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.

Finishing up the Tiger Zine

It's not so much that I procrastinate. It's more like I get distracted and side-tracked, like a cat that hears a faint rustle in the bushes and must go investigate, forgetting about its intended destination. 

So although I started gathering information and writing articles many months ago for what I have chosen to call my annual zine, meant to be a compendium of informative tidbits I have collected in the process of researching and making the Useful Calendar each year; and even though by April I had completed a few longish articles about research-heavy topics like worldwide efforts to save wild tigers from extinction — because 2022 is the year of the tiger — sometime in May, it just stalled. 

This happens in part because I often sabotage my own efforts by gathering too much information and then feeling overwhelmed by it all. A case of TLDR only for the one doing the writing — too long, didn't finish! When mid-August came around, I was seriously considering abandoning the project, but then I thought about how much time and effort I had already put into it, including creating new artwork just for this zine, and I asked myself, What will it take for me to finish this? 

Well, I decided that I would not write those few articles that I had originally intended to include but had not yet written, even though I had gathered the information and found the subjects worthy and fascinating. I told myself there will always be another zine, I can always find a place for that topic if it's really important to me to write it. 

Then I looked at the draft document and realized that it was exactly 24 pages with just a few small gaps that needed filling either with new artwork or a short snippet of text. Well, any multiple of 4 pages can be made into a booklet, so suddenly the completion of my tiger zine was within reach. I was finally energized to finish it. I did two illustrations for the section on the evolution of cats (above) and a third of catnip (which I have growing in my yard), wrote a very short piece about tigers and catnip (yes, they like it), and selected a poetry excerpt for the last page, which goes nicely with an illustration I already had. Done, and done! 

I'll debut it during the LoLa Art Crawl, September 17–18, and then make it available in my Etsy shop and possibly at the Minnesota Center for Book Arts, if they want it (they usually do want my zines, but last year's annual zine didn't sell very well, so I have no expectations regarding this one). 

It's kind of funny, too, how I can't seem to motivate myself to adopt a daily drawing practice, but when I need an illustration (or two or three) in order to finish a zine, I can sit down and really focus on getting them done without being led astray by distractions. I do enjoy it when I'm in the midst of creating the illustration, and I often say to myself, I should do this more often. 

I guess I just need to make more zines.

Two Soft Cover Journals with a Cross-Stitch Binding

 In my last post, in which I wrote about the crisscross aka secret Belgian book binding, my first photo included two soft-cover journals with exposed stitches on the spine that cross over each other to form overlapping X's. It occurred to me that a person might think that would be called a crisscross binding, too, so I mentioned simply that those are different, but didn't want to say more about them in a post about the other journals. So now I am going to tell you a little about those.

It's called a cross-stitch binding, though I've also seen it called by other names, including a "corset" binding. In order to get the stitches to cross on the outside, you have to double back some on the inside of the signatures, so the fancier the X-pattern on the spine, the more stepping back and doubling up on the stitches you need to do on the inside, which can get a little tricky and may make the middles of those signatures a little bulky. Find a good demonstration and examples of this on Margarete Miller's website here. I agree with her conclusion that, while it's an attractive binding and kind of enjoyable to figure out, it's not something I want to do very often, because it's pretty fussy and the enjoyment diminishes after you've done a few of them.

These two small journals are made with a flexible cover-weight paper that has attractive striations on one side. I made them with a wrap-around cover and pockets in the back with the idea that they would make nice travel journals. They're about 4–5" high and wide, with moderately heavy paper that will take light use of wet media. The pockets are made from some large security envelopes I saved because I liked the pattern on the inside, and the paper was fairly heavy and durable.

The back cover wraps around and tucks into the front cover, where I put a circle of decorative paper and a white label so you can give your journal a title — or at least to make it clear which side is the front! But, seriously, I label my travel journals with the year and some reference to the contents, such as "2021 Road Trips," so I wanted to facilitate labeling them like that.

Come to think of it, I should do a post about my travel journals sometime. They're kind of a cross between a journal, a sketchbook, and a scrapbook. I guess that would make them visual journals. Anyway, I'll show you some examples of those next time.

Thanks for reading. These two journals will be available at my site during LoLa, which is coming up very soon! September 18–19 (2021), from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. I'll be in my front yard with the journals and some other things on a table out there, and more items in the front porch for socially distanced browsing inside and out. My site is number 23, which you'll find on the LoLa website here. Or click on "Artists Directory" and enter my name (Sharon) into the search bar at the top (blue background). 

Stop by and say hello if you're in town (Minneapolis, Minn., that is).

Journal-making Season

My art-making tends to have its seasons, influencing what I work on at various times of the year based on external circumstances. I mean, I have my internal inspirations, which are both constant and constantly changing, but it's those immutable events throughout the year that cause me to set aside some things for the sake of completing others.

It's one of the reasons I sign up for my neighborhood art crawl, which takes place on the third weekend of September (except last year, because COVID, of course).  It's organized by the League of Longfellow Artists (LoLa) for creative folks in the Longfellow neighborhood of Minneapolis to showcase their artistic output. 

LoLa gives me a deadline that motivates me to finish things I've been dragging out, and make new things to show and, hopefully, sell. I also enjoy the face-to-face interaction with neighbors and strangers and people I know and others I only kind of know—although two days of that is quite enough for this introverted artist. After that, I'm quite happy to retreat to my studio and focus on completing the Useful Calendar— my next art-making season.

I really just wanted to show you some of the journals I've been making lately, but I felt the need to put them in some kind of context, and then the whole art-making seasons idea came to me. 

So. I make journals for the LoLa art crawl and then after the weekend I consign the ones that are left over with the Minnesota Center for Book Arts in plenty of time for holiday shopping. In 2020, we cancelled LoLa, the MCBA was closed, and I didn't make any journals, so I was a little concerned that I may have forgotten how to make them. I did have to consult my notes for the first ones, but I soon got in the groove again. Like riding a bicycle, I suppose.

I always put a pocket inside the back covers, which holds a "library card" with  information about the journal, and my bookmark-style business card

The ones I'm showing you in this post are all casebound, with a flat spine rather than a curved one because they're a bit more user-friendly that way: you can make them lie flat when opened fairly easily. 

Casebound journals are a bit more involved than other types I also make, such as Coptic and secret Belgian, which I'll show you in my next post. For casebound journals, the spine is stitched, then glued, then reinforced with a fabric called mull and a strip of paper glued the almost-length of the spine. Optional but desirable is the addition of headbands at the top and bottom of the spine to protect the inner edges of the pages, and, one of my favorites, a ribbon page marker; because if I'm gluing all that stuff to the spine anyway, why not add that nifty little touch? 

You can buy headband material that looks like the old-style handstitched headbands, but when I read that binderies used to make them using leftover shirt fabric, I thought that was a really cool way to make my own. I wrap strips of cotton fabric around a hemp cord and glue it with the same PVA glue I use in the other stages of making the book. Then I select a color that goes with the cover and cut off a piece the width of the spine. (I wrote about making headbands in this post a few years ago, should you want to read more about it.) 

I've been using only supplies I already have on hand, and I make the journals in a range of sizes, largely determined by available materials. The red/postal journal shown at top and below is a full 5-1/2 by 8-1/2 inches, the next one is about half that size, and this last one, above, with William Morris's "Strawberry Thief" on the cover, is about 4 inches high.  I'll have a few in each size available for LoLa. 

To find me during LoLa, see my artist page on the LoLa website.

Here's a photo of my ribbons, mull fabric, and prepared headband strips, just for a little postscript. Some of the headbands really are made with fabric cut from my husband's worn-out shirts, others are just from scraps too small to use for anything else.

Little Boxes

I've been making little boxes this summer and it occurred to me that there's no need to keep that as my little secret, so let me tell you — and show you — a little bit about them. The boxes shown here (and more boxes yet to be made) will all be available at my site during the LoLa art crawl in September. (My page on the LoLa website is here.)

A couple of years ago I had taken an in-person class (remember those?) at the Minnesota Center for Book Arts on how to make a specific type of box called a clamshell, which are mainly made to protect old books. That's a worthwhile thing and I do intend to make them for the old Bibles that my husband and I each inherited from our mothers. But the real reason I took the class on making clamshell boxes was because it was the only box-making class being offered at the time.

So when they offered an introduction to box making via Zoom this June, I was happy to jump in. What I really want to make are small lidded boxes and that's what this class was about. The boxes we made for the class were about 4" by 6". After finishing those, I started making smaller ones, both because I really like small things and also because I like using up scraps and bits that are too small to make much, but that I like too much to discard.  

For example, in the photo above, the small neutral-colored box in the back to the left has a decorative square on the lid covered with a piece cut from a metallic gold envelope somebody used to send us a greeting card. And I'm really tickled by the blue-and-white one at the front, which is covered entirely in security envelopes, then topped with a vintage shanked button. That box is about 2" by 3" and is constructed with scrap chipboard left over from other projects.

This green box is a good example of using up leftover supplies. I bought the green book cloth this summer, but the rest of the materials I found by rummaging in my scraps. I've had the green paisley paper for a very long time and I don't know when or where I first acquired it. The lining of both the lid and the box (the bottom part of the box is called the tray) is the last of some scrapbooking paper I bought when I used to use that type of paper to make sleeves for my calendar cards. I love the distressed look and the pastel colors, especially pale pink! With subtle green polka dots! So I made a box small enough to use the available scraps I had.

The handle at the top, as you have no doubt guessed, is a vintage wooden game piece, like from Sorry or something. It has a lovely aged patina and is the perfect shade of green to go with the other materials, don't you think?

I'm also making journals for LoLa, and some of those are also small, to use up leftover materials. But that's a topic for a different blog post.

The book artist's version of a scrap quilt

I sometimes wad up a piece of scrap paper and toss it out the door of my studio so the cats will scamper after it (and then I shut the door). I don't think that's a legitimate form of reuse, though.

I really could put more stuff in the recycling bin. It's not that I throw too much away, it's that I hold onto small items and scraps because I'm too certain they can be repurposed in some way. And it's often true, as long as I'm able to make the time to use them.

Take paper scraps and trimmings, for example.

When I make a journal using a vintage book for the cover, I'm repurposing the book cover (yay), and using recycled paper with a high post-consumer content for the pages (yay again). But to fit the pages to the cover (which is kind of backwards, a book conservationist recently pointed out), I end up trimming away strips of my perfectly lovely paper, which is a bit thicker/heavier than most journal and notebook paper at 70lb (most notebook paper is 50lb).

Some recently constructed journals and their remnants

And I hate to just toss those trimmings, which are often 2.5–3" wide, into the recycling when I could reuse them to make mini journals and notebooks.

A couple of mini journals made from scraps -- and the covers are from Yorkshire tea boxes

In addition, like any paper crafter, I have accumulated a lot of paper of various weights and patterns, often purchased from scrapbooking shops (scrapbooking per se doesn't really appeal to me, but I really like a lot of the papers and other materials involved). I have used the decorative scrapbooking paper to make sleeves for my calendar cards (2018 will be available late October). Those paper sleeves are sealed and reinforced with packing tape.

My 2015 Useful Calendar was the last one that was trading card size

A couple of years ago, I changed the size of my calendar cards from trading card size (2.5" x 3.5") to 1/8 of a standard letter size page (2.75" x 4.25"). That change ended wasteful trimming (the scraps were too small to use for anything else), while also saving me a little time in production and giving me a little more space for content. Score two for zero waste. Or would that be three?

But that left me with a lot of sturdy little tape-laminated paper pockets that I had made already and could no longer use for my calendars.

Leftover calendar card sleeves

So I'm making little notebooks to fit into the pockets. And to satisfy my urge to make something artful and unique, rather than the same thing again and again, each mini notebook is ornamented with beads and charms on the spine (which also makes for a convenient handle for pulling them out of the sleeve), and their covers are collaged with assorted scraps that I just couldn't quite toss into the recycling yet because they're too pretty or interesting. Sometimes that includes bits of those book pages, as well as trimmings from the decorative papers used to make the sleeves.

Two mini notebooks with their coordinating sleeves

I've also repurposed whole text blocks that I removed from old books in order to use the covers, glued the edges together and cut them into simple shapes, which I then collaged with more scraps to make little stand-alone art objects of solid paper.

Stacks of book innards, and a few paper block collages made from them.

Yeah, it's kind of an obsession. But in my defense, I do end up tossing some of my paper scraps into the recycling. I put most of them into a large paper bag and staple it shut, because by the time I'm really done with the scraps, what's left is pretty small and needs to be bagged like shredded paper so it doesn't gum up the recycling machines. But by that time, I feel pretty satisfied that I've gotten a decent amount of reuse from those old books and other scraps of paper.

More mini notebooks with their sleeves

Come see my scrap paper notebooks, vintage book journals, and paper block art pieces during the LoLa art crawl, Sept. 16–17, at site 62, Bob Schmitt's Laughing Waters Studio, on Minnehaha Parkway.

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.