KANSAS CITY HERE WE COME…..
MBS conference September 27 – 29, 2018
by Ellen G.K. Rubin
It was just an idea. Let’s have our MBS conference in Kansas City, MO, the home of Hallmark Cards. After all, Hallmark makes pop-up cards, books, and table decorations so they must have interesting things to show us. As luck would have it, we met paper engineers from Hallmark at our Philadelphia conference and had asked them to look into it for us. But it was in Boston that we met Patrick Kershner, a retired Hallmark paper engineer, and when Ann and I floated the idea of visiting Kansas City, well, let’s just say Patrick played fullback and ran with the ball. And like a fullback, he moved the idea through the gauntlet. Thanks, Patrick!
So, we met at the Westin Hotel—with overflow attendees at the nearby Sheraton—to have our 12th conference. Much was going to be celebrated at this event, like our 25th anniversary, Ann Montanaro Staples’ 25 years as founder and director, her passing on of the baton, and finally, the publication of A to Z: Marvels of Paper Engineering. Board members will be brimming over with excitement knowing the books would arrive on time in Kansas City, and a record number of attendees had signed up. MBS loves a crowd!
Our conference package had a list of attendees, program schedule, Meggendorfer Prize ballot, and brochures about Kansas City. But also affixed to our name badges was a number representing the conferences attended. I proudly wore my #12 signifying I had been to all of them. Those who had #1 alerted us to first-timers who we sincerely welcomed and got to know. We had more foreign attendees than ever from as far away as Indonesia and the Philippines. This was truly an international event.
Also, in the packet was a pop-up souvenir featuring MBS’ board members and some others, designed, signed, and painstakingly hand-made by Ed Hutchins. Ed had made 100 of these dioramic keepsakes. Thank you, Ed!
Thursday, Sept. 27
Shawn Sheehy, our tireless Conference Chair, kept his clipboard—and fire extinguisher—handy. With them, he had everything running smoothly in the jam-packed program. Shawn opened the event with a hearty welcome and introduced Patrick who couldn’t have been a more welcoming host. He embodied everything I’d been told about mid-Western hospitality. Patrick began his welcome by quoting Umberto Eco who said, “To survive, you must tell stories.” The story of J. C. Hall, the founder of Hallmark, was one of pulling oneself up by the bootstraps, applying hard work, creativity, and sacrifice. Hall’s story was wonderfully illustrated in a short documentary shown at the Hallmark Visitor Center we visited the day before and a brochure in our registration packet. Patrick was clearly proud of his city and happy to share it with us.
The first item on the official program was an interview with David A. Carter, who needs no introduction. The interviewer was Maike BiederstädtGerman paper engineer who recently won the prestigious Louie Award for her pop-up seasonal card, Snowflake, made for MOMA. Her book Creatures of the Deep was also a finalist for the Meggendorfer Prize in 2016. The Q&A format allowed David to talk of his early beginnings with pop-ups, his relationship with Intervisual Books, and his projection away from the bug series for Simon & Schuster [S&S], which sold over 6.5 million copies, and into the more sculptural movables he has recently made. His One Red Dot won the Meggendorfer Prize in 2006. He found in it the challenge to make the words, art, and engineering work together while keeping the price down. With minimal text, he thought, “No one is ever gonna publish this” but Robin Corey of S&S exclaimed “I love it” and that was enough. The book is still in print, including in China.
David began his career by answering an ad for a paste-up artist. At Intervisual Books, he was inspired by the artwork of Jan Pienkowski and got to hang out with Jim Diaz and pare down the glue points for a work by John Strejan [1933-2003]. David even shared an “Easter egg” telling us his initials, DC, are on the pull-tabs for Naughty Nineties. There were 2 copies in the Silent Auction and everyone checked it out. He was able to get close to the legendary paper engineer, Tor Lokvig, and married his daughter!
When S&S talked to David about Bugs in a Box, they made him “an offer he couldn’t refuse.” National Geographic poured $250,000 into developing their series stating it was not for the trade. David saw them as the first real complex books and the first to be made in China. Despite the downturn in all markets in 2008, he engineered Dr. Seuss’ Horton Hears a Who Pop-up!
While he was working on other projects, he would also keep random structures he made of white paper. From some of these, David and Jim Diaz worked 6-7 years on The Elements of Pop-ups. The success of that book has prompted another with more complex structures and produced by Rosston Meyer’s Poposition Press. Maike added that when she started out as a paper engineer, she was told “you must buy The Elements of Pop-ups.”
With Jim Diaz, David has started a new packaging company, Blossom Books, and its first book, a pop-up, will be on the traveling sculptures of Italian master, Bruno Munari [1907-1998]. Answering questions about his preferences, David enjoys submitting greeting cards to MOMA who answer promptly; his favorite fun project was Bugs in a Box; One Red Dot was the most fulfilling; he still uses Elements to check construction; financially, he had no royalties from Bugs, but One Red Dot did better abroad than in the US. Original mechanisms are rare in paper engineering, but Tor Lokvig did create a plastic rivet, a la Meggendorfer, that Tor sells. David commented that the new way of publishing involves Kickstarter and other crowd-funding sites. He was available for book signing.
Friday, Sept. 26
The Silent Auction tables were set up in the ballroom. The number of book donations was record-breaking [437+] requiring the volunteers, led by Frank Gagliardi and Ed Centeno, to continually add tables. Matthew Reinhart had donated several of his limited editions, all signed with an extra pop-up. There were mock-ups and greeting cards. Never seen before was a souvenir pop-up of the Royal Wedding playing the Star-Spangled Banner [for Meghan Markle] and God Save The Queen [for Prince Harry]. Tucked in an attached box were 4 gold-foil wrapped condoms. The name of the souvenir was “Someday Your Prince Will Come.” A total hoot!
One could also bid on a zippered canvas bag embroidered with the new MBS logo. These may be ordered by going to: https://business.landsend.com, open an account, go to My Logos and put in Logo Ref. #1574321 & Cust. # 7105271, then order your tote bag from Gifts. Carry our logo with pride or apply to some other item.
Our first speaker was Samantha Bradbeer, an historian from Hallmark Cards. She told us that Hallmark is a privately held company now with a 4th generation working its way up the ladder. Joyce C. Hall came to Kansas City in 1910 with a shoebox of postcards to be sold via mail order taking advantage of the “postcard craze” of the early 1900s. When the “privacy factor” started working against the use of postcards, greeting cards, sent in envelopes, took over. Now there was more room for creativity. He began creating and printing cards, beginning with a line of valentines. The company was incorporated in 1923. Beginning in 1928, Hallmark started adding extras to their greeting cards, wheels, bows, glitter, fabric, foil, etc. The first pop-up was made in 1934; it was a Howdy Dowdy Father’s Day card with a v-fold. As licensed characters like Mickey Mouse were added, there were more opportunities for more graphic artistry.
During the Depression, Hall found ways to keep his employees working and devised business practices that many other companies followed. With time, Hall and his brothers associated with other famous characters like Charlie Brown and great American artists, like Norman Rockwell and Grandma Moses. Radio advertising led to the ground-breaking TV shows starting with Amahl and the Night Visitors, the first original opera for TV. There is now a Hallmark TV channel. The 1950s brought more paper mechanics presented in TV commercials. Samantha showed us several video examples of them. One especially innovative movable, one none of the conference attendees had seen, was Squeezems. Squeeze the card to activate the arms or legs! Sweet! The 60’s brought the carousel doll house series called “Merry-go-round playsets.” Some were in greeting card format and had small 33 1/3 records included, really gift items. Hallmark was already producing paper toys, so this was an easy extension from their tabletop decorations of the 50’s.
Hallmark was not the first to introduce pop-ups into their books, but it was an easy transition since they already were in the book market. There were more pull-tabs used in the Hallmark series.
Today, Hallmark keeps being innovative with sound chips and cards that will remain popped open to double as a table-top decoration. Their paper engineers and graphic artists continue to use the “heritage collection” for inspiration as well having more licensing relationships with Harry Potter, Star Wars, etc.
Hallmark archives are always open to company graphic artists and paper engineers for inspiration. There are 2 vaults for the historical cards with a 3rd soon to be added. The collection is actively growing.
Answering the question about how these cards should be archived, Samantha quipped, “Keep them where you keep your loved ones,” not in the basement or attic. There is no way to recharge light and sound cards. The cards are kept in archival mylar, away from light, and in temperature control. In response to how they got into pop-up books, Samantha talked of trying to entice men and children to be interested in Hallmark products and the early books were geared to those groups. When asked about Hallmark’s relationship to Wally Hunt who sold his company, Graphics International, to Hallmark, she said additional research is being done with the help of PE Charity who attended our conference in 2014. They are also looking into who were the paper engineers working for the company.
Next, Emily Brooks, a PhD candidate from the University of Florida, attempted to show us the newest ways pop-ups could be presented using modern technology. I would be lying if I told you I could take proper notes on this talk as I got lost in some of the technical aspects. She bemoaned that several software companies folded while she was using their platforms and were unable to give tech support. Much work is being done to try to duplicate the hands-on experience of opening a movable book.
Emily provided this site which was fun to explore. http://sites.psu.edu/play/virtual-movable-books/. Penn State seems to be at the forefront of the quest to digitize movable books. Emily stressed the three elements involved:
Time-based Media which uses flaps, pull-tabs, and volvelles, which she demonstrated in a Meggendorfer book on YouTube. She pointed out the obvious use of hands to turn the pages and activate the movables. I for one especially appreciate the inclusion of hands which show scale, ease of mechanism, and timing. Animated GIFs used in Tumblr for example don’t show any hands. She used video examples of Always Jolly by Meggendorfer and the Dean’s books, Dissolving Pictures [1862] and Sports and Pastimes [1857], all from the Penn State collection.
Spatially-based Media we see in traditional pop-ups, architectural 3D models, etc. Photogrammetry is used to “stitch together hundreds or thousands of pictures” to make a 3D model. Images can be turned and zoomed. This allows us to upload 2D images and create 3D ones. I hope I got this right.
Time & Space Media goes into the 4th dimension and uses 3D video. Something called Volumetric Captures can be “very disorienting” and not good if you get motion sickness. These media can explore book objects in a non-standard way, incorporating touch, feel, movies, and treasure building which uses metal, gems and ivory carvings.
I appreciated how simple it is to open a pop-up book and IMMEDIATELY enjoy it, as opposed to reading a full page of instructions then downloading apps before getting to the joy of the experience. Emily heavily used video to demonstrate the media she was describing, so, in self-defense for my wrap-up, “You shoulda been there.”
Sean, continuing to be “lean and efficient,” officially introduced a new program, Open Mic, a favorite, begun of necessity, in Boston. This time members had signed up for a 5-minute spot to talk about whatever they thought would interest us.
Helen Hiebert of Vail, CO informed us of her Sunday Paper blog on iTunes. Helenhiebertstudio.com/blog. On it she provides movable paper ideas and templates. Her 2019 Calendar is a combination how-to book and calendar. She will be giving 2 workshops on Sunday after the conference.
Rob Kelley dazzled us with his “irrational” pop-up pinball machine made from one 40”-long piece of paper. The attendees were vociferous in their oohs and aahs. His holiday card of the same design, but not of a single sheet, may be had on the MOMA website.
Rosston Meyer’s Triad was a candidate for the 2016 Meggendorfer Prize. Available now is Necronomicon from his Poposition Press. The deluxe edition will have embossed foil casewrap around a custom, laser-engraved acrylic slipcase and an art-print. Fan-cy! His newest project will be a Cannabis pop-up. That should be a high-flyer! Poposition Press will be the producer of David Carter’s newest project, One Thousand and One Handbags by Hester van Eeghen.
Simon Arizpe has paper engineered The HearthStone Pop-up Book based on a video game he has never played but his students have. Simon showed us a mock-up of the 4th spread and a video. He is also working on 10 Jay Street recreating street scenes of Brooklyn where he lives. It includes the Manhattan Bridge and a NY skyline. His latest project is the history of marijuana. [Probably these cannabis pop-ups will be sold in all the head shops.] He wanted to start with a non-European-centered globe and begins with Asia. It turns into a map with George Washington, Reefer Madness, and Uruguay, the first country to legalize marijuana. Does one have to smoke to produce these books?
Susan Joy Share of Alaska—I said people came from far away—described her latest project, Trellis Wardrobe. It is based on an exploration of the number 3 using paper and magnets to change shapes. The basic structure imitates a closet which can be opened. The actual structure is 5 feet high. Trellis was part of her exhibit, InFormal Nature, shown at the Kenai Fine Arts Center in Kenai, AK.
Isabel Uria teased us—OK, me—with her pop-up wedding invitation done in concert with her husband, a graphic designer. She has moved to Philadelphia and become a free-lance designer, trying to build a business. “Very scary!” She thought to animate the story of Don Quixote where the windmill, through the use of light and shadow, would become the monster he battles.
Amy Lopez Nayve came all the way from the Philippines. She has been making pop-up books since she was a little girl. This interest culminated in her submission in the MBS Emerging Artist contest. Amy is the runner up. She is an Industrial Design graduate from De La Salle, College of Saint Benilde, where our own Adie Peña is a teacher. There is no big pop-up industry in the Philippines, and when she received recognition from MBS, she “died and went to Heaven.”
Ray Geweke collects and writes about automotive-related material. He especially likes the movables that demonstrate the newest designs. He shared with us a 1940 Chevy salesman’s catalog showing how to use a stick shift. Many of these catalogs use several paper mechanics. Remember the Lexus pop-up sales book from 2007?
Rianne von Duin, who began as an 8-year-old making paper houses and models, has come out with a movable book in the style of the Choose Your Own Adventure books. Using the interactivity and interchangeability of movables, one can change the progress of the story. The book’s first printing sold out in the Netherlands where she’s from. She’s thinking of a Kickstarter project to produce a translation of the book.
Lorraine Conway calls her presentations to groups from 3-99-year-olds, BMW-Beauty Magic Wonder. A great promoter of the joys of pop-ups, Lorraine travels to schools and nursing homes to show pop-up books and talk about them. Sometimes the books she would bring were tailored to the individual interests of the residents. This certainly brings out the Smile Effect in all. She encourages each of us to do the same.
Jason Brehm works for Land’s End and he thought MBS should have bags with our name and logo on it. He brought a couple of them for the Silent Auction and put order forms in our packets so that we could get our own bags in different sizes, some with zippers. The logo is individually embroidered on each bag. Thanks, Jason! [see instructions to order above]
Yay! A delicious lunch break followed and PEs whipped out their ‘Show & Tell’ and I tried to capture it all. I couldn’t. You really have to come to the conference and ‘feel the love.’
Board members, Kyle Olmon and Kyra Hicks, have been giving MBS a broader social media presence which has attracted interest in our pop-up niche from hundreds of visitors. They have called themselves, WAC, the Web Action Committee. The original logo designed by Robert Sabuda was ‘refreshed’ by Keith Allen. The old website was getting pretty ‘static’ and Rosston Meyers was brought on to make it more dynamic. One new feature will connect us to other pop-up websites, and if you have a website, be sure to link it to our Facebook page and MBS website.
The format for our newsletter is also under discussion. Other platforms being added is a new YouTube channel and a Wikipedia page. The goal is “to elevate what we love.” Kyra and Kyle encouraged members to contact them info@movablebooksociety.org to make suggestions for additions to these platforms or other ideas. Kyle ended by reminding us “it takes a community” to keep us fresh, active, informative, and relevant.
The last two items on the program before we adjourned to explore Kansas City were in the hands of Colette Fu. Known for pop-up photographs of ethnic Chinese, Colette attempted to make a book qualifying for insertion in the Guinness Book of Records. In Shanghai, as part of the International Pop-up Exhibit run by Jason Chen, Colette almost achieved her goal. She explained the difficulties she had with size and weight. We saw a video of several people lifting the 4-foot-high covers. Our own Ann Montanaro Staples was there to lend a hand.
Colette secured a grant in Philadelphia—Colette is the Queen of Grants—to produce the biggest pop-up book. Enlisting the help of MBS member, Brad Litwin, the cover was made of gator board at $1600 a sheet. This was an attempt to make the covers much lighter than the covers in Shanghai. Still the gator board had to be doubled up. Finding the right materials was a struggle and manpower came down to her alone when the intern maxed out her hours. Colette printed and mounted her photos so that people could actually hide in the cave recreating the story she was telling. For all Colette’s efforts, however, Guinness did not accept the entry since it was a single spread and not of an existing book. Bummer! Unfair! The book is now in storage but will be on display at the Taubman Museum in Roanoke, VA in February 2019. So that Colette would receive an award nonetheless, Kyle presented her with the world’s largest Certificate of Achievement—virtual on the media screen in front of us. Hooray!
Colette now switched hats from presenter to workshop teacher. We were given sheets of printed cardstock to cut out and glue. What we created, like a happy group of crafters, was a greeting card celebrating MBS’ 25th anniversary. We individually cut paper cupcakes spelling out “Movable Book Society.” With the help of the circulating paper engineers, we all went home with a 4-tier pop-up, another wonderful souvenir of the conference.
So here is where we sing, “Kansas City here we come.” We had several sites to choose from around the city. The top of the list was the Hallmark’s Visitor Center’s Special Exhibit of Pop-ups from their collection, “A History of Hallmark Pop-up Books.” Ann and I had already been there. It was a beautiful display [see my video on our Facebook page] with several movables we had never seen before, a veritable shopping list. Not on the list but visited by us was the Jazz Museum and the Negro League Baseball Museum, both housed in the same building. It was at 18th and Vine Streets, the center of honky-tonk during Prohibition. We were warned not to go on foot so we Ubered [new verb] as we did to other locations.
Arranged for 30 members, was a private tour of the Linda Hall Library. We were treated to ancient movables like Euclid’s Geometrie,1570, with cut out paper that stood up to show the volume of various geometric forms. Most interesting was a hand-colored Japanese manuscript with volvelles from 1846, Search for Reason-Astronomy. The text and volvelles showed the relationship between earth, the planets, and stars at different periods. Also displayed was Copernicus’ 1543 volvelles and a 1913 flap book showing the mechanics of electrical equipment. The Linda Hall is the world’s foremost independent research library devoted to science, engineering, and technology. This was a real treat. Special collection librarians were on hand to answer our questions.
Dinner was on our own and the MBS Board held a meeting at the 100-year-old Union Station and ate a delightful meal at Pierpont’s, named for J. P. Morgan. Yes, we went Dutch. After dinner, I raced back to the hotel to drop in on the spontaneous Show and Tell going on. New books. New ideas. New mechanisms. Oh, joy!
Saturday, September 29
Like mushrooms after a downpour, we awoke to find almost twice as many Silent Auction books as there were yesterday. So much to choose from and at such good prices! The eight Meggendorfer Prize candidates were also displayed for examination for attendees to vote on. At the Silent Auction was a hat on a table. Enter your name and maybe you’ll win a banquet centerpiece produced by Hallmark especially for MBS. There is one for each table and the winner will be charged $50. We have yet to see the centerpiece.
Ann kicked off Saturday with the business report, her last. After 25 years of being the ‘mover and shaker’ for MBS, Ann is ready to hand the reins to another. She stressed that she “isn’t going anywhere” and will continue to be an active MBS member. The Board voted Shawn Sheehy as our new Director and will remain as Program Coordinator as well. It is clear we are in able hands. Congrats and thank you, Shawn.
Board members were introduced, Larry Seidman, Shawn Sheehy, Kyra Hicks, Kyle Olmon, Monika Brandrup, Isabel Uria, recently retired Frank Gagliardi, and 2 new members, Jason Brehm and Denise Price, and yours truly. MBS has 313 members including 52 international and 12 institutional members. Dues, remaining at $30 US and $35 international, may now be paid with PayPal at our website, movablebooksociety.org.
Ann explained how MBS used the $50,000 profit from our Celebrat10n book to finance the new A to Z book. As of Sept. 15, we had $76,000, quite a “healthy” number for an organization like ours. The big BUT is that we now owe $71,000 for the A to Z. Ergo, Ann encouraged all of us to buy and promote the sale of this landmark publication, yet to be seen in its entirety by the attendees. The Big Reveal would be later that day. Our back issues of Movable Stationery are digitized and available at the Smithsonian website.
Shawn stepped up to give his thoughts about the MBS going forward. He related that we have many visitors to our Facebook page who have not been converted to dues-paying members. That is a goal. He especially spoke of our newsletter which Ann almost single-handedly published. This endeavor need not be done by one individual and MBS is actively looking for volunteers to serve as designer, editor, or content advisor, etc. Working as a team, we can continue to publish this important aspect of our club. Submissions do not have to be multi-page affairs. Five hundred or so words highlighting some aspect of pop-ups is enough to keep our membership informed. Please WRITE! Please VOLUNTEER!
The next program item, “For love and Money: Appraising Your Pop-up Collection featured a panel, Larry Rakow-bookseller, Larry Seidman-collector, and myself-writer, curator, collector. We talked about collecting and how one can appraise one’s own collection. Rakow gave an impassioned talk about his collecting roots and what he has learned as a bookseller. No surprise! It always comes down to Condition, Condition, Condition. The relative fragility of movable books factor in heavily. He spoke of the role nostalgia plays in people looking for specific books, and how the Internet has been crucial in determining rarity.
Seidman, who I call Uncle Larry, and never disappoints in his ‘Show ‘n’ Tell, has a varied collection of movables and optical toys. He stressed the value of an item depends upon rarity, popularity, and condition. The crossover potential of a book also may add value, meaning if it has more than one collecting area, e.g. Disney pop-up. One can rely on a reputable bookseller to help develop the collection.
My advice for assessing the value of your pop-ups or deciding on what to pay for a new acquisition is to register on-line for as many auction or aggregate auction sites as you can and bookmark the pop-ups that are being offered. The selling price will remain on that site and serve as a reference for the range of sell prices. Of course, perusing print catalogs—there still are a few—will help you see the asking prices. Following books on eBay or Etsy will add to your knowledge.
We then went on to appraise books brought by some attendees. We were shown a copy of Ride a Cock Horse to Banbury Cross, published by Ernest Nister inscribed in 1898. The book was complete with Nister’s dioramic pop-ups. Nister’s books were valued by readers and published in great enough quantity to have this book come up for sale with some regularity. We all agreed that approximately $150-200 value seemed reasonable. There was also a Japanese pop-up of Huckleberry Finn. This was harder to assess since not everyone collects foreign language pop-ups. It is a cross-over because of its literary association. We thought anywhere from $50-100 seemed right.
After a short break, we were treated to the remarks of our keynote speaker, Bruce Foster, with “Still Popping After All These Years.” Joining our table at the front was Bruce’s wife Lori and Bruce’s mother who had never had the opportunity to hear Bruce lecture. She was clearly excited to be here.
Bruce, who paper engineered over 60 books, began by telling us about the opening and later the closing pop-ups for the Disney movie, Enchanted. The opening pop-up scenes were so delightful they asked for more at the end but with a very short window to produce them. His first trade pop-up was Gutenberg’s Gift which was given 5 Stars by MBS. Starting as a package designer, Bruce incorporated pop-ups into ads for juice boxes, some using rubber bands. To learn more, he bought bargain book pop-ups and took them apart. [This is why I never let PEs touch my books!]
Bruce sees the highlights of his artistic career as his Little Red Riding Hood, illustrated by Marjorie Priceman, the several books he engineered for artist, Chuck Fischer, and working with Elizabeth Murray whose sculptures Bruce re-interpreted as a pop-up book for a major MOMA exhibit. This was “a dream come true” for him since he was so taken with her work while he was in art school, he would display her work in his room. He got to meet Murray for this project. One must include the first ever pop-up book of the Harry Potter franchise.
The blad for his Sports Illustrated pop-up book WOW! had to be scrapped when Tiger Woods, who was in it, had his falling out with his wife. For one day, Celebrity Meltdowns was in the top ten books on Amazon. Bruce’s newest pop-up, To the Moon and Back, the story of Buzz Aldrin, is just out. He was thrilled to pick Buzz up at the airport and chat about Mars. Bruce was invited to Korea for a pop-up exhibit. He was joined by Philippe Ug and Benja Hardy, an Australian applied pop-up artist.
For most of Bruce’s books, he is the paper engineer and rarely gets to meet the illustrator. Many times, he will work on a project that doesn’t get produced or is actively seeking a publisher. One that was cancelled, by royalty no less, was the history of Bahrain. Another is one on the Apocalypse. He is working on a pop-up Haggadah, the prayer book for the Passover Seder, and looking for a publisher. Bruce readily acknowledges there is an element of luck getting a pop-up book published. He does a number of school workshops and author visits. As of today, he doesn’t have a dream project. I suspect it would be one that is challenging, fun to work on, use his talents, and then…..get published. When Bruce was done, his Mom was heard to say, “I’m so proud of you, Bruce!” And well she should be.
Courtney Watson McCarthy has made her presence known as a paper engineer. Her ABC Pop-up book is a candidate for the Meggendorfer Prize, not a first for her. Courtney admitted to being shy but got herself to the 2010 MBS conference in Portland, and when a presenter snapped open a pop-up and the room audibly gasped, she knew she had found “her people.” She felt she belonged. Learning by observing has been an M.O. She works alone in the back of her house in a small community 1 hour north of NYC.
Realizing she did not like to be the center of attention, she switched her college major from acting to theater design. After following her boyfriend, now husband, to LA, she enrolled in a pop-up making class having been inspired by Sabuda’s Wizard of Oz. The class ended with a tour of Intervisual Books. She moved back to NY after 911 and found the nerve to contact Sabuda. He was very encouraging and eventually offered her a job but as a freelancer. Wanting more security, she accepted a position at Penguin books and cut her teeth on learning how books get made; slowly, she discovered.
After having her first child, she decided to stay home. Her husband travels with Rock & Roll bands and may be gone for weeks at a time. She imagined a quiet life alternating between baby care and pop-up making. It was not to be. But all the while, she continued to make small pop-ups, mostly given as tokens.
After connecting with the English packager, Brown-Wells, she embellished her experience “just a smidgen” and landed her first paper engineering job. She was finishing her last spread as she went into labor with her second child. Today, Courtney has several books on our shelves, including Dalí, Escher, Star Wars, and Leonardo DaVinci. She pulled the little pop-ups she made for her kids from her desk drawer and published them in her first solo book, ABC Pop-up.
We grabbed our boxed lunches and scrambled around to talk to other members. The books for the Silent Auction had been removed to have the volunteers go through the arduous task of matching code numbers used for bidding with their bidders and tallying their costs.
We reconvened with Yoonjin Kim, who came to her first MBS conference as a shy, self-effacing art student, found a job with Up With Paper [UPW], and now is making a presentation based on her newest book. Way to go, Girl! She showed us the custom invitations for a destination wedding in Hawaii with some Navajo images and her illuminated center pieces for a school fundraiser. This year, she won the prestigious Louie Award for a greeting card using copper foil and neon yellow ink. “Know Watt? [Inside] You’re Brilliant.” The interior light bulb pops up and glows at the same time.
Yoojin’s newest book, in keeping with her nature themes, is Shells: A Pop-Up Book of Wonder. Before our very eyes, she cut, folded, and glued the die-cut pieces of a turtle and octopus that will be a spread in the book. It was a real treat to watch a master at work. Snip, cut, bend, fold, glue….oops! reglue. And voila! A beautifully illustrated turtle, head and limbs moving over a bright orange octopus. Can’t wait for the book! When asked how her Autumn book was doing, she pointed out that David Carter’s autumn book, part of his Seasons Series, was released around the same time. Now, David is publishing a pop-up on a coral theme. How the Universe converges!
Peter Dahmen’s pop-up structures are large, intricate, and simply magical. When I first saw him before the conference began, he was sitting with David Carter seeming to ask David’s hand in marriage. Yes, without getting on one knee, Peter took a small square box and opened it slowly allowing edges to recede exposing a small ‘diamond’ ring. Who would say, “No.” to such a presentation? Tiffany! This one’s for you! Peter was explaining how an Israeli company, Highcon Systems, had created a machine that would simultaneously die-cut and crease paper to create such structures. Gluing is still not possible.
Peter’s degree is in Applied Sciences, and he was a classic graphic designer for 20 years. His youthful appearance contradicts this biographical note. It’s said, “Necessity is the Mother of invention.” And so it was with Peter, when he constructed very large pop-ups for a design class. Without a car, or a computer for that matter, how was he to transport them to the classroom. Aha! Make them fold up! His first pop-up card was born. Twenty years later, and still not using the Internet or a computer, he was persuaded by friends to seek clients who would want his intricate pop-ups. Through trial and error, using his cell phone, he created a video, and to his amazement, after one week he had 1000 views. Now it has over 4.8 million. And here at MBS we have the pop-up video star! He has made super-sized pop-ups for sales conventions like the Mini-Cooper. His pop-ups have been used in the TED talk about Tesla, by Marco Tempest, a Swiss magician, and for the 2013 New Media Gala Awards using a 1:10 scale model pop-up as scenery.
Peter talked about the box construction I saw earlier. In terms of price he said, “The ring is expensive, so why not the box?” Larger boxes may be used for iPhones, and other ideas. Finally, he showed us a video, “Letters from the Sky” that featured a movable greeting card he had been showing around and made available in the Silent Auction. Acknowledging that no two snowflakes are alike, the Israeli machine can die-cut ‘snowflakes’ creating 44,716 images thusly allowing the creation of greeting cards of semi-unique paper snowflakes. https://www.iggesund.com/snowflake2016/
We are now poised and ready for the Big Reveal of our A to Z book. MBS Board member and Creative Director of UWP, Monika Brandrup, had shepherded this project from beginning to end. The brain-child and passion of Larry Seidman, the Board overall put its “full faith and credit”—emphasis on credit—behind this project. A to Z was launched with an open call to world-wide paper engineers who would be given creative freedom to ‘strut their stuff’ on a letter of the alphabet. The word went out on social media. The 68 entries were restricted to 10 glue points for each card. The letters G and S were the most popular.
Vetting the entries was Larry, Bruce, and Monika. Isabel Uria created the box to house the cards; it was decided early on not to have a book-form for this alphabet. She also designed our new 25th anniversary logo. Bruce created a unique pop-up as the box’s opener. Ann wrote a history of the MBS, and Larry shared his inspiration for the project. We had to come to terms with the cost of it all. The box, at one point, had to be redesigned to cut costs but that worked out very well since it can now be placed easily on a shelf. Coated paper had to be used so that all the cards would glide easily. Monetarily, we were down to bare bones, but we had strong faith in the project’s success.
We were so fortunate that UWP provided the fulfillment, shipping and storage. Two thousand copies were printed. Rosston is taking care of international orders and 30 were sold globally on the first day and as of this talk, 600 copies were sold. Big sigh of relief. We were out of the hole. To thunderous applause, Monika and Yoojin demonstrated each card. Hooray for MBS and its crackerjack team.
We now were shooed out of the ballroom to allow for the Book Sale & Swap setup. In the adjacent lobby, tables were being arranged for the signing of A to Z by 17 of the contributing paper engineers. Those of us who hadn’t received our books yet were given the opportunity to have the signatures added to a specially cut card that would fit into the box or signed onto stickers to be placed on individual ABC cards. The sales tables displayed a smorgasbord of movables including ephemera and artist books. One could chat with the artists and get their back stories. Antiquarian pop-ups were also available like Nisters and Deans and Meggendorfers, including Meggendorfer art. In short, something for everyone. Then it was time for me to get back to my room to prepare for the banquet and tally the Meggendorfer ballots, those offered on line and tallied by Jason and the ballots handed to me. Who will be the winner?
Finally, the consummation of our conference. Most of us are all spruced up and ready to party. The ballroom looks festive. Denise Price is circulating with the handmade center pieces, carefully adding the battery to each so that every table glows. How beautiful! The center piece was paper engineered by Patrick, Denise, and Shawn with production support from Hallmark. The lighting is from Chibitronics, Jie Qi’s thesis-inspired product.
Our dinner table has been a veritable Mad Hatter’s Tea Party with constantly changing companions: Chuck Fischer, Bruce Foster, and Elizabeth O’Connell from Anchorage, Alaska. The meal was beautifully presented with the pièce de résistance being the dessert, a gift from the pastry chef— flan with a white chocolate square emblazoned with our 25th anniversary logo. How sweet!
We began our final program with Ed Centeno announcing the results of the Silent Auction. It was no surprise that the record-breaking donations would bring more money than ever but now, first quoting from Walt Whitman’s Song of Myself, he told us we had made $6193! This money is golden for us to support conference scholarships and help keep our bottom line black. Ed thanked the many donors and volunteers—some were scholarship recipients—for their hard work.
Next Emily Martin heralded the winner of the Emerging Artist Prize. There were many international entrants to choose from in addition to those from the US. “It was a very hard choice.” She first introduced the first runner-up, Amy Nayve from the Philippines. Amy’s submission, a school project, can be seen on-line to give you an idea how difficult the choice was. Amy attended the conference and wowed us with her poise and talent. http://bit.ly/2ENOrK7
All the way from the Indonesia came Vanessa Yusuf. Vanessa brought her award-winning book and throughout the conference one could see and hear all the photo-snapping and video-taking of this remarkable book, Bhinneka Tunggal Ika, Diversity in Unity. How timelier could it get? Celebrating and illustrating ten holidays of Indonesia’s diverse cultures, Vanessa used every mechanic to its finest advantage. You have to see this to understand how deserving she is of the Prize. Congratulations, Vanessa. We hope to see more of your work. http://bit.ly/2ELAVXe
The next to last Meggendorfer Prize is for an Artist Book judged by Chuck Fischer and Kevin Steele, who, at the Portland, OR conference, had won Best of Show, Unique Book for The Movable Book of Letterforms. They seemed in awe of the array of books they had to judge but the winner was Colette Fu for her visually compelling and sizable book, Tao Hua Yuan Ji, of a Utopian Chinese village. She told us it was harder to print on rice paper than make the book. Colette responded to her win by saying, “I guess my bribe worked.”
Before the final Prize was awarded, Shawn took a moment to thank Patrick Kershner for “going above and beyond” in assisting with conference business. Shawn presented him with MBS’ 10th anniversary publication, Celebrat10n. Thanks, Patrick!
At last our final award. Jason and I were called upon to give the Meggendorfer Prize. Jason explained our first on-line voting. It was our attempt to have as many members as possible vote for the candidates. These votes were added to the ballots turned in during the conference. So without any preamble, but with a hiccup as I tried to remember how to pronounce both the title and the winner’s name, Zahnak: Legend of the Serpent won the 2018 Meggendorfer Prize for Simon Arizpe. This highly structured and colorful book told an Iranian folk tale. Congrats, Simon!
I had already asked attendees to keep their seats after this last announcement as presenting the Prize usually signifies the conference is over. But not this time. As I pulled a large heavy bag from behind the lectern, I called up Ann Montanaro Staples. We were not letting her go “[gently] into that good night.” An email sent to the membership and others around the world asked for remarks about Ann’s leadership and the effect the MBS had on their lives. The solicitation yielded an outpouring of sentiments, congratulations, and heart-felt Thank Yous. There were many “over-the-top” pop-ups made in her honor. The size of the out-pouring required a five-inch wide 3-ring binder it was my privilege to assemble. We were able to show just a few of the pop-ups.
The most poignant one was a full pop-up book, with linen board covers and a dust-jacket printed with testimonials to Ann. The book was done by Roger Culbertson, a landmark paper engineer who had started producing pop-up ads and books in the 1960s. Word went around on Thursday that Roger had suddenly died that day. Oh, bittersweet gift for Ann and a loss for us all.
But she was surprised, meaning you all did well being discreet. It was a joy to present it since the Board agreed a simple Thank You would not have sufficed to acknowledge her passion, determination, and doggedness to start this organization and keep it afloat and flourishing.
So, we came to Kansas City, we saw, and I think we conquered. Where shall we go in 2020? Any suggestions for sites in the West? Please let Shawn know your ideas and we hope to see you there so you don’t miss the next extraordinary event.
