A Parisian Adventure
[cont’d]
So much for orderly sequence. I realized much later I had gone past Damien Prud’homme. This young artist was debuting his first pop-up, a unique artist book of several panoramic panels, Entomologie origamique.Each bug was painstakingly cut to be exact. It reminded me of Yoojin Kim’s {flightless} Avian Osteology we saw at the Movable Book Society’s Philadelphia conference.
Before taking a seat for the next signing, I was approached by a broadly smiling young man who introduced himself as Olivier Charbonnel. “Of course I know you,” I said. “I have several of your books.” Olivier responded warmly to my recognition. We chatted about his time at White Heat Ltd. and what he is working on now. His pop-up books have morphed into pop-up games and toys.
Then, to add further delight to my visit, Jacques escorted Marion Bataille, winner of the 2010 Meggendorfer Prize, to my side. Red-cheeked, Marion had just biked the streets of Paris to this event. I was thrilled to see her again. We had met in New York City when Kyle Olmon and I had presented her with the Prize. If I had had any reservations on making this trip, none mattered now.
I shared with Marion that I was disappointed not to have seen any Komagata books at the D’Orsay. She responded by asking was I aware that there was an exhibition of his work ongoing in Paris. It was at the offices of les trois ourses, his French publisher. She herself would be there in the morning. “Do you want to come?” Of course I did, but I knew I was stretching myself too thin. I took the information and I told her I would try. (We never made it.)
Getting back to the purpose in hand, I sat down at the table with a man and a woman, heads bent, using India ink pens, X-Acto knives, and glue sticks. They were Arnaud Roi and Camille Baladi of UpUpUp3D. Laboriously, they were making original pop-ups to glue into each book they signed! Mon dieu!Roi and Baladi had engineered two pop-up books of Paris. One I already owned but had left in New York. Baladi spoke some English and shared her excitement that The Popuplady had come to her city. I was struck by the deliberate pacing of this arduous work to insert one or more original pop-ups into the books of each purchaser. Their Paris book created three-dimensional scenes of the whole city illuminating the Paris sky with a changeable battery in the back cover. Besides gluing a pop-up into my books, they each made another pop-up I could glue into the one I’d left behind. Heaven!
