Amazing Pop-Up Book!

Check out this video of a really awesome pop-up alphabet book by Marion Bataille.  

This week(end) at the Kilgarlin Center

Don’t forget to join us for a Kilgarlin Center Forum this Friday at 4:30pm in the conference room (556) of the Sanchez Building.  Alums Tish Brewer and Shannon Phillips will be presenting a talk entitled, “Starting a Private Practice in Paper Conservation”.

 Also, if you haven’t already, it’s time to hit up the grocery store and create your entry for Saturday’s Edible Book Festival!  The festivities will take place on the front porch of the Collections Deposit Library.

   

Kilgarlin Forum for March 28

Please come to the Kilgarlin Forum on Friday, March 28th to hear alums Tish Brewer and Shannon Phillips speak about their experience as conservators in private practice in Dallas.  In the meantime, check out their blog and their website!

Eat this book!

Spring is upon us, and once again it’s time for the EDIBLE BOOK FESTIVAL! The festival will take place on March 29th, from 2-4pm at the Kilgarlin Center.  All entries need to be submitted by 1:45pm that day.  Prizes will be awarded in the following categories:

• Best in show
• Wittiest
• Tastiest
• Best Book Structure
• Least Appetizing 

More information can be had from the Edible Book Festival website.  Bon appétit!

Old Ways Bookmaking and Tool Workshops by Jim Croft

If you’re interested in learning how to make a historical wooden-board model from start to finish, then you can’t go wrong with Jim Croft’s intensive Old Ways class being held this summer.  The tool intensive workshop runs from June 24 – June 25, and the bookmaking workshop goes from June 26-July 11.  Here’s a list, taken from his website, of some of the things he’ll teach in the bookmaking class:

Toolmaking and sharpening: Two Days Elk & deer bone folders Locally gathered & cured wood awls Tool sharpening & maintenance Fiber from stem to thread: Two Days Learn to process local, imported, sorted, sordid, and recycled hemp & flax Also work with material taken from seed to thread and from fiber to rag or at least stalk to thread Linen fire hose processing Making lye from ash Wood-fired lye cooking, retting, braking & scutching, Hackling, spinning, plying & natural bleaching Hand-cutting fiber

Papermaking: Three Days Using hemp, flax, and cotton pulps Comparisons and contrasts of the beater Meeting the water-powered stamp mill Gelatin tub sizing and wet gelatin pressing Loft drying in spurs Hand burnishing Bookmaking with Wooden Boards and Clasps: Five Days Find, harvest, and cure your local woods and learn quarter splitting from the block Sawing, hewing, and shaping by hand or take the easier route board shaping by machine Sawn and planed boards will be cut to length and shaped with rasp, file, plane, hand drill, knife, etc. Learn to tell if a piece of wood would or would not co-operate with your book Plus, learn to form and fit the formerly commonplace, but now often neglected or even negated need for brass clasps

 Third-year students, Elizabeth Bittner and Brenna Campbell, took the class last summer.  Jim Croft visited us here in Austin last January for an amazing tool-making workshop.  Nothing compares to a bonefolder you’ve made yourself, to fit YOUR hand!  

Interviews

Here are some useful links on interviewing.  It’s mostly good, common sense (alas, there is no Big Interview  Secret to Success), but it can certainly be helpful to review the finer points when prepping for an interview:

 Phone Interviews

How to Ask Good Questions in an Interview

Answering the Toughest Interview Question

Child-Assisted Paper Destruction

Watch in horror (or amusement) as a child facilitates the wanton destruction of innocent pieces of paper!  Watch this movie at your own risk!