First Annual Edible Books at Penland

April 1, 2011 was the first annual edible books festival hosted at Penland.  This is an international event every April 1--people make all manner of book models, ranging from book structures to favorite illustrations to puns on book titles.  

For the main URL, go to:

           http://www.books2eat.com/

You can see a good online show at Bookworks in Asheville, NC:

           http://www.ashevillebookworks.com/2011/03/edible-book-festival/

Our Penland show is at:

          http://tinyurl.com/EdiblePenland

Here are some other shots of our show as it was under development. 

Heather made edible herbals (first two shots) and Amanda used animal crackers to represent "Animal Farm" as an accordion book. 

Some of us made replicas of particular book structures (like the accordion, above) and some of us picked characters or scenes from a particular book.  Some go for the highly eatable (chocolate)   Some are jokes or puns. There are a couple drinkable ones. Some books were very simple and others more complicated. For a complete set of shots, please go to the URL listed at the beginning of this post.

Charlotte's Web (above) and Don "Chipolte" (below)

Moby "Bisquick" (above) and Grapes of Wrath (below)

 Jadis the White Witch, pop up page, from the Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe (above) and Pride and Prejudice (pulp fiction and x rated versions, with different kinds of eatable fillings) (below)

Finally, here are some pictures of us at the party Friday night. Above--our book art class, from left to right, middle row: Pat, Barbara,  Heather, Kelly, Amanda, Jenna. Back row: Melissa, Linnie.  Front row: Joshia.

Our instructor, Melissa Jay Craig, and studio assistant, Heather Bella, are to be congratulated for pulling off a very popular event.  After a half hour of viewing and imbibing, we were free to eat the books—and many were devoured.  Then the rest of the books went into Penland compost for the garden—mimimal clean up and a good time was had by all.

Guest artist, Pop Up Books

Back to rainy weather.  

I really enjoy taking shots of the ceramic wall near my dorm when it rains (left, below), and the building (right) is one of the women's dorms, the craft house, on the National Register.  Unlike some of the other buildings at Penland, we don't think this one is haunted!  

 This is what it's looked like several afternoons in a row (below), and has occasionally foreshadowed snow, but it keeps us indoors working

We had a guest artist this week, Shawn Sheehy from Chicago, who taught us to make pop up structures using hand made paper--this was a blast.  Check out his fantastic work with biological forms at

http://www.shawnsheehy.com/Shawn_Sheehy/Shawn_Sheehy.html

Shawn taught us how to mix dye  into the pulp of cotton and abaca (for strength)—the colors are particularly brilliant.

 Shawn and Jenna  draining the pulp after dyeing it (below)

 Next, we made 8 by 11 sheets from the colored vats  or large sheets using a deckle box. (Note: we're wearing hats because a lot of the work was outdoors and it was in the 30s-40s)

Shawn then  spent two days teaching us the pop-up book structures using card-stock strength paper we'd made ourselves.

At the end of one of those days, I headed back to the dining hall to hear the director, Jean McLaughin (below),  give an update on fund raising, improvements, maintenance needs.  Penland is supurb at raising money for students who do work-study scholarships, and also for numerous community programs, particularly in area schools.

 Then—time for dinner. This shot of the food line just does not do it justice.  The food is gourmet quality and as often as possible is fresh from the Penland garden.  It's a good thing we walk up and down hill so much, because we eat three big meals a day.

Getting down to business, and a visit to the glass studio

Here's the paper studio on a sunny day--so far this has been rare! And below is what it looked like inside when we first arrived. 

 Barbara, from Asheville (below), sits at the table next to me everyday and we compare notes on what we're doing.  In weeks two and three, we started producing paper and book structures, and now our desks are piled high with projects finished and in progress.

During an early session, Melissa (in red) taught us how to gauge amounts of water and pulp to use in a vat.

 Kelly draining a sheet (below).

Some of the sheets  have inclusions (like tea or bits of plant fiber) or  contain floculated pigments (bits of color side by side)

Josiah really got into pulp painting, and here he is "couching" a sheet of handmade paper onto a pellon (a sheet of synthetic fabric) to be pressed and dried.  Below are a couple of examples of the final pulp-sprayed works, which he plans to hang in a window. 

During a break in the action, we visited one of the other studios, the glass studio   The two guys blowing glass in the hot glass studio are in the 8 week concentration. The glass beads were made in the flame working studio during a one-week class.

 Back at our studio: once we've made some paper, we then learn to make book structures by watching an instructor's demo.  Heather Bella, our studio assistant made the two beautiful coptic-stitch bound books below in her (rare) off hours, when she wasn't helping us. Heather is a recent  graduate of the MFA program, Center for Book and Paper Arts, Columbia College of Chicago (where Melissa Craig taught for many years). 

 Here's Heather demonstrating paper folding techniques and coptic stitching.

To end this blog session—this is our work board (below)—we are learning that a paper making studio has to be well organized or it collapses into chaotic mess.

And finally--clean pellons blowing in the sun and wind.  On beautiful days like this, there's nothing like making paper outdoors.