How things get done around here.
It’s new book design time again at ye olde crumbling stucco tiny house. I’ve been mulling around some ideas since last December just before I came down with multiple cases of the flu (Named, I believe – flu a, b, c, and might as well be dead). As I recovered, I had to look all over the studio for the book prototypes because in my foggy delirium I packed everything away thinking “at least I got that much done.”
But I’m excited to start again – pausing here to wipe the keyboard free of tree pollen. The warm weather has returned and we’re deep in the green down here. I don’t think I could live anywhere that did not have an early spring. The trees are fully leafed out. Multi-flora roses and honeysuckle bring sweet smells and horrendous sneezing. Even the giant carpenter bees are back (if they even left). They will, if the temps are over 60 at nite, chew through the evening hours with me laying below on my comfy porch bed trying to imagine just how big their wood chomping jaws could be. They are beyond annoying.
The Books: I’m designing a book with luscious paper that will take fountain pen ink well without shadowing the other side of the page. I write almost exclusively with my colorful assortment of cheap fountain pens because, hmm, maybe they connect me with an elegant world out there – a world where I could sit here all day, with multiple refills of French Press Vermont coffee and maybe a lovely basket of morning buns from the OWL Bakery, instead of just realizing that right now at 4:45 pm I still am in my pjs. I did brush my teeth.
The next book was started years ago when I was teaching in Holland. It is Coptic bound but the pages are folded in unexpected ways which informs the shape of the cover. I’m really excited about this one and will teach it in July during my last session at John C Campbell Folk School. http://www.folkschool.org I’m sure it’s not unique given the long and wide history of hand book binding, but I’m pretending it is, unless you, the reader inform me otherwise.
Ack! Time to get dressed and out to help put up signs for this Saturday’s annual “Voorhees’ get out the junk yard sale”. Thanks for reading. My learning curve on this WP blog will be continuous, but steady.
NOTE: Items to check out while you are reading this new post – I have added a few pages – notably the class schedule for not-so-far away workshops AND information about how to join classes I hold right here in my studio. (And a few which are placeholders) And please sign up to follow this blog because I will be posting a lot more now that I’m not spending my time in airports. (More on that later or you can check out my Patreon page here: https://patreon.com/chadalicehagen)
Chad Alice Hagen 