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....

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Saturday, October 8, 2016

Let the travel magic begin: we start our Fall 2016 trip.

Hi to all you friends of the Wandering Book Artists!



We are back on the road for a short trip, so felt it was only right that we let you know.
It will be a three-week trip, home and back to Santa Fe for the annual national meeting of hand papermakers  sponsored by the Friends of Dard Hunter and the Palace of the Governors Printing Shop. We left home Wednesday, spent the night at Refugio State Beach (classic SOCAL campground). 


On Thursday visited UCSB’s Danielle Moon (who was the rare book librarian at San Jose State and is now at UCSB), and that evening went to see Janet Klein and her Parlor Boys play at the Steve Allen Theater in the Los Angeles "Center for Inquiry" (their motto is “Uncle Charlie says: I want you to support science and reason.”)


On Friday we displayed our books at the Huntington Library, at a book fair sponsored by APHA (Printing History) as part of their annual conference.
We had a nice surprise when Gary Strong (past UCLA and CA state librarian), one of our good friends and collectors - who now lives in Idaho - showed up to say hello. He was in town visiting family.



On Saturday while spending the morning in La Canada’s Oak Grove Park (Peter graduated from La Canada high school) we came across a group from the School of Self Reliance and The Urban and Wilderness Survival School making pancakes out of acorns from the park's oak trees. Yumm…


We will spend the rest of the weekend in the LA area, and be in Irvine Monday afternoon to visit UCI, then head east towards Santa Fe. Wow, it is nice being back on the road in our sweet little gypsy caravan….. if you are in Arizona or New Mexico and want to cross paths let us know and we will see if you are on our route.

1 comment:

Tanya Cothran said...

Nice to see the pics! Looks like a great trip so far!