The City of Brotherly [and Sisterly] Love
[cont’d]
Whew! The conference is just underway and we have been exposed to a great many ideas and points of view. Buffet lunch is just what we needed. The examples left on the front table by paper engineers warrant close inspection as well. Now we can talk to our tablemates, wander around to confer with presenters and other conferees, and select auction items on which we would like to bid. Members, especially paper engineers, have been quite generous with their auction donations. There are several mock-ups from already classic books like Moerbeek’s Aesop’s Fables, Reinhart’s Cinderella, and an uncorrected color proof of Shawn Sheehy’s In the Neighborwood. A copy of Celebrat10n is available too. These are all treasures, and all money goes to the MBS conference scholarships.
I always sit in the front of the room with my Magic Pen to record what the presenters say. But when I walk to the back of the ballroom, what I see is the ‘meat’ of the conference. New paper engineers being urged to bring out their work and share it with others. New faces. New designs. I well remember Andy Baron shyly showing Robert Sabuda his Circus book. Robert’s awe at the paper engineering triggered my calling Andy, the “Wunderkind.” There is competition for that title but more about that later.
We start the afternoon with Helen Hiebert who, while living in Germany, discovered the pop-up architecture of Masahiro Chitani. Her first attempt at making 2D into 3D was Alphablocks,* based on the font, Block-Up. http://helenhiebertstudio.com
Helen admitted that she never intended to write a book and never liked writing. But while working at Dieu Donné, a papermaking studio in NYC, an editor approached her to write a how-to book. She found she enjoyed breaking down the steps to making pop-ups. She had others contribute and supply templates. There are 4 books as a result, including Playing with Paper and Playing with Pop-ups, written in 5 months.They are wonderfully colorful, helpful, and imaginative books. Among the contributors are Carol Barton, Emily Martin, and Shawn Sheehy. Others, like Kyle Olmon and Dorothy Yule, Helen had met at our last conference. Paul Johnson contributed several ideas to Playing with Paper.
Helen stressed that manipulating the pop-ups helps one appreciate what they can do. When she removed excess glue from a Sam Ita Robot, for example, she realized the additional movement it had. The paper engineers in her books represent the Who’s Who of paper engineering today. Emily Martin’s contribution was “the most complicated and longest—6 pages” and “cool.”
Truly in the spirit of Brotherly Love, Hiebert showed us her “Dandelion Wish” installation wherein she incorporates dandelion seeds and sensors. When visitors enter, the sensors begin reciting wishes she had collected from around the world. The dandelion serves as a metaphor for our connectedness. When we share our wishes, they become “more powerful.”
Helen completed her talk by putting us “through the paces” making a Dandelion Wish flower greeting card. All the materials were provided, envelope, scissors, glue, and instructions. Say what you will, these workshops are created to humble us mortals. Making a pop-up isn’t as easy as cutting paper dolls. The “Experts” walk around to facilitate the craft, and there’s always one person at a table —you know who you are—who breezes right through it making others feel all thumbs. Some of the souvenirs we will bring home—and there were more to come—represent the humbling….and the laughter.
Now it is my turn to present “The Prolific Graphic Artistry of Vojtěch Kubašta: A Centennial Celebration.” Born October 7, 1914, this is Kubašta’s 100th birthday year. The talk was adapted for the Movable Book Society from the one I gave at the exhibition I curated at the Grolier Club in NYC earlier this year. The complete Grolier talk, with the panel discussion with Dagmar Kubastova, Robert Sabuda, and Monika Brandrup-Thomas, is available at https://vimeo.com/88275099.
The presentation covered Kubašta’s life in Prague and the times in which he worked under the Nazis followed by Soviet domination until his death in 1992. The effects of censorship on his work were demonstrated by examples of children’s and historical books that more easily passed the censors of those times.
It was my goal to present Kubašta’s many illustrated books, posters, and ephemera to highlight “prolific” in the talk’s title. For example, besides pop-up and flat advertisements, he illustrated calendars, candy boxes, booksellers’ catalogs, telegram paper, certificates, postcards by the hundreds, chocolate bar wrappers, and many, many more. Also shown were numerous series of fairytales in several languages. Kubašta was translated into over 27 languages in his career. I was proud to show a sketchbook from 1925-26 when Kubašta was only 11 years old! All of the items in the presentation are in the catalog from the Grolier exhibit, Pop-ups from Prague: A Centennial Celebration of the Graphic Artistry of Vojtěch Kubašta (1914-1992). The catalog, now out of print, is available from Oak Knoll Press * or by request from popups@popuplady.com.
A much-needed break allowed all of us to wander around bidding and schmoozing. Of course, I took a moment to inspect Natalia Romero [remember Natalia on a skateboard in D.C.?] and Paul Beresniewicz’s upcoming Hip Hop Pop-up Book. Talk about originality and “cool.” Great stuff going on at the back of the room!
Shawn resumes by reminding us to be active on the Movable Book Society’s Facebook page. Post your new acquisitions; alert us to exhibits and talks, etc. Just chat with like-minded friends. He also announces to start handing in the Meggendorfer Prize ballots to me.
OK! So listening to Rosston Meyer and seeing his new pop-up, Pop-up Funk*, makes one feel like you’re a delegate to the Continental Congress, in a word, “antique.” But the love of the explosive pop-ups closes the gap. Rosston worked in web design but now appreciates working with something “tangible.” He reached out to Kyle, Shawn, Colette, and David Carter for advice on how to do the pop-ups. Rosston’s goal was to stay as close as possible to the original artwork by Jim Mahfood. One hundred copies and ten artist proofs have all been made by hand. The first spread featured Jim’s characters combined with C3PO and R2D2 of Star Wars.Because there is no license agreement with Star Wars, the book will not be sold on Amazon.
Other spreads from Mahfood’s art are Carl the Cat that makes Peanut Butter Sandwiches, based on a one-off comic book, and another spread on the Beastie Boys. Rosston stressed all the decision-making he made along the way. Scantily or totally unclad women were prominent in some later spreads. The ninth spread is called, “Pervert Train.” What would John Adams have thought? The official release of the book will be Halloween, 2014 but is already featured on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter and is supported with a video to create interest. Rosston had a limited supply of posters to give out. The book costs $250. Throughout the presentation, his brother, Marc, assisted Rosston.
With thirteen years at Intervisual and a 2009 Grammy Award nomination—Yes! I said Grammy for packaging (The Ditty Bops, Summer Rain)—Renee Jablow would clearly have something interesting to say. Not to disappoint, Renee talked to us about designing a pop-up enclosure for a hamster!! Called, Pop-up Playland*, Renee was approached by teenager, Olivia Kessler, to make an active environment for her pet hamster, Munchkin. Renee worked with Olivia and her Dad to refine the enclosure to Munchkin’s needs: climbing toys, run-around and hiding spaces, and, for Olivia, portability and washability. With a great sense of humor, Renee designed the interior of the foldable box with handles with an urban playground theme. A video was played of Munchkin doing “try-outs.” He loved the tunnels best and never used the potsy square. [If you’re not from NYC and not of a certain age, you would call the game, Hopscotch.] Munchkin’s antics in the Playland drew hearty laughs. Money for the project was promoted on Kickstarter but was never fully funded. There was more success at Pet Expo where suggestions led to refinements. Renee is open to suggestions for enclosures for other pets and continues to seek out other exciting projects. No doubt she’ll find them. http://www.reneejablow.com
After more reminders about the auction and Meggendorfer Prize ballots—sample books were on a table for all to see— Shawn introduced Uncle Larry. Recognizing that collecting may be an addiction, he started as one would at an AA meeting, “My name is Larry.” That is board member, Larry Seidman, whose pockets are always full of movable cards and games for our surprise and delight. Uncle Larry chose to focus on the mechanisms used in his remarkable collection. He also considered that collecting may be genetic and listed his father’s collections: swizzle sticks, very small pencils, soap chips, and tin toys which were auctioned off by Noel Barrett.*
Larry’s collection includes a focus on optical toys demonstrating the persistence of vision. He talked of a mutoscope toy that showed children having a pillow fight—certainly a first! Individual images shown in rapid succession are the harbingers of cinema. Think flipbook.
Larry had several videos demonstrating 200 years of cinematic progress in 20 minutes. His favorite period is around the 1820s in France and Germany. He believes the hand-colored copper engravings “have never been equaled” in quality. Most of these engravings were done for cards only and are rarely seen in book form. The Cosmographia from c1540 is the oldest in his collection and was used to calculate astronomical events. Larry has painstakingly created a series of animated images in a video. These represent a fraction of his collection. They may be seen at http://drlar7.tumblr.com/
A self-proclaimed “non-purist,” Uncle Larry includes many different types of movables in his collection, such as images animated with double volvelles or vertical and horizontal dowels, or Jacob’s ladders. He has magic lanterns and myrioramas, that is cards telling a story when laid out in any order. Early Deans and Meggendorfers are there and the wonderful roller screens circa, 1905-1910, that seem magical. *
One of Uncle Larry’s favorite pocket movables is a cordless paper spiral. When turned, the face on the front continues to morph. A member of the Miniature Book Society, Larry’s tiny books also have pop-ups. Of course!
The original “Wunderkind,” Andy Baron, had a dream and a vision. He shared that vision with the MBS members who attended the “Brooklyn Pops Up!” exhibit at the Brooklyn Public Library in 2000. On the bus to the exhibit, Andy held up a card of a Rube Goldberg movable. Pull one tab and the zany movements fulfilled the action of a self-operating napkin. Today, Andy told us of the saga of his movable card; the ups and downs, “triumphs and disasters.” He described his inspiration as a Rube Goldberg cartoon for a pencil sharpener at 9 years old. Andy reviewed all the steps, A-S. He created his own Goldberg-esque movable as a gift to his Grandpa. It was a multi-step concoction for putting a stamp on a letter. His mother preserved the design which he showed, much to all our delights.
After working at White Heat Ltd, Andy decided to make a movable of a Goldberg’s design. He showed his design in 1998 to Frank Wolf of RGI, the company that oversees the Goldberg oeuvre. Frank “didn’t get it.” The Rube Goldberg pop-up book idea bounced around from Dutton to Harry Abrams with Frank Wolf “holding the artwork hostage.” But then Frank Wolf died, and all the rights went to Jennifer George, Goldberg’s granddaughter, who saw Andy’s book as “too costly.”
Charlie Kochman of Abrams Comic Arts wanted to do a series of “over the top” coffee table books of the best all-time comic book illustrators, especially Goldberg. Now the project breathed new life. It was decided the Goldberg book would have a movable only in the cover. Andy used Tor Lokvig’s patented heat-sealed rivets, an improvement over Meggendorfer’s wires. Andy also contributed his first piece of published writing for the book. The Rube Goldberg book did exceedingly well and the 7500 book-run sold out quickly. Payback for all of Andy’s hard work was meeting MAD comic book illustrator, Al Jaffee, at the public launch in NYC on Nov. 21, 2013. It was a rousing affair I attended with Kyle, Simon, Sam, and Becca. We were so proud to see Andy at the signing desk accepting all the accolades.
Andy is looking forward to pursuing Abrams’ interest in a fully movable book on Goldberg. “The challenge is cost.” Also in the works is a series of articles Andy has been writing on the French automaton for “Horological Times,” a magazine for clockmakers. A select group of MBS members are scheduled to see the automaton at the Franklin Institute on Sunday as Andy looks for defects that need to be addressed. http://www.www.popyrus.com
[Look for the asterisk * for additional links to videos and websites at the end of this article.]
