Senior News November, 2003 Vol. 24. No. 11

 

Published by the Humboldt Senior Resource Center in Eureka, California. HSRC is a non-profit community-based organization offering services for senior citizens, multi-generational families and caregivers.

Book Arts Guild meets monthly to create and learn

Are we meeting the challenges of serving rural seniors?

California Senior Legislature meets in October

From Sunday jams to public performance, the Jefferson State Boondock Band plays on...

CR did an outstanding job on the third annual event

Come to first membership meeting of new nonprofit

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Book Arts Guild members show off their handmade books. From left are Peggy Marrs of McKinleyville, Lynn Jankowiak of Guatemala City, Susan Miner Smith of Redway and Dolores Guffey of Cutten. Lynn is holding a book she made in Guatemala, a sampler using local plants to color the paper and cards, tags and other samples tucked into the pockets. The other three are holding their October exchange book which was a Japanese Stab Binding. On the table are exchange books made by other members. --Photo by Barbara Clark

    Orphans and book arts don't seem to have much in common, but they come together in Lynn Jankowiak, who teaches the art of making books to 25 girls in the Casa Bernabe orphanage run by her church in Guatemala City.

Jankowiak is a member of the North Redwoods Book Arts Guild (NORBAG), established here in 1995 by the late Shereen LaPlantz. Jankowiak joined because her sister, Gail Rossi, owner of All Under Heaven in Old Town Eureka, is a member. On Jankowiak's visits home, she would read all the guild's newsletters and finally joined.

Jankowiak isn't the only distant member of NORBAG. Of 129 members, 68 live in Humboldt County. The rest are scattered across the United States and Canada, with one in York, England, and one in Tbilisi, Republic of Georgia. Most of the far-off members found NORBAG on the Internet. NORBAG's newsletter keeps the distant members in touch.

The guild states that "book art" combines many creative elements to make a handmade book. This could be a blank journal, an accordion-paged book that has no beginning or end, or a book in a box.

According to the late book artist Dick Higgins, "It is a book done for its own sake and not (necessarily) for the information it contains."

The guild's monthly meetings always include a workshop teaching various techniques of paper craft that can be used to make a book. The meetings also include a book exchange, where members follow a theme to create a book. Through a blind drawing each person who brought a book takes one home.

"In Guatemala, it is hard to get information on making books, so the newsletter is pretty nice," Jankowiak said. "It's not just the projects (included in the newsletter) but the descriptions of the exchange books that is so helpful."

Newsletter editor Peggy Marrs joined NORBAG after she had seen a collaborative book at Rossi's shop. Artists were invited to contribute a page to make a "commonplace book" which was sold to fund a book arts conference held in 1996 at Humboldt State University. Marrs talked to Rossi and decided to join the new guild.

"Finding the group was like dying and going to heaven," Marrs said. "Members are lovely, outstanding, supportive people."

Beginners fit just fine with the more experienced book artists, Marrs said. The guild's members, mostly women, cover a range of arts backgrounds and skill levels including calligraphers, book binders, writers, card makers, stampers, paper marblers and printmakers. There are mother-daughter members and sisters who are members.

On returning to Guatemala City, Jankowiak will continue to work on starting a co-op for her class of book artists. She will teach them basic business skills as well as have them practice making better books for sale. "Journals are big down there," she said.

NORBAG will be backing her up with information and help.

NORBAG member since 1998, Nan Roberts writes fiction, makes wire art and is a co-founder of the Redwood Coast Writers' Center.