An Electrifying Conference
by Ellen G.K. Rubin
(continued from page 2)
“If we did all the things we are capable of, we would literally astound ourselves.”—Thomas A. Edison
Saturday morning began with Ann reporting on the state of our organization. Our financials and statistics were passed out stating our lowest membership to date, 355. We are launched into the digital age and have a Facebook Presence. Check us out. There will be no change in dues, and we can pay them with PayPal. The back issues of Movable Stationery are being digitized by the Smithsonian Library and would appear there. After reporting on the Board’s decision on the use of Silent Auction proceeds, she encouraged us “to bid and spend money!” We were reminded to choose among the 13 books [listed below] vetted for the Meggendorfer Prize. Ballots had been sent out with the last issue of Movable Stationery to MBS members not in attendance here. Finally, Ann implored, “write for the newsletter.”
“Discontent is the first necessity of progress.“—Thomas A. Edison
Feminist and Social Issues Through Artist’s Books Maria Winkler, a long time MBS member, is a recently retired art professor at California State University-Sacramento. Though mainly a fine artist, she taught herself paper engineering after she began collecting pop-ups. Her art later segued into the book arts and allowed her to do 20 solo shows and exhibits in addition to workshops. Maria began by thanking Ed Hutchins and Emily Martin for showing her various book making techniques. She admitted it was only in the last 10 years she realized these books were artist books. Making books has allowed Maria to show “who I really am,” a feminist. Maria’s books are mostly unique ones that often incorporate found objects. Busy as a Bee is about women’s work. The bee moves from hexagonal page to hexagonal page shopping, cooking and cleaning until fully open, it resembles a hive. The final page states, “A woman’s work is never done.” Each of the books Maria displayed for us expounded some aspect of a woman’s life or thoughts. Some reveal the lies men and women tell each other or, in the case of The Body: Vessel for the Soul, A Book of Vices and Virtues [2009] entreats one to accept “It’s What’s Inside That Counts.”
In the Q&A, Robert Sabuda asked how Maria transitioned from sculpture to book arts. Maria recounted having dinner with a student who was a pop-up collector. Remembering a pop-up book she had as a child, she decided to collect them. Not having much money, she bought damaged ones and learned how to repair them. The learning experience allowed her to engineer her own books, and more importantly, opened the floodgates for all of “the [feminist] feelings from the ‘60s.” Her books are now available for sale.
“I never did a day’s work in my life. It was all fun.”— Thomas A. Edison
Like an electrical grid sending its energy out along the wires, Kyle Olmon’s animated talk, Tracing old footsteps and forging new paths in Germany, lit up the map of Europe. After working with Andy Baron, Robert Sabuda and Matthew Reinhart, Kyle got married and followed his bride to Germany. His experience with the German language was echoed by Mark Twain who said, “ There isn’t anything one can’t learn in Berlin except the German language.” Kyle’s odyssey began in Berlin’s Stadtbibliotek where he examined the rare books. There he explored several of the original Meggendorfers including the scarce shadow book. His interpreter was Maika Biederstädt, a young paper engineer who has been trying to publish an erotic pop-up book for nearly 10 years. It’s unlikely we’ll ever see it in the prudish U.S. of A. Maika aided Kyle in giving a pop-up workshop to young German students who, being under 25, “spoke better English than [he] did.”
After Berlin, Kyle began his honeymoon in Mallorca where he visited the grave of Ramon Llull, one of the earliest people to work with “stacked paper discs,’ namely, volvelles. After passing through Prague and standing on Kubašta’s doorstep, he moved on to Munich, the Bavarian city of beer, pretzels, and the birthplace of our “patron saint, Meggendorfer.” Kyle walked the medieval streets trod by Meggendorfer and stayed near “Papa Schmidt’s Marionette Theater” where a young Meggendorfer had seen a production of Princess Rose Red and Princess Lily White. Kyle speculates this was an inspiration for Meggendorfer’s life-long fascination with make–believe.
Kyle’s visit to Bologna coincided with the massive, 1200 vender Children’s Book Fair. It’s where “one takes the pulse of the current children’s publishing industry.” He saw the ‘friendly faces’ of PEs he knows, met with packagers and publishers, and was saddened to have missed meeting with famous paper engineer, David Pelham. Kyle found the booth of Massimo Missiroli, who was celebrating his 20th year at the Fair. Massimo is best known for his recent pop-up, Pinocchio. On the booth’s walls hung photos of paper engineers who had visited Massimo over the 20 years including a young Robert Sabuda and a bushy mustached Ron Van der Meer. Kyle’s hoping his photo will hang at the booth at next year’s Fair.
“Oh to be in Paris…” In Paris, Kyle always visits the Boutique de Livre Animé, a shop dedicated to pop-up books run by Jacques Desse and Thiebout. Wherever Kyle visited, often in the shadow of Beethoven or Schubert, Kyle’s prodigious ability to network allowed him to meet with paper engineers who had much to teach him. In Hamburg, Kyle found Martin Graf whose website includes downloadable DIY erotica. www.edition8x8.de Graf demonstrated playing a real 45 rpm record on a paper gramophone. Kyle also met Antje von Stemm who has always been a favorite paper engineer of mine. Finally, in Bonn, there was Falk Keutin, a K-12 teacher [lucky kids] who reverse- engineered Meggendorfers and Biedermeiers and created kits so you could make them yourself. It was Keutin who introduced Kyle to Hans Happ a paper engineer born in 1899 and still working at 98 years old! Kyle showed us examples, including a video, of Hans’ work with intricate movables, ones “without rivets using interwoven paper.” Kyle wondered, “Did Hans’ path ever cross Meggendorfer’s?” Hmm. Kyle, now home, is working as a freelance paper engineer, and temporarily, as a superb MBS Conference Program Director.
With our travelogue over, Shawn Sheehy took over to help us assemble and fold our commemorative Beehive pop-ups. His helpers were among the foremost paper engineers in America and every one of us went home with an attractive keepsake, one we had printed ourselves!
“I began where others left off.”—Thomas A. Edison
During a delicious lunch, Helen Hiebert, book artist and papermaker, treated us to a film on her work. [Watch her do her thing on Sesame Street for just for the fun of it!] During the 16-minute film, Helen made paper, sandwiched wires between layers, and then took time-lapse photography to ‘watch’ it dry. Shades of Electronic Popables! As the paper morphed and re-morphed into all kinds of organic shapes, if you weren’t thinking how this paper could be used with electronic sensors or wires attached, you were not paying attention during this conference! The final projects were beautiful by themselves, but if they were electronically wired??…… Again, there was a Buzz in the room.
“Remember, nothing that’s good works by itself, just to please you. You have to make the damn thing work.”—Thomas. A. Edison
Also during lunch, we were to be amazed by a creation from the pre-electrical age. Andy Baron started by answering the question, “What do PEs do for a living?” with “We are Mechanicians.” And that is exactly what he is, using his talents on more than just paper. Andy recounted the story of his being recruited by Brian Selznick, (The Invention of Hugo Cabret, 2007), via Paul O. Zelinsky. [Andy and Paul had created Knick-Knack Paddywhack! for which Andy won the 2004 Meggendorfer Prize.]
In doing research for Hugo, Brian had discovered a defunct 200+ year-old automaton created by Maillardet in need of repair. This automaton, now owned by the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia, had not worked properly, really almost not at all, for decades. Who else could repair one of the most complicated mechanisms ever built? Andy! And repair it he did. Andy showed us a video of the automaton at work, writing poetry in French and English and drawing four ornate images. Talk of inventiveness. The Automaton runs life-like with moving wrists and shoulders and rolling eyes. And all without the use of electricity! I was privileged to be there in Philadelphia for the automaton’s debut. Oh, how spectacular a moment. See the automaton at work. http://bit.ly/RZbZYP Andy’s restoration notes are at his website, www.popyrus.com. He half-jokes, “It would be a good sleeping aid.”
“The chief function of the body is to carry the brain around.”—Thomas A. Edison
The diminutive Julie Chen stood tall, all of 5 feet, to give her talk, Books on the Move: The Interactive Artists’ Books of Julie Chen. An associate professor of book arts at Mills College, Julie’s refined limited edition works at Flying Fish Press are in collections of some of the finest institutions, including the Victoria and Albert Museum. Her main interest is “how the physical format of the book can become part of the content of the book.” What’s really important, she says, is “the experience of the reader with the interaction of the format as well as the text and images.” Julie is very interested in movable structures. Everything she produces tends to fold and come out of a box. She usually produces one book a year doing most work on a computer and puts them together on demand, 3-4 at a time. After writing her own text and doing her own images, she then works on a letterpress. Many of her books are games requiring much interactivity.
In 2010, The Bibliotheca Alexandrina in Alexandria, Egypt hosted The Fourth International Biennale for the Artist Book. Chen was invited to participate. Its theme was Nomadism. Julie, through her research, came to focus on Mongolia and the disappearing grasslands. These grasslands became the basis of her submission, Invented Landscape. She walked us through her thought processes including exploring the Mongolian ‘long song’ that helped her shape the book, basically a Hedi Kyle flag book. Another book, Memento, commemorates the 2007 bombing of Mutanabbi Street, the bookseller venue in Baghdad. Julie’s focus was on how we in the USA are free to read what we want. Shaped like a diary, the book housed a locket reminiscent of Victorian-like mourning jewelry. Instead of a lock of hair, Chen wove together the preamble to the Constitutions of the US and Iraq. Besides Julie’s slides, we were happy to have seen several of her books in the UU library. They truly are works of art and things of beauty. Julie is currently working on a project with 40 students at the Ringling Center of the Arts. Subject: Shhhh!
“To have a great idea, have a lot of them.”—Thomas A. Edison
I was grateful to find Wayne Kalama on our schedule of presenters since I didn’t have my notebook when we sat together on the bus to the UU Library. I’d never met Wayne and was excited to learn of his very early roots in paper engineering and his having worked with Pat Paris, Roger Smith, José Seminario and David Myers, among many others. The son of a Hawaiian/Japanese art teacher, Wayne began paper engineering doing origami with napkins graduated to cutting with scissors. He was not fully aware of pop-ups books since “things came to the Hawaiian Islands at least 2 years later.”
Wayne worked for Intervisual Books with Vic Duppa-Whyte and David Rosendale on David Pelham’s The Human Body. It was Wayne’s first commercial project. In a typical understatement, Wayne said, “Wally [Hunt] was an interesting guy. Wally would come over to the creative side of the office in the morning and give us ideas.” Wayne was in awe of the paper engineers he worked with, people who “became recognizable names in the industry,” like Renee Jablow, in the MBS audience, Jan Pieńkowski “who was as funny as his books,” and John Strejan.
After spending time developing the ideas of Chuck Murphy, Kees Moerbeek, and David Carter, Wayne started creating book ideas of his own. At the suggestion of others, he presented these ideas to Compass Productions who produced his first book series, Six Blind Men and An Elephant and The Miller and his Son published by Troll. Wayne sees 1993 as a turning point in pop-up production. Until then, Intervisual and Compass dominated the industry and there were only a couple of manufacturers. Those Asian producers dictated the parameters of design. But in ’93 at Book Expo America, several other producers came on the scene “willing to do whatever it took to manufacture a pop-up book.” In walks Robert Sabuda at this crossroad and the pop-up world changes.
Luck struck when Chuck Murphy called to say he was leaving Disney’s Mouseworks in Burbank, CA to start White Heat Publishing with Jim Diaz and Paul Henness. Wayne was hired and began his Disney career on The Lion King. What he loved about working for Disney were the Thursday afternoon art classes that significantly improved his illustrating ability. Wayne wowed us with the all the familiar Disney projects on which he participated. For a Pixar Dinosaur movie to be released in 2014, Wayne is engineering 2 pop-up books. Wayne’s Dad told him, “In this great country, you can make a living doing what you love.” Wayne says, [PEs] “cut paper and make it an art form. My Dad was right.”
“Anything that won’t sell, I don’t want to invent. Its sale is proof of utility, and utility is success.”—Thomas A. Edison
While the booksellers set up their wares, I jumped out of the hotel to view Peter and Donna Thomas’ Gypsy Wagon.
Abby Ranson, Ann Montanaro, and Kyle Olmon in the Gypsy Wagon
They have been touring the USA in it. Talk about close quarters! And they’re still married! Colorful and compact like their miniature books, it was great to climb into this peripatetic world. There were about a dozen booksellers ringing the sales room. My first stop was at Maria Winkler’s booth. She had her artist books for sale in addition to pop-ups in excellent condition. I was able to complete my Pop-Sites collection. Those are mailable cards of US landmarks paper engineered by Ib Penick. Check those off my hunting list. Julie Chen and Emily Martin also had their artist books available. For the first time, Ann Montanaro was selling from her collection. It was a wide array of books including “The Have-to-Haves” for any pop-up collector. I retired to my room to count the Meggendorfer Prize ballots. Don’t I have a great job? With the winner revealed, I dressed for our banquet and an end to the Conference.
