To clear out some of this older work I’ve decided to continue with the inventory clearance sale I held during First Saturday a few weeks ago. Come find a great deal on one of my metal prints, or maybe an altered book is more your style.

Here are a few of the items I am selling:

Altered Books

In The Shade of The Cherry Blossoms – $300 (regularly $450)

Circle Away & Return – $300 (regularly $550)

Metal Prints

Magnolias 24″ x 12″ Metal Print – $150 (regularly $300)

Red Leaves Above 24″ x 24″ Metal Print – $300 (regularly $500)

Please note: the altered books included in the sale are ones I consider one-off experiments. Most of the altered books are regular price, but are also available for viewing.

The work can be viewed at my East Vancouver studio by appointment. Contact me by Email: rkashe (at) gmail (dot) com or by Phone: 604.787.9237 if there is something you’d like to see.

If you’ve never been to Got Craft it’s a terrific craft sale that happens twice a year in early May and December. The vendors are juried by a small panel of judges, and they do an excellent job of selecting a good variety of artisan designers and artists to keep the sale interesting. For the holiday edition, there were fifty vendors chosen from about two hundred applicants, which gives you an idea of the amount of competition to participate.

I decided to apply because I wanted to do more face-to-face sales, but I was also curious to see if it would be a good fit for my work. I created a bunch of small collages, postcard sets, and paper flowers to sell at the show, with the idea lower priced items would be an easier sell than the altered books. I was right (mostly), but things didn’t go nearly as well as I’d hoped.

I’m glad to say I made a profit on the weekend, but just barely. The most popular item that sold were the paper flowers because they were colourful, eye-catching and cheap. The Imaginary Girl and collage postcard sets barely sold at all, which is weird because people snatched them up at the Eastside Culture Crawl. Two collages have happily gone to new homes, including a recycled wood collage that was my favorite. None of the altered books sold, but that’s not a surprise at all because I was pretty sure they’d be too expensive for this type of event. I think there were many more sales I could’ve made if I’d been able to accept Visa or Interac payments.

The money bits aside, I had good conversations with shoppers and it’s good to know my work really “Wows” people (literally). I made a point of encouraging sign ups for my monthly newsletter and I came away with about twenty-five new contacts to add to my mailing list.

All in all, it was a positive experience to be a seller at Got Craft. I would definitely take part again if the opportunity presents itself, and use some of what I learned from this experience to do better next time.

Founded in 2007, Got Craft? is held twice a year featuring 50+ handmade designers, fresh food, DJ, a D.I.Y. table and free swag bags for the first 45 people through the door.

Got Craft?
Date: Sunday Decmeber 4th, 2011
Time: 10am to 5pm
Admission: $3.00 (kids under 10 are free)
Location: Royal Canadian Legion
2205 Commercial Drive (at E 6th Avenue)

Making It! explores the professional experiences of various artists through interview and panel discussions. The book examines business practices that have significantly contributed to the development of visual artists’ careers. Chris will deliver a short presentation and be on hand to sign copies of his book and answer questions.

I am one of the artists he interviewed for the book, and I feel honoured to have been included. I met with Chris twice last year, once as part of a panel of artists, and then again for a one-on-one interview. It’s great to see all of his hard work come together in print form. I can’t wait to get my hands on a copy.

Date: Thursday, July 28, 2011
Time: 3:30 pm to 5:30 pm
Location: Opus Granville Island
1360 Johnston Street, Vancouver BC

These photos are of work made by students in the two previous altered book workshops I taught earlier this year. You really do come away with some lovely and interesting stuff.

This workshop is a one day class and is an introduction to examples and techniques for transforming old books into one-of-a-kind pieces of art. There is an unlimited potential for creating interesting work by altering books through cutting, folding, rolling, collage, etc. This course will demonstrate a selection of techniques and provide a starting point for creating work of your own. The goal will be to complete one finished “folded page” altered book by the end of the workshop. Please bring at least two old books you would like to work with.

There are more details about the class when you follow the link below to Eventbrite for registration.

Date: Saturday May 7th, 2011
Time: 11am to 5pm
Cost: $80 + $2.99 processing fee
Location: 593 East Georgia Street, Vancouver BC V6A 1Z8

Register for the workshop online through Eventbrite »

Friends dropped by at different intervals to visit, and the chocolate I’d jokingly requested in my newsletter arrived in various forms (bacon chocolate chip cookies from Lauren!) It was a good window for Main Street people watching, and all the sunshine was glorious.

My table top setup at the store with work-in-progress book.

I’ll be back in the window at Bird on a Wire Creations at some point in the summer. In the meantime go visit the shop for all the lovely handmade items they carry. It was all I could do not to shop while I was there because there is so much tempting stuff I’d love to have.

For part of the day tomorrow I’ll be demoing my altered book work as the featured artist-in-the-window at Bird on a Wire Creations on Main Street. It’s a cozy little shop filled with lovely handmade and local items, so come on by for a visit and plan to stay awhile. I’ll be in the window working away on my latest altered book from 11am to 4pm. I’m hoping to bring some of the recent Fairy Tale altered books I haven’t yet shared publicly.

Please come see me and be sure to bring chocolate.

Artist Window
11am to 4pm, April 16th, 2011
Bird on a Wire Creations
2535 Main Street, between Broadway & 10th
Vancouver BC

The two day timeframe and small class size allowed me to share a lot of information about making altered books. I did a different demo at the beginning of each day – cutting a niche and rolling pages on day one, and making folded page books on day two.

The photos included in this blog post are of the in-progress and finished work made by my students.

I really enjoy teaching and was given excellent feedback on the class itself and my style of teaching. I was happy people felt inspired by what I shared, and I’m so glad I can clearly articulate what I do.

I have one more altered book workshop coming up before I take a break from teaching until the fall. I’ll be back at Chalk Xchange on Saturday May 7th teaching a one day altered book class. Please visit the Chalk Xchange web site for further details and to sign up online.

Awhile ago I read an excellent blog post about artists as employees, written by Chris Ashworth. The title of his post was, “My competitive advantage: I hire artists“, and in it he explains his hiring of an artist and the huge difference this made to his company. For the full story you should really go read it, but there are a few points I’ll highlight here because it got me thinking about what I’d like to see from a future employer.

Chris makes the statement, “Artists, as a species, are amazing people… Show me a good artist and I will show you a highly educated, highly creative, highly passionate, highly driven human being.” There’s more to the statement but the point of it is this: isn’t the kind of person described above exactly the kind you’d want to have as an employee? And as Chris says, all an employer needs to do is not destroy the whole reason you want to hire an artist. You do this by creating a job custom built to support their passion. Artists need flexible schedules and a base amount of money to keep doing what they do, and neither of these things are easy to find. All this segue’s nicely into talking about the next steps in my own art career.

I am just over a year into working full time as an artist, and while I have seen many tangible successes from this total commitment to my art, the most important thing I lack is a source of steady income. I dove into this phase of my life knowing I was taking a huge risk stepping away from a regular paycheck, but I really wanted to work on developing my career as an artist full time. The last many months have been very educational in building this artistic career, and I’ve figured out many of the pieces to make it work for me. I’ve always envisioned part-time employment as part of the plan and have taken my time to carefully consider exactly what I want from my next job. Most importantly I need an employer willing to embrace the fact that I’m an artist and view this as an asset to their company.

What exactly am I looking for in a job? Let me lay it out for you:

• Working closely with a small team of people, or in general interacting with people (potential customers, current clients, contractors, etc.)
• A flexible schedule in days/work hours, aiming for a slightly more than half time position
• The option to work from home – I’d love to connect with people locally in Vancouver, but am setup to work remotely
• I thrive on variety in the tasks I tackle, and am good at context switching to focus on what needs doing
• Earning a living to cover both basic expenses and support my art practice

What I have to offer:

• Skilled user of social media tools such as Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, & Blogs
• Experienced with multiple CMS platforms such as Blogger, WordPress, ExpressionEngine, and Drupal
• Producer of a monthly newsletter using Mailchimp, and able to steadily increase readership
• In general, very comfortable with web apps & tools, from Harvest for time tracking & invoicing to Basecamp for project management and client communications
• Creator of compelling content in both written and visual form
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills
• Strong computer skills, working with both Mac and Windows platforms, using a variety of tools from Photoshop to Word
• Self motivated and able to work independently to achieve deadlines
• A team player interested in maintaining an enjoyable & supportive work environment

I’ve worked for a number of technology- and web-related businesses in the past, handling a number of tasks around project management, marketing, basic accounting, and office management.

Ideally, I’m looking for a position with what I can best describe as a creative technology company. Or perhaps a company that wants to use technology creatively.

The non-profit space interests me as well (especially if arts related), but I’d be looking for a fit with an organization that wants to evolve its use of the web and technology on both the marketing and internal process fronts. Translation: rather than an office paper shuffler, I’d want to help your organization better adopt the use of technology to accomplish your mission.

Please view my profile on LinkedIn for the full description of my employment experience. Contact me by email rkashe (at) gmail (dot) com, or by phone at (604).787.9237.

So do you want to hire an artist or know of an organization where I’d be a good fit? I would appreciate you spreading the word about this post. You can easily re-share or “like” this on Facebook as well.

Last month my friend Val Arntzen kicked off a series of open studio days happening on the first Saturday of the next few months until June. March 5th is the next date, and myself and a few other artists will be joining in by opening our own studios (or home in my case) for a mini studio tour through East Van.

Please drop in and join me. I’ll be serving tea, and perhaps something yummy for you to try. I’ll also be showing people how to make paper flowers. The 2011 yellow pages recently arrived and it’s crying out to be made into something else.

First Saturday Open Studios
Date: SATURDAY, MARCH 5th, 2011
Time: 12pm to 5pm
My Address: 1660 East Georgia Street
Studio Tour Map (for March 5th Only)

Participating studios:
Valerie Artnzen at AMP: 800 Keefer St. (at Hawks)
Assemblage & Photography

Robi Smith at Blue Lantern Studio: 1218 East Pender St. (near Clark)
Painting & Collage

Hungry Thumbs Studio: 223 Main Street (near Powell)
Glass, Sculpture, & Assemblage

I started the class with a quick slide show of my altered books and also introduced spectacular work by other artists, like Brian Dettmer and Su Blackwell for inspiration. Because the workshop was only three and a half hours long I chose to focus on folded page techniques because there are many different ways people could take things, and it doesn’t involve waiting for glue to dry.

Everyone got right down to business after my demo and I wandered around the room answering questions and giving guidance as needed. I loved seeing all the different books people brought to work with and the ideas they came up with to experiment. I ended up also showing people how to make the paper flowers I used in my Container Art installation and these were incorporated into some of the book projects.

By the end of class everyone had at least one completed book they could take home and work on further, some of which are pictured below.

Altered books are something I am very excited about and it felt easy to share that passion with other people and make the work accessible. I did some learning of my own in the class, which is what I was hoping for. Some lessons I can apply to my own artwork and others will go towards tweaking how I teach the class. Overall it was an enjoyable experience stepping into the role of teacher and for the next workshop I will be less nervous about the whole thing.

Bird on a Wire is a relatively new retail store located on Main Street near Broadway, and it carries nothing but beautiful handmade items by local artists and crafts people. If you haven’t been to the store, it’s a warm welcoming space run by Karen Unger-Strickland. She’s very interested in supporting local artists in what they do, as well as building community around her space. I felt it was a good fit for my work, and I’m confident I’ve put the altered books in good hands.

Bird on a Wire Creations
2535 Main Street
Vancouver, BC – V5T 3E5

Fall store hours:
Monday to Friday 10:00 AM to 6:00 PM
Saturday 10:00 AM to 5:30 PM
Sunday Closed (for now)
Stat Holidays 12:00 PM to 5:00 PM

I haven’t yet announced this on my blog as I have elsewhere, but in two weeks I’ll be teaching a workshop at ChalkXChange about making altered books. This is only a three and half hour workshop, and it’s on a weekend too. I’ll be sharing some of the techniques I use to create my book work, and hopefully send everyone off with a finished piece by the end of the session.

If you’re interested in taking the class registration is available online through Eventbrite. There’s a more detailed description on the sign up page and also in the workshop section of my web site.

Altered Book Workshop at Chalk Xchange
Saturday, February 19th, 2011
1pm to 4:30pm
593 East Georgia Street (at Princess Street)
Vancouver, BC V6A 1Z8

I decided to reinterpret an old collage from my sketchbook with this piece. I still had the same airships and colourful pixelated paper but incorporated new bits of whimsy. I took inspiration from the layers of book page scraps and security envelopes I used in last week’s mixed media collage to create clouds and suggest a sky for the airships.

Sewing pattern paper with simple lines is the first layer of this piece and it allows some of the wood grain to show through. The last item I added was the tangle of threads swirling their way through the composition from top to bottom. Everything I used in this, except the three airships, are recycled materials.

Materials used: wood, sewing pattern paper, magazine ad, silk thread, book page scraps, security envelopes, and gel medium.

This collage is listed for sale in both my Etsy and Cargoh shops.

I’ve been feeling the need to take a step back and review all I’ve accomplished since deciding to pursue art full time in 2010. I don’t feel I can move forward properly without it. Sometimes I feel that I’ve done an incredible amount of work, and other times I feel I did very little. I’m hoping this blog post will document things realistically, as well as show what worked well and should do more of, and what I can safely never do again.

» Artwork:
I’m really happy with this area of my practice. I produced a healthy volume of new work over the course of 2010, including continuing with the explorations of altering books, and building on the portrait series of women begun in late 2009. I also forayed into large-scale installation work, which is something I’d like to do more of in future.

Artwork by the numbers:
- 16 individual altered books, framed and ready to hang
- 25 altered books as part of the Forgotten Knowledge series
- 1 large-scale paper tree
- 15 photographic portraits for the Imaginary Girl series
- 5 canvas prints of Imaginary girl portraits

2011 Artwork Goals:
- schedule more time for producing new work
- make experimentation and play a higher priority
- come up with one installation project
- explore creating street art
- produce lower priced inventory
- take on work commissioned by clients

» Exhibitions:
This is the area where I put most of my time and energy last year, and ended up participating in a ridiculous amount of shows because of it. Most of these shows were not career building in any way and had little value beyond an item fleshing out my CV. I confirmed that I need to move beyond showing in theatre lobbies, and be pickier about the group shows in which I take part in order to grow my career. There were a few exhibitions that were terrific for exposure and helped raise my previously non-existent profile in the arts community. The experience this past year taught me that exhibitions are not the more important thing I need to do with my work and in future I will do much less of them.

Exhibitions by the numbers:
- 3 solo shows of three different bodies of work
- 11 different group shows
- 2 juried exhibitions outside of Canada -> Portland, and the UK
- 2 firsts thanks to Container Art -> forays into both public art and installation work
- 1 multimedia collaboration with Resolve Design to create the Tree of [Un]common Knowledge
- 1st time taking part in the Eastside Culture Crawl

2011 Exhibition Goals:
- be more selective about exhibition opportunities
- show outside of Vancouver
- apply for artist residencies
- get paid to show my work

» Selling Work:
I gathered up all the numbers for the first time before I started writing this section and I’m actually surprised at how much work I sold last year. It was the most I’ve sold within the period of one year, which is a good sign. But in order for this career to be sustainable long-term I need to focus more on selling and diversify how and where I make my work available for sale. The bulk of this year’s sold work went to people from my immediate network which confirms what I’ve been told. Most of these sales occurred as a direct result of sharing my work through social media, and also through face-to-face interaction at the Eastside Culture Crawl. A small fraction of the sales came through my Etsy shop and most of these were to people outside of Canada.

Sold Work in 2010 by the numbers:
- 11 altered books
- 2 large metal prints
- 5 small metal prints
- 3 cradle frame collages
- 3 commissioned canvas prints
- 26 postcard sets
- 1 photographic print

2011 Artwork Selling Goals:
- Approach local shops about carrying my artwork
- Research on markets such as Portobello West, Granville Island, and Blim to see if they’re a good fit
- Develop better branding and strategy for selling work online through Cargoh or Etsy
- Research stock photography sites to sell my photo archive
- Participate in the Eastside Culture Crawl
- Increase number of sales from 2010

» Business Development
Business development is the area I find hardest to focus on because it doesn’t come naturally to me. It requires the ability to see the “big picture” and think beyond the fine details of making artwork. Thankfully the entrepreneurial spirit has taken hold and I invested time into laying the ground work for my business. I created an inventory spreadsheet to track information on the artwork I create, and it became an essential tool I often refer back to in many situations. I made use of Harvest to keep track of the time I spend making art, and also use it to create and send invoices. I began using measurable information (i.e. hours) to accurately price my work instead of roughly guessing as I embarrassingly have in the past. I also started using Mailchimp to send out a monthly newsletter and keep people up-to-date with what I’m up to.

Business Development by the numbers
- 45% increase in subscribers to my mailing list between April & December
- 1 dedicated studio space (my first ever!)
- 1 awesome inventory spreadsheet
- 12 newsletters sent out in 2010
- 500 business cards printed
- 1 article in the Georgia Straight promoting the Eastside Culture Crawl

2011 Business Development Goals
- Increase the number of subscribers to my mailing list
- Diversify how I sell my work
- Find and work with a business development mentor
- Develop more of a vertical inventory
- Figure out ways to produce products from my existing work
- Track the time I spend on administrative tasks
- Redo my website to better showcase my work and skills
- Increase exposure of my work online
- Teach workshops on altered books & social media for artists

» Miscellaneous Bits
Figuring out how to shape the artist career I want is an on-going process. I’m still fine-tuning a schedule that works best for me, while trying to get away from the 9 to 5 work day that seems to be deeply engrained. I often forget I have a FLEXIBLE schedule. It’s a constant fight for balance between pure creative time, administrative tasks, and business development but at least I’ve learned to keep art producing days completely free of other things.

I’m glad to finally know more people pursuing art as a full time career because it’s a great thing to have a network of like-minded peers to call upon for advice or just share experiences.

2011 Miscellaneous Goals (Without the numbers)
- Work with a more experienced artist as a mentor
- Meet with a group of fellow artists every two weeks
- Conduct a series of interviews with artists about their careers
- Find a flexible well-paying part-time job working with a creative company
- Find an affordable studio space outside the home
- Save money for new camera equipment
- Exercise every day, including walks and yoga

I followed a similar theme in both collages, using paper birds, pages from books, scraps from the same yellow paper, and red thread.

It felt so good to make these. I always get a bit antsy when I go too long without making something and I love how easily these two compositions flowed out of me. I definitely want to make more soon.

Materials used: book pages, sheet music, red thread, paper birds, rubber stamp & ink, Japanese paper, Japanese maple leaf, and gel medium.

Our apartment transformed beautifully into a cozy little gallery space. The living and dining rooms were open to the public and filled with artwork while the back hallway, bedrooms, and bathroom were not accessible. I set up a table in the hallway to block the way and created an installation of paper snowflakes as a point of interest that also acted as barrier to places I didn’t want people going into. The snowflakes are made of individual dictionary pages cut into shape and glued together. It was a last minute crazy-person project I decided to do the day before the Crawl.

I cleared out most of our furniture and clutter to create an open space for people to walk through easily. The living room walls were hung with altered books, with the wooden animal series along one wall, and an eclectic mix of altered books on the opposite wall. I also had a small table full of lower priced items, such as cradle frame collages, small metal prints, and postcard sets.

In the dining room I set up my installation work. The Tree of [Un]common Knowledge was against the back wall with an improvised light made from a bare lightbulb housed carefully in an arrangement of books. I set this up so the lighting cast interesting shadows on the wall above the tree.

The Forgotten Knowledge series of books was set up on a table arranged in a circle with the paper flowers on top. People found both of these projects fascinating, and it was great when someone recognized these works either from Container Art or the CreativeMix Conference where they’d separately each been previously shown.

The remaining walls were hung with large metal prints and the few altered books I couldn’t fit in the living room. It was a wide variety of work for people to see and gave us much to talk about explaining the ideas or process behind each one. Every item (except the installation work) was clearly marked with a price, and I had business cards placed around the room for people to grab. I also posted by the front door a printed copy of articles featuring my work in both the Georgia Straight and The Province.

I had a really good experience for my first ever time as a participating artist on the Culture Crawl. I was told not to expect too much but I surpassed even the lowest expectations I did have. Almost three hundred people came through my apartment over the course of the weekend, which is really good for someone unknown and slightly off the beaten path of the rest of the Crawl. I sold two altered books, two collages, three metal prints, countless postcard sets, and had many new people sign up for my mailing list. I also had wonderful feedback from people and many a good conversation about art and books. I feel very lucky things went so well, and I hope to do it again next year. (I’m pretty sure Boris and I will recover by then).

I started this blog post with a thank you and must end it the same way, because I wouldn’t be able to do any of this without the people who support me.

Thank you to Horst and Anne for bringing food throughout the weekend and helping out. Thank you to James and Monique for whisking us away at the end of Saturday for a delicious home cooked meal and a relaxing evening after a crazy day. Thank you to Jess and Stewart for helping me keep count and letting people into the building on Saturday. Thank you to Kai for keeping count on Sunday, and to Ariane for bringing me a bag full of snacks on Saturday.

Thank you to so many of our other friends for taking time on a very busy weekend to drop in to see the show. It was wonderful to have everyone here, and I’m very grateful for the kindness and support.

Of Animal Folklore and Fables

Heralding the Dawn of A New Day

Constellation Of The Great Bear

Gifts of the Goose

Kangaroo is the Life of the Party

This is my first time taking part as an artist on the Crawl, and I’m more than a little nervous about it. I have no idea what to expect or even if I’ll have anyone drop by beyond my circle of friends. If you like my work, please share it with others and encourage them to visit my location during the Culture Crawl.

You can view my artist page on the Culture Crawl website, and I also have an event invitation on Facebook.

And now, back to those preparations….

Artists frequently get approached to donate their work to charity silent auctions, which means instead of getting money for your valuable inventory, you get a tax receipt. These do not pay bills and I’m sure most artists have plenty to write off as it is.

The Vancouver Timeraiser has a different approach to working both with charities and with artists. Instead of asking the artists to give their work away for free they purchase the work (up to $800!) and use it as a draw to earn volunteer hours for non-profits. They also do a terrific job of promoting the work of the artists right along with the Timeraiser event itself.

I had a really great experience with Timeraiser. They were organized and kept me informed every step of the way – when they needed my work, when the cheque would be available, inclusion in the day of the event, etc. My favorite bit was receiving and signing the contract because it was done online with a digital signature, and I received a copy immediately. It was also written in “human” rather than lawyer speak.

It was fun attending the Timeraiser event and watching as the bidding on my piece made its way to the maximum bid. Almost all of the artwork went really fast. I’m not sure who ended up winning mine but I hope the person loves it as much as I do. The work (pictured above) was the very first altered book I created. I felt a little sad seeing it go.

More than four hundred people attended the Vancouver Timeraiser, and an amazing 6,830 volunteer hours were raised. It makes me feel good that my work contributed to the success of the evening, and I would definitely take part again next year.

Earlier this week Boris and I were lucky enough to see Arcade Fire play at the Pacific Coliseum, which is on the grounds of the PNE. We sat in a private box with a great view of the concert, and also enjoyed catered food. It was the closing party for the Container Art show, and all of the artists with their favorite +1 were in attendance. It was an awesome way to conclude the whole experience.

Container Art was a paid gig which included a generous artist fee, a materials fee, an exhibitors ID for unlimited access to the PNE grounds, and four free passes to share with others. There was also a HUGE amount of exposure because the PNE draws a crowd of hundreds of thousands of people. The Arcade Fire concert was just icing on the cake.

Is this a typical experience for emerging artists? Not at all. But it demonstrates the potential for businesses to work with artists, promote their work, and compensate them appropriately for it. It’s the kind of situation I would like to see more of because our government certainly isn’t supporting the arts, so why not big and small business?

I am very grateful to Peter Male and Caryn Garder at the PNE, as well as Valerie Artzen, for the opportunity to be a part of Container Art.

I hate white walls, especially in the dreary winter months, so I’ve done my best to place colourful things around the room. I put up two strings along one wall and hung photos, cards, artwork, and other little things using tiny clothes pegs. I have lots of my own work around the room but tried to include prints and things I have from other artists.

The bulletin boards above my desk are filled with inspiring things. My laptop is on the table in this shot, but when I’m making art it sits elsewhere while I make a huge mess. Most of the books I plan to alter sit in a stack by the door with Oliver the octopus sitting on top keeping an eye on things. He’s the land octopus (inside joke) Boris and I always wanted, and we won him at the PNE this summer.

It’s a really nice little studio space, and I feel very lucky to have it.

Having my work on display at the PNE for the last few weeks has been an interesting experience with having art in a public space. There was so much destruction to my show after opening weekend of the PNE that I was ready to pack things in and take it down. Thousands of people went through the container and a large number of those were handling my work carelessly and breaking things. I had to remove three of the books after that first weekend because the objects were gone, and I had to do repairs to many others with partial damage. I was flabbergasted that people would be so disrespectful and careless.

It’s disheartening to watch so much of my hard work of the last few months get wiped out in a shorter time than it took me to make it all. At this point I’ve resigned myself to only being able to salvage some of this work for future use. It’s become a “sacrificial” art work for the sake of sharing my work with a larger audience of people.

On that note, Free Will Astrology had a very appropriate horoscope for me today:

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): The Clash was a leftwing punk band that launched its career in 1976. With its dissident lyrics and experimental music, it aspired to make an impact on political attitudes. But then one of its songs, “Rock the Casbah,” got so popular that college fraternity parties were playing it as feel-good dance music. That peeved the Clash’s lead singer Joe Strummer, born under the sign of Leo. He didn’t want his revolutionary anthems to be used as vulgar entertainment by bourgeois kids. I sympathize with his purity, but I don’t advocate that approach for you. For now, relinquish control of your offerings. Let people use them the way they want to.

New Directions in Altered Books by Gabe Cyr
This is the book that started me down the road of altering old books and turning them into art. For years I had been pondering using books in my work and through the ideas in this book I was finally able to move from thinking to making real work. There are plenty of projects to choose from with excellent step-by-step instructions, and a large gallery of work for inspiration.

Paper Engineering & Pop-Ups for Dummies by Rob Ives
Making altered books eventually led me to experimenting with movable parts and pop-ups and this book has been a terrific resource for ideas. There are many patterns in this book for making paper mechanisms. I tend to use it as a jumping off point for figuring out how to make a custom piece to suit my needs.

The Penland Book of Handmade Books
While this book does have instructional pieces in it I actually bought it for the gallery of works, many of which push the boundary of what is a book. The image on the cover is a great example of this. The book is a collaboration between Lark Books and the Penland School of Crafts, located in North Carolina. There is some really incredible art work inside.

Playing with Books by Jason Thompson
I originally picked up this book for the fabulous gallery of work in the back featuring many of the internationally known altered book artists I’ve come across. Most of the content is instructional with projects about making things from book pages rather than full books. I used one example to create the five petal flowers for my installation in Container Art. Lots of the projects inside are decorative.

Creative Time & Space: Making Room For Making Art by Rice Freeman-Zachery
Nothing is more helpful to an artist than talking to other artists about how they pursue their art. This is a book which is a great resource for how to make time and create space in your life to be creative. It’s written by an artist and it features many helpful hints from the fourteen artists she interviewed for the book. All of them pursue their craft full time and have worked hard to make it work for them.

Artist Survival Skills by Chris Tyrell
I’ve come to realize that to be a successful artist you have to think about yourself as an entrepreneur. It’s one of those things they don’t teach in art school and have to learn along the way. Chris Tyrell’s book is a handy reference for helping to develop a professional art practice beyond the art making, with hints on pricing art, maintaining an inventory list of work, developing mailing lists, and the dreaded taxes. I took a four week workshop with Chris last year, which was money well spent and a kickstart to my current trajectory as an artist.

If you’re interested in buying any of these books, do try RubyDog’s Art House for the books on altered books. It’s where I’ve purchases some of these and Leanne has many other creative resources in the shop. As much as possible I like to support local stores when book buying.

I wanted to share it not to show off a new purchase but rather to highlight the designer who made it and give her some “google juice”. She doesn’t have a website or any internet presence to speak of and I think that’s a shame because she makes really lovely bags. Luckily what I can point you to is her next appearance, at the Britannia Centre’s Handmade Market this Sunday. Maybe you’ll find a cute new handbag too.

If you’re interested in a bag made by Amrita Designs, please contact Aya by email: amritadesigns (at) hotmail (dot) com.

On the very same day the cheque arrived I had another piece of good news I’d been waiting for. I received an email from the organizers of the Container Art show letting me know I’d been chosen as one of the twelve participating artists. What is the Container Art show you might ask? It’s a bit of a traveling art show which uses empty shipping containers as the venue for artists to create site specific work in a variety of mediums. There have been Container Art shows in Rome, New York, Jerusalem, Milano, etc., and this is the second year this will be done on site at the PNE grounds.

The project I am putting together for this show is book based. As mentioned in my monthly newsletter, and a previous blog post, I’ll be working with twenty-five volumes of a set of encyclopedias and combining these with found objects. At the moment I only have five of the twenty-five completed and about a month left until the date of installation, but I am so excited to be in this show. It’s an incredible opportunity for me and it’s been just the right motivation I needed to try something on a larger scale than my previous work.

Stay tuned as I work my way through to the end of this project, and please do come and see it at the PNE in August.