Recursive: Book-in-a-Day Wk13

Title: Recursive
Structure: Flip Pamphlet
Dimensions: 6 1/4 x 5

Another book done and done! It feels great to have the 13th book completed and to have finished before midnight.  I think that is going to be my new goal each week -- complete the book by midnight!! Sounds realistic, but my track record says otherwise :-). 

Recursive was my first (and definitely NOT last) attempt at creating a structure. That part was the most fun. Everything else I did with this book was familiar. I found it quite exhilarating to engineer a structure. Now, of course it's possible that the structure already exists in the world somewhere, but it's not one I've seen anywhere or been taught by anyone so it feels like I'm creating it from scratch. My process for creating the book is documented, but there's more than 2 hours of footage that I didn't include because for most of it, I'm rambling on as I think through the process and structural concerns inherent in this kind of task. 

For the most part, this might be my new love -- creating simple structures and using them to make art journals. Let's see where it takes me next. 

So the poem for this book was something I drafted a few years back. It seemed to be waiting for just this moment. Don't you love when that happens? The poem never had a title, so the calling the book Recursive is really a homage to what I've been telling my students for almost 20 years. Writing is recursive. It's a process that folds in on itself and can start (or restart) at any point in the cycle. I love that about writing. It makes the idea of writer's block such a myth. 

In retrospect, the process for this book was a bit overwhelming. I did a lot of things:

• created a structure for the book from scratch
• watercolored the entire book 
• cut out shaped images from upcycled monoprints I made months ago with my Gelli® Plate

So it took me a lot longer to make this book than I had anticipated. It's a good thing I started earlier in the day than usual. I think I wasn't really considering how long each piece might take me, so in the end, I wasn't very happy with the way the text and the images speak to one another on the page. I could have done a lot more with color composition and positioning if I had more time. This is one of the caveats of making a book in a day -- I want to do more than I can really do in a day once I get started. I mean, my idea starts small, but it morphs and grows as the day goes. {This is where I remind myself that it's a book made in ONE DAY and that I can easily make more of them the way I want after the fact!!}

See you next week!!This month of books should be tons of fun since it's also National Poetry Writing Month (NaPoWriMo)!! I'll be writing one poem a day. I'm posting prompts over at my facebook page and teaching an online poetry class at givinghands.ning.com. You should join in the fun and write a poem a day with me. 

I'm looking forward to what next week brings. I have a reading on Thursday night and a speaking engagement on Friday, so I'm debating whether or not I should make the book on Wednesday. Stay tuned! If you're watching the videos, I'm honored! If you're making the books, I'm intrigued, so please share here or on the Giving Hands Creative Community site.