volume out of an epic 10 volume series, but Volume One works greatly on its own as a modest, emotional & anti-war piece of fiction.

Happy Chinese New Years & Welcome to the Year of the Rabbit!

2011-02-03T14:50:00.000-05:00

Its February 3rd, which for most people in the U.S. means post-Groundhog Day, but over in China (which includes almost 20% of the global population,) today is the New Year & its the most celebrated holiday among the Han influenced cultures (which includes the Koreas, Japan & Vietnam.) But why is it on February 3rd? Well, it actually doesn't fall on the same day every year. In China, they follow the lunisolar calendar. In the lunisolar calendar, the New Year starts on the second new moon after the winter solstice & celebrations last until the next full moon, which means 15 days of festivities. Eat on that America; we only get one night.

Photo brought to you by Shin Yu Pai

There are different traditions for every day. Some are public, like parades featuring the paper dragon dance & fireworks to scare off evil spirits. Then there are more private celebrations which involves giving gifts to family members & eating food like dumplings & nian gao (a cake made of sweetened, glutinous rice.) The 15th day is the Lantern Festival, where patrons light paper lanterns & release them in the air & wish for a good year to come. So, wear your imperial red & welcome in the year of the rabbit.

Coming Events: Graphic Novel Chinwag & Persepolis

2011-01-28T09:22:00.001-05:00

The Graphix exhibit will be ending soon & next week, we're having a blow out. On Monday, January 31st, at 7:00 pm in the Jaffe Center, English Professor Eric Berlatsky & JCBA student assistants Jonas McCaffery & Ashley Miller will hold a panel for an informal discussion on graphic novels. Each will bring their own personal expertise to the table to bring up issues & insight on the comic book medium. Prof. Berlatsky teaches the occasional graphic novel class at FAU, Ms. Miller has 10 years of cartooning experience & Mr. McCaffery was the curator of the Graphix exhibit. So, bring your thoughts & questions to the event to help create a lively conversation or you can post your own discussion questions on the blog & we'll make sure that they are brought up.

On Wednesday & Thursday, February 2nd & 3rd, at 3 pm & 7 pm, we will be screening Persepolis, a film by Marjane Satrapi & Vincent Paronnaud. The Golden Globe winning film for Best Foreign Film will be the perfect going out piece for anyone who loves movies, comic books or animation (so, almost everyone.) The film is 95 minutes long & is in French with English subtitles. To read more about the film, click on the link for my Two View Movie Review of the film . Come experience this enthralling, powerful & effective gem.

"Shut Up, Paige Turner:" Superhero Costumes

2011-01-25T11:36:00.001-05:00

This will be a segment titled "Shut Up, Paige Turner," where I give commentary & criticism on whatever topic I feel like I have "something to say" about. In this post, I will be discussing superhero costumes. I wanted to write about this after re-watching "The Incredibles" & I realized that movie made good use of discussing superhero outfits with their creation of Edna Mode, fashion designer for superheroes. But, most superheroes don't have a designer or someone to sew their outfits, meaning that just about every superhero should be a contestant for Project Runway. If you think about it, Peter Parker doesn't ever have to worry about a job; he could easily get a job working for Ralph Lauren or Diane Von Furstenberg.

Batman using his trusty cape pattern

Also, it's good for superheroes to have a symbol. People feel safe when they see Superman's cape & criminals cower in fear at the sight of the Batman insignia. But having something so specialized means that its really precious & getting a cut, rip, or hole means hours at the sewing machine & I don't think superheroes really have hours in their day. Unless you're Bruce Wayne, you have to work 40 hours a week, fight crime at night, carry on a secret identity & you got shot at by some muggers the night before, so that means hours repairing the bullet holes in your outfit. Then you have to buy materials, go to the fabric store & hope that they have your color in. It may not be as cool, but I think it would be easier to fight crime in jeans & a t-shirt.

"Great! This is my last good costume & I have a final tomorrow"

Having more than one set of a costume is probably necessary, too. Running around all night, a hero will probably get sweaty & the costume will probably get a little funky. Something never mentioned in any of the X-Men films.

The Life of a Book Artist

2011-01-21T15:30:00.001-05:00

The life of a book artist may not seem that interesting. Some may think that its a tedious profession. The letterpress printing appears to be repetitious & the fumes may be nauseating. Binding the book requires a lot of sewing & strained fingers. And don't forget the paper making. A truly messy job if there ever was one. Still you'd be surprised; book arts is exhilarating! Check out this video just to see what I mean.

Looky Lookie: Soap Story

2011-01-20T09:43:00.003-05:00

Angela Lorenz's Soap Story reads like a fairy tale (or soap opera.) It takes place in the 1950's in Calabria, Italy, where Donna Teresa, a woman with her own private washing area, confronts a young woman who is using her canal, only to find out that the woman is a struggling, single mother, whose luck is about to change. Lorenz claims that the tale is a true story told to her by the granddaughter of Donna Teresa.

Lorenz has created a piece of work that requires a lot of interaction from the audience. When the book is originally purchased, you receive a boxed, empty six paged album & six bars of soap. Do you see where this is heading? In order to get the pages, you must use each bar where the silk-screened linen pages reside. They must be dried out & placed in the numbered page that was stamped on the soap. So you have to ask yourself: do I keep the bars of soap or finish the book? Luckily, here at the Jaffe Center, we were able to get a finished copy of the book & the six bars of soap.

Lorenz must have been inspired by Willy Wonka & takes here book a step further. She utilizes the power of special edition & has a "golden ticket" hidden in one of the bars of soap. The receiver of the ticket wins a trip to Italy. Unfortunately, Lorenz has reported that no one has came forward, but she held a lottery for the prize & the curator of the special collection at Brown University's John Hay Library won the trip. Still, you never know; JCBA may have that special ticket hidden in one of our six bars of soap.

Lorenz has created a hands-on book that takes advantage of the process, the material & the editions. She has taken the story & ingrained every aspect of the story into the book. The pages look like rags, the book is bound in twine, the soap is wrapped in a reproduction of a woman's magazine, October 1956, titled "Mani di Fata" ("Hands of the Fairy") & the box the book comes in mimics an old soap box. Her endeavors creates an unified message.

You can also view Judith Klau's analysis of Soap Story, which features more photos of the book, at the JCBA website: Soap Story

Two View Movie Review: Persepolis

2011-01-14T14:39:00.000-05:00

Persepolis tells the story of Marjane "Marji" Satrapi's life in Iran during the war between Iran & Iraq. Through her young eyes, she witnesses the Islamic Revolution & the defeat of the Shah's rule. While the revolution was suppose to bring a new freedom to Iran, the new ruling Islamic fundamentalists become a repressive tyranny. Young Marji refuses to be silent & rebels against her teachers & authority figures, which prompts her parents to send her to Vienna to study & create a better life. However, as a young girl in a new environment with different cultures, the change is trialing & troubling.

The film is based on Satrapi's graphic memoir & Bildungsroman & she was also the co-director. With the original creator being behind the scenes, Persepolis is not only one of the most faithful graphic novel to film adaptations, but in all adaptation history. What the graphic novel did for the medium, Persepolis does the same for animated films. Both medium are thought of as child's play, but both works prove that they can be thoughtful, humorous & enthralling. Satrapi kept the flat black & white style to emphasize that what has happened to Iran could happen anywhere. The people in Persepolis don't look foreigners but like people from some random country.

This review is not without any self-promotion, I must confess. The JCBA is screening the film Tuesday, February 2nd & Wednesday the 3rd, both days at 3pm & 7pm. Admission works on donations only; they are self-determined ticket prices, so offer what you can, in good spirits. However, whether we were screening the film or not, I would still recommend it. Stephen Hunter of the Washington Post writes of the film, "Marjane Satrapi, with co-director Vincent Paronnaud, has taken her work & turned it into a vigorous, revealing & tragic film."

2010: A Year in Review

2011-01-06T09:05:00.000-05:00

The JCBA guys with Jane Siberry

2010 is over & what a year it has been for the Center. We featured our first annual Letterpress Appreciation Day/ Open House in August. Superstars of the book arts world Daniel Kelm, Marshall Weber & Johanna Drucker all paid us a visit & participated in discussions & lectures. We had two salon concerts, Jane Siberry & Matt Alber, which both sold out. Letterpress printer Amos Paul Kennedy Jr. visited to discuss the exhibit of his work, Proceed & Be Bold, & the documentary of the same name. The Inter-Florida Fluxus tour performed at the Center in honor of the exhibit, the Carbon Alternative. Other exhibits included in 2010 were Wanderlust, the work of John Eric Broaddus & Graphix, the current exhibit here at the library. Arthur Jaffe & Dr. Karen Leader has started a research project on tattoos & the students of FAU who have them, with the end result being a film titled Stories on the Skin. And finally, we've been working hard to raise money for a paper making studio & it seems like the project is underway, with hopes of it being up & running in 2011. So, we've worked hard & we're tired, but we're always happy with the continuing support from our fans & devoted followers. We wouldn't be up & running without you. We're looking forward to another great year!

Moveable Type: A Cross-Country Adventure in Printing

2011-01-04T10:03:00.002-05:00

Here at the JCBA, we are supportive of all things book arts, letterpress printing & just about everything in between. So I come to you today to see if you can help a fellow letterpress printer, Kyle Durrie, to achieve her goal in creating a mobile letterpress studio. With our help, she will be able to buy & make repairs on an old bread truck so that she can move a letterpress around the country to teach workshops, give craft shows, sell prints or teach the average joe about letterpress printing. We are not completely selfless in our inspiration to help out Durrie; if she can get on the road, we would like her to come to the JCBA to teach a workshop & sell prints...all in the parking lot! Every dollar counts, so I ask you to give what you feel for this creative & interesting cause.

Here is a link to her Kickstarter page that includes more details of Durrie's plans.

http://kck.st/b9FeKy

Thank you!!!

Happy New Years (And Welcome Back to the Working World)

2011-01-03T11:09:00.000-05:00

The holiday season is over, the presents are unwrapped & people are still nursing a hangover while they start their resolution to be healthier & renew their gym membership that they may never use. Still, if you're one who suffers from the holiday blues, you'll be happy to get back to the daily melancholy. If you readers want, you can post a comment below on your New Year resolution & ask for tips on how to reach your goal this year, or you can comment on what you would like me to talk about on this blog for 2011.

Also, if you're dragging your feet at work & need a quick pick me up, I recommend checking out the music video for Arcade Fire's "We Used to Wait." If you're not familiar with Arcade Fire, they are a Canadian baroque pop/ art rock group that experiments with different instruments & sounds. Their newest music video is interactive that uses Google Maps & Google Earth. What you have to do is first use Google Chrome for your browser (Google Chrome is pretty state of the art, so ask yourself if you think your computer is up to the challenge) & go to the website, The Wilderness Downtown, where you'll be asked to enter in your address. Trust me, you'll enjoy the experience. Here's an example of what you will see.

Merry Christmas & Beware the Krampus!!!

2010-12-23T10:18:00.000-05:00


A postcard of a man holding a Krampus doll

Many boys & girls will be going to bed Christmas Eve wondering what Santa Clause will bring them this year for Christmas. "Will I get the XBox I asked for?" "Will Santa give me Computer Engineer Barbie?" But, if you're a naughty child & you live in Germany or Austria, you'll be wondering if the Krampus will give you a whippin' or take you to purgatory!

That's right, the Krampus. The Krampus is a mythical creature that resembles a demon & would join Santa Christmas Night on his trip from house to house, but while Santa gave out gifts for all the good children, the Krampus would give out warnings or whippings for the bad children, or if you are truly bad, he'd throw the child in his backpack to be taken to purgatory. It was probably a lot more helpful than a warning of getting coal on Christmas. "Helga, if you keep pulling your cat's whiskers, the Krampus won't hesitate to take you to HELL!" I'm sure that stopped her right in her tracks.

Merry Christmas!!!

The Krampus tradition was mainly celebrated in Austria, Germany, Hungary, Italy & the Czech Republic, but after the Austrian Fascist and the German Nazis targeted the tradition, the Krampus became less embedded in the winter customs. Still, in some Austrian communities, men will dress up as the demon on December 5th to scare the women & children with rusted chains, whips & bells. So, if you're looking to spice up your holidays, or you're more of a fan of Halloween, put on a Krampus outfit & really give the kids something to be grateful for.

Two View Movie Review: Sita Sings the Blues

2010-12-21T11:03:00.001-05:00

Sita Sings the Blues is an unique, entertaining, & eye-opening film about the greatest break-up story every told, the Ramayana. Created by Nina Paley with the use of 2-D computer graphics & flash animation, the film contains four parallel narratives. Episodes from the Ramayana are shown with painted figures that represent the Indian tradition of Rajput paintings. Also, three traditional Indian shadow puppets provide context & commentary for the story. During the musical episodes, songs performed by jazz singer Annette Hanshaw are conceived through the eyes of Sita. And Paley adds an autobiographical note by illustrating her failing marriage as her husband moves to India.

The four parallel narratives come together, each adding to the story of the Ramayana. The humor coming from the puppets will make you split your sides, & the contemporary aspects of Annette Hanshaw & Paley's own personal story fits perfectly, so much that you'd wish that you thought of it first. Paley used an unorthodox way of distribution. The film is all on-line, either on the films website or on youtube, but that shows that films aren't about movie tickets & money, its about telling a good story. Roger Eberts says of the film, "To get any film made is a miracle. To conceive of a film like this is a greater miracle."

Looky Lookie: Ghost Diary

2010-12-16T09:23:00.001-05:00

Ghost Diary by Book Artist Maureen Cummins is based upon the handwritten letters of the Revolutionary colonel, Jonathan Rhea. Written to his children in 1807 on the anniversary of his wife's death, he documents his times as an officer. He goes into deep & violent details involving his service, which includes the burning of Indian villages, battles with the British & the killing of rebel insurgencies. In between these gruesome recollections, he recalls courting his wife, their time apart during the war, the birth of their children & his wife's struggle with a brain tumor.
The text is printed on glass plates and bound together with glass, vintage photo negatives, causing each copy of the book to be completely unique. The use of glass & the text impresses the fragility of life. It is a troubling look at how life can easily slip away. The Jaffe Center has number 11 of 25.

GRAPHIX exhibition

2010-12-13T11:40:00.000-05:00

Everyone should go & check out the new Jaffe Center exhibit, "GRAPHIX: Sequence, Image, Story." The graphic novel exhibit features a wide variety of genres, stories & art style & forms. Featured are novels created with illustrations, woodcuts, photography, digital photography & even a comic to be read with 3-D glasses. The exhibit is all over the library & in the Center itself is a couple of shelves of graphic novels for you to browse & read. Pretty cool stuff, right?

A Page from Watchmen

The mission of the exhibit is to show the narrative power of the graphic novel while defining & redefining what a graphic novel is. The medium is often misunderstood & criticized by the general public & few see it as true art or literature. I'm often confused as to why the general consensus is the separation of image & word. I'm a true believer that there is a graphic novel out there for everyone, but it may be really hard for someone to find & I'm hoping that a couple of people may find their graphic novel because of the exhibit.

Graphic Novel of the Month: Gemma Bovery

2010-11-29T15:34:00.002-05:00

Posy Simmonds writes and draws the fall & rise & fall again of a British woman living in the French countryside. The story is told after the title character's death through the eyes of a local baker who has followed Gemma and stolen her diaries, allowing him to connect the dots. In it, we discover that Gemma was a dumpy & generally unhappy woman. She hated her house, she hated the countryside, and she hated her husband, Charles Bovery. After going on a spending spree for a new wardrobe and losing weight, the bored Gemma starts a love affair with a young student in town, but fails to think of the consequences that may follow. Simmonds has created something more than just a modern retelling of Gustave Flaubert's Madame Bovary. Instead, she has detailed the annoying & sometimes humorous behavior of the well-off and inflated middle-class.

Welcome to the Book Blog

2010-11-24T14:12:00.002-05:00

Welcome, family, friends, and fans to the JCBA blog! This is a new source of JCBA fun for all you book junkies out there that will allow you to delve deeper in the center. The blog will feature news about JCBA and the book arts world, post information on upcoming events, and feature pictures and videos from the events. All of this is similar to our page on Facebook, which is an important tool for all of our JCBA affairs, but this little blog will feature in-depth displays and discussions of artists' books, a Two View Movie Review featurette, a Graphic Novel Pick of the Month, and more!

Being JCBA's type sorter, I'm more than happy to be given the job of the official blogger, but I'm also a little nervous. I have never kept a blog before, so cut me some slack on the technical stuff. I'm looking at it, and working through it. Also, if there is anything that you would like to see featured, leave a comment below any of the posts. I will most certainly read them and take them into consideration. I hope you enjoy this blog as much as I know I will enjoy writing it!

XOXO,
Paige Turner