Monthly Archives: May 2009

Mother Electra, continued…

Mother Electra, continued…

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I used bubbles on some images…

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and photo slides on others…..

also pull outs and fold outs

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the hard cover was made with card board and masking tape and then wrapped with designer paper and adhesive…

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I drilled a screw into the  back cover and inserted some velour yarn to the front cover to bind the book shut cause it is so thick. I trimmed the bottom edge with some leftover trims from the sewing box.

ephemera-postcards-030I had started it in November and finished after the Christmas Donner Party snow event.

Unfortunately the story did not all fit on 14 pages–so I will have to do volume two!

The cover was rubber stamped and embossed with black detail powder. It is OOAK and was a wonderful learning experience. Stay posted for Volume Two.

Daughter Gone Astray

Daughter Gone Astray

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Mother Electra was one of the many vintage images found in the 19th century ephemera stash. I had read an article about making *mini books* and I thought I would give it a whirl. I began by gathering images that would tell the story and then wrote the story to go with the images. I used some of the tricks from the article and added doors, pockets and sliders within the book. The interior pages were designed with a repeat leaf pattern which I embellished with gold ink. Two pages were glued together back to back  and cut into 6″ strips. I created four strips which folded in half and stapled in the center made 16 pages. I knew that a hard cover would eventually conceal pages 1 and 16 so I left those blank.  See Mother Electra’s Pride and Joy for page construction.

Mother Electra’s Pride & Joy

Mother Electra’s Pride & Joy

I had just taken a crash course on Steampunk culture and was hoping to make a project that would appeal to the more mature Goth and Cyberpunk hipsters who were looking to purchase handcrafted items on Etsy besides watch part jewelry and steampunk goggles. The only literature I found was some Jules Verne-ish capers that could have been written by a 6th grader: no character development, absent POV and too much dialogue about fetish gear made out of copper tubing.

I had my main character, a portly matron in bereavement, recount the tale of her daughter, who meets tragedy through misadventure and a jealous husband. Gasp! Set in New York at the turn of the century this short short story reads like a diary entry and is supported by the images I found in the stash.239b

ICD-9 codes in the late 19th century

ICD-9 codes in the late 19th century

I have been working out the elements/arrangements of this painting for several weeks in my head. As you know, I have a large collection of victorian ephemera and have been gathering antique portraits for many years. I have been fascinated by medical coding and will attempt to create a vintage form of coding similar to the Victorian’s “Language of Flowers”. Here is the first rough draft of a 20×20 canvas.

here is some info for all you flower lovers:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language_of_flowers05_08_12