This is the result of a bookmaking workshop that I attended last Wednesday. It was one of the best 2 hours I had ever taken off work in the middle of the day. I got somewhat lost on my way there and then again inside Snyder Hall. I knew we’d be making books, but beyond that I had no clue. It was taught by Guillermo Delgado, under whose guidance we made accordion style pocketbooks. It started with us sketching out, in rough, a map of our personal journeys — any journey we wanted the pocketbook to hold. Then we used watercolor to paint a background on the strip of paper that was to become the page or pages (not sure which, since it was one long strip of paper — should I call the whole thing a page? or should I call each folded section a page?) Anyways, after that we wrapped the front and back covers using vintage butter paper from MSU Diary and glued it all together. We all left with our own pocketbooks to fill with our own journeys.
Two nights ago I sat down and sketched out a map of my journey. I liked the thoughts the entire bookmaking process evoked. It made me re-examine different times of my life; a trip down nostalgia lane with all its good and bad memories. There was so much I wanted to put in. One book was definitely not enough, so I decided to go with an general overview — future pocketbooks will have to hold more details.
