A tiny Free Little Art Gallery inside my Little Free Library

 

I first heard of a free little art gallery as a place to exchange art locally when an artist in my area (South Minneapolis) installed a box on a post — the sort of thing that would usually be used as a Little Free Library — and called it a free little art gallery. She announced its arrival to our artist network, the League of Longfellow Artists (LoLa), and I remember paying it a visit and contributing some tiny art of my own. I don't remember if I took anything or, if so, what it was. This was nearly 10 years ago and I am relating this strictly from memory, which, as I'm sure you know, is never reliable. 

I have seen more things written about Free Little Art Galleries in the last couple of years; they seem to have become rather a big deal after the pandemic shut-downs began. It appears that the credit for starting the whole movement goes to Doug Millison and a group of artists in the San Francisco Bay area in 2013, to foster community and connections through the exchange of art. "By making and sharing free art, we seek to liberate our thinking and open more fully to the world and to each other," they write in the mission statement on their blog (linked above).

I have had this idea in the back of my mind ever since we installed our Little Free Library last year, but I didn't want to give up on the book exchange that is its original purpose, so I envisioned it as a subsection integrated amongst the books. Finally, a few weeks ago, I took some measurements and designed a kind of display box that wouldn't displace too many books but could still hold very small artworks for exchange, such as ATCs (artist trading cards). 

My art exchange display box in progress; it measures 7 inches long by 4.5 inches wide and deep.

The finished tiny gallery box installed in my Little Free Library

The box can be taken out to examine the contents.

I wanted to get it in place in time for the LoLa Art Crawl, which happens this weekend, Sept. 17–18 (2022), and I managed to do that just this morning (Sept. 15). It will remain in place hereafter, of course, and I look forward to seeing what happens with it. I even made a tiny zine about it — to give away, of course, and which you will find in my tiny Free Little Art Gallery. 

Tiny original art in the form of drawings, collages, paint-by-numbers, misc. paper crafting, etc., as well as literary art like short poems and stories are all welcome as long as they are no bigger than 3x5 inches and appropriate for all ages. Art by kids especially welcome and encouraged. 

You can find it, and me this weekend, at site no. 4 of the LoLa Art Crawl. I will have notecards featuring my artwork and several zines besides this free one (although some are this tiny), plus a few handmade journals and lidded boxes. 

To find a Free Little Art Gallery near you, try Find a Free Little Art Gallery.

More new journals from old books — AND here comes the LoLa art crawl!

The annual LoLa art crawl is coming up in about a month and I need to get serious about making journals to build up my inventory!

LoLa stands for League of Longfellow Artists, which is a volunteer-run neighborhood arts group that's been going around this South Minneapolis neighborhood every year for nine (9!) years now. I'll be setting up shop at the adorable little yellow cottage that is the home studio of LoLa cofounder Bob Schmitt, Laughing Waters Studio.

This is all happening September 16–17, by the way.

So here's a look at a journal I recently completed, when I wasn't feeling quite so rushed so I took some pictures along the way which I won't be doing anymore for a while now.

I started with a vintage book with a pretty cover that I picked up at a Duluth shop called Chester Creek Books and Antiques. It was only a dollar and the pages were brittle and yellowed, so I figured it was OK to take it apart and give the cover a new life.

I've written before about how I enjoy taking apart old books to examine how they were made, kind of like a kid taking apart an old alarm clock or something (when my daughter was in preschool, the teacher asked for donations of such things and then had these 4-year-olds take them apart; one parent later remarked that her child knew the difference between a Philips and a flathead screwdriver after that). OK, that was a bit of a digression; back to the book.

I made an interesting discovery when I started taking this book apart, and that was that they had repurposed some other printed matter when constructing the spine. Today we talk a lot about reusing and repurposing materials, but in past decades they did that sort of thing as a matter of course. The blue paper is attached to the spine of the cover, and the teal scrap is glued over the spine of the text block, covering the stitching. 

I saved those scraps because I thought it would be cool to reuse them again in a collage. And I suppose it would have been really cool to use them in the journal I made from this book, but I set them aside to use later.

This book did not have headbands, which I wrote about in the above linked blog post (or just click here instead). Those are often another example where materials were repurposed, at least in mass-produced books. Traditional headbands in fine bookmaking are handstitched, but bookbinders in the late 19th and early 20th century would make them from scraps of shirt fabric, a practice I have also employed. (Actually, I use various cotton fabric scraps, including some from old shirts.)

In the above photo, you see the blank text block I made to fill the new journal, next to the original text block. The original text block appears to have been sewn with a kind of chain stitch, then was rounded, then coated with glue (probably a type of rubber cement), and then the strip of paper was pasted over that.

My assembly is a little different. First, I used a running stitch with the signatures interlaced together. 

Instead of rounding the spine, I keep it flat so that the journal will lay open more easily for writing in. I brushed on a synthetic flexible glue known as PVA that's acid-free, so it won't yellow or become brittle. 

Next I glued on the headbands to protect the edges (top and bottom), and attached a ribbon page marker with more PVA. Finally, I attached end papers with a thin strip of glue and then wrapped linen tape around the spine in two places, which takes the place of the paper used in this book, or the webbing often used in traditional fine bookbinding. 

Here's a view showing the end papers that I glued to each side of the text block. This hand-marbled paper (made by Sally Power) will be attached to the cover boards, over the original endpaper shown on the inside of the back cover.

Setting aside the text block for the moment, I made a new spine for the cover boards, reusing my own paper scrap from an old calendar I made a few years ago. Since it's my own scrap, I know that it's acid-free paper and won't get brittle. The cloth covering the spine is a black linen tape, the same type as the white tape used to reinforce the text block. 

And here's the finished journal. Come see it in person during LoLa.

I Am a LoLa Artist Too!

The LoLa art crawl is this weekend, August 23–34!! I will be participating this year at the Minnehaha Professional Building, 3960 Minnehaha Avenue (site No. 39 on the LoLa map), with artists Jymme Golden and Laura Burlis.

What's the secret of secret Belgian binding? I will show you at the art crawl.

Stop by between 10 a.m. and 5 p.m. Saturday and Sunday to enjoy shelter from both rain and heat in this comfortable air conditioned space on Longfellow's main drag, as well as refreshments, cool demos (Laura Burlis on making millefiore canes, me revealing the secret of secret Belgian book binding, and Jymme with her sketchbooks open to show her process), and a give-away drawing by Jymme, and maybe me, too.

I have been making a few new things for LoLa and I thought I would give you a little preview of some of them.

A fun series of projects I started this spring are little hand knit pocket doll critters to tell your troubles to or play with (for children older than 3) or display on your desk to remind you to lighten up.

Each of these is knit by hand without a pattern or instructions. I just wanted to have fun with free-form knitting without having to follow directions or take notes. As I finished up knitting them, I pulled all "tails" of yarn, and sometimes a little extra yarn, to the inside to serve as stuffing.

Then I put them in mesh bags and sent them through the wash several times to felt them, which makes them even smaller and "knits" the fibers together for extra firmness and body. After they're dry, I add wooden beads for heads and sew on their hats and embellishments.

They are all less than three inches high.

I've also been making more journals, some from beverage boxes and some repurposing the covers of vintage books.

Then I've taken the text blocks from the books and have been turning them into little stand-alone art pieces of their own.

I've also been working on some upcycled decorated tins. I have been making these little kits or treasure boxes for kids for a few years now, each one is unique and is filled with assorted small toys and other objects. I have several of them ready to bring to LoLa.

But sometimes people give me their used mint tins to repurpose, and so I thought it would be fun to try something different: to fix up the tins but sell them empty so that other people could have the fun of putting together their own treasure boxes, whether as gifts (for kids or adults) or for themselves.

One of several tins-in-progress

In fact, there are a few stops along the LoLa art crawl where you can pick up some fabulous tiny things to put in your own tins, and I will have information and tips about them available for you.

Finally, I designed a DIY "mindfulness cube" with sayings on each side, to use as an object of contemplation or even as a small gift box. I will have a few of these assembled as examples, but will be selling only the flat sheets, printed on card stock, for people to make their own.

I hope to see you at the crawl!

Repurposing colorful postcards

We're looking forward to the LoLa art crawl this weekend at our house. It's a self-guided tour of artists in the greater Longfellow neighborhood of Minneapolis and this is my third year participating — for the first two years I was stationed at a local business, so this is the first year I'm going to be at my own house, with fellow artist and friend Brian Western of Western Art Glass holding court in the living room while I turn the dining room into my personal art gallery.

I was going to set Brian up in the front porch, because I thought his art glass fish and leaves would look swell dangling in our lovely new windows. But the weather forecast says we're going to be seeing temps above 90 again this weekend, and the porch can get pretty darned uncomfortable when the temperature soars, even with those energy-efficient windows (there's no vent out there, for one thing).

So hubby took compassion on dear Brian and invited him into the living room, despite his earlier declaration that he wanted the living room to sit and read the Sunday paper. (That was in response to my suggestion that we invite a third artist to share the space.) Despite Brian's misgivings that hubby might be inclined to hang out in his underwear on a Sunday morning, he accepted the offer to be inside with the air conditioning.

I suggested to hubby that he get a pair of silk pajamas and a smoking jacket, but then he'd have to take up smoking, which we don't allow in the house. So I think he'll be in his usual attire: shorts and a T-shirt.

But the house is getting dressed up for the occasion, at least.

And now that I've cut LoLa postcards into fish to hang in the door (in lieu of Brian's fish in the window, as I had originally anticipated), and taped another batch of them to a string as LoLa prayer flags, I'm finding myself thinking about other uses for leftover LoLa postcards.

LoLa artist Anita White makes them into puppets.

I might make them into notebooks. Hmmm.