Sometimes, very occasionally, my personal creative world and my professional world meet.

This happened a few weeks ago when the social committee of one of the organizations to which I belong scheduled an outing to the San Francisco Center of the Book. Of course, it was a week where a thousand things were happening and I almost cancelled. I am glad I didn’t, though, because it was a great class and it got me moving in the direction of bookmaking, like the Red, Purple, Well Done and Good Job journals, again.

Not every participant had arrived, so I took some time to look at the exhibit on display. I don’t remember the name of the exhibit, but the books all looked like they had hidden messages.
The piece, Until it is in Flame, is by Beau Beausoleil and Andrea Hassiba. While I do not like the burned and destroyed book, I do like the way a part of the book is hollowed out. The space could hold additional artworks, messages or other books. It makes me think of how to do this sort of idea in the structure of the books I make, but it also makes me wonder whether I should.

Healing Wounded Words is a piece about the power of words by Marina Salmaso, a Danish artist from KØbenhavn. I find this piece to be very light, but the words and the red are not boring. I also like the format.
You really have to click the photos to see them larger. The thumbnails don’t do them justice.

Another exhibit was in another room and it was equally as intriguing as the one in the main room.
I really like the variety of different bindings and different types of books. It was so fun to learn how make a few of them.

Rhianna, the instructor, passed around lots of different types of books with different bindings. We did 4-5 separate books and bindings. Of course when I saw the binding on the green book, I immediately thought it would make a fantastic journal binding.
Guess what?
This book was a teaser for another class! I really want to take that class so I can learn how to make the binding. If I made it I can decide whether I can translate the binding/bookmaking type into fabric.

From the inside, this binding looks like it would hold a lot more pages than the other types of bindings we learned.
It also looks like one could see some of the fabric through the binding.

The San Francisco Center for the Book is a great place. It is in a hip, up and coming neighborhood that still has a bit of grit with their Whole Foods.

There are a lot of interesting things to look at in the facility and it is light and airy as well. The exhibits I looked at were two in a series of ongoing exhibits.
If you are making a trip to San Francisco and want to get off the Fisherman’s Wharf-Ghirardelli Square-Cable Car beaten path, you might want to check out the San Francisco Center for the Book.