TRAVELING IN A TINY HOME THAT IS REALLY AN ARTISTS' BOOK ON WHEELS

Peter and Donna Thomas have been making fine press and artist's books for over 40 years. When they started, as craftspeople at Renaissance Faires, they fell in love with the graceful beauty of "gypsy wagon" caravans that other vendors had made to sleep in or use as booths for selling their wares. In 2009 Peter and Donna built their own tiny home on wheels, designed after a typical late 19th century Redding Wagon. This blog documents their trips around the country, taken to sell their artists' books, teach book arts workshops, and talk about making books as art; as well as to seek out and experience the beauty of the many different landscapes found across the USA.

Peter and Donna started their business in 1977 and made their first book in 1978, so from 2017-18 are traveling to celebrate 40 years of making books with shows in a dozen libraries across the country. See the schedule on the side bar to find if they are coming to a town near you....

Follow the Wandering Book Artists on Facebook and Instagram!
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Thursday, April 8, 2010

Obama was an undergrad here.



In case you haven’t noticed, this is honestly a business trip. We were up at 7 and off at 8 to meet with Dale Stieber, the rare book librarian at Occidental College in Eagle Rock, CA. and then at 10 we gave a talk to the book arts class. They all enjoyed our new accordion book and a song on our ukulele book.

Last night we slept on a city street in Alhambra after visiting our friend (and wonderful chanteause) Janet Klein. To spend the night we had to go to the police station to get overnight parking permits. As we were filling in the forms the person helping us said you will have to tell me what your license number for your trailer is so that the parking officers can identify it. Right. It is the Dodge Ram pulling a light green GYPSY WAGON… don’t get confused, it’s not the blue one….

We were eating lunch at Occidental when we were surprised to see our friend Marni Zimlin from the Pale Moon booth at the Renaissance Fair. She had seen a gypsy wagon parked on the street in front of the college and knew there couldn’t be another that looked like ours. (Take that, parking people in Alhambra.) She pulled out her laptop, went on Facebook, found our blogspot, then found we were meeting with the librarian, then found us. Yippee! Technology really IS fun sometimes!!!

The photos: Peter "lecturing" at the Book Arts Class.

Donna carving a linoleum block in the driveway of Bill Steier, Julie's dad.

4 comments:

Polly said...

Maybe the parking people wanted a license plate number so that they could make sure they weren't hallucinating your rig.

Julie and Sarah Jo said...

That's so awesome that you stayed at my Dad's house. I'm sure his San Marino neighbors had never anything like before.

Cari said...

Oh what fun you two are having! Yeah, sure BUSiness trip, you don't fool me! Just jealous . . . Cari
p.s. this is a test, this is only a test, if this was a real emergency, you would be instructed to abandon all pretense of business and just admit how much fun you are having. This comment WILL post, I decree it.

Tanya Cothran said...

Fun blog post mom! I love all the different adventures you are having and fun connections you are making. I hope you made it to the Renn Faire today! Ramble on-Tanya