Join the Ukulele & Book Arts Tiny Home Bandwagon

The first leg of our 2017-8 trip, celebrating 40 years of making books, is now behind us - and we are home binding up more books! So what else does a wandering book artist do when they are not wandering? You know, when we made our first "Wandering Book Artists" trip in 2010, most people who saw our wagon asked, "What is this?" But on our last trip it seemed like everyone was saying, "That's a tiny home, right? I'm getting ready to build one myself!" We seemed to be at the start of the current tiny home craze. Another trend we were at the forefront of is the current ukulele fad. We were co-founders of the Ukulele Club of Santa Cruz in 2000. Watch out, as unintentional pioneers of movements, what's going to be next? Well maybe we will take up making tiny home ukulele book arts music videos!

Two Tiny Home/Ukulele Music Videos

You may have already seen the music video that our cohort in ukulele crime, Dave Peters, helped make while we were teaching at the John C. Campbell Folk School in September, 2017: Sleepwalking in a Tiny Home. If not, here is a link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WCNJAC_hFn8

The Next Tiny Home Music Video

When we were in Rhode Island, staying with Dave and Sue Wasser, founders of the Ukulele Hall of Fame Museum, we showed them the Sleepwalking video. Sitting at the dinner table, and joking around, Dave and Sue suggested they would like to enter into a little friendly competition with the "other Dave" and that we should make our own video - also based on the tiny home and ukulele theme - that would get even more hits.

Since we were leaving the next day we had to get right to work, so right then and there, at the dinner table, we wrote and recorded the song on my iPhone, and then filmed it the next day. The weekend over, Dave's work got in the way, and editing wasn't completed December 31, 2017, so it is hot off the press, or what ever they say in the film industry. Here is a link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lJv333qhcWQ It is called, "Xs and Os in a Tiny Home" - based on Ex's and Oh's by Elle King. (But be forewarned you will have to watch a commercial before you can see Elle's version. But if you watch you will find it also features a tiny home on wheels...a vintage house trailer.

Some YouTube Trivia

1. For a view to count you must watch at least 30 seconds
2. Only the first 100 views from any one computer count.
3. Make your vote by watching twice.....or 100 times..... and give a THUMBS UP to the one you like the most. No one uses those thumbs on our videos, so we will know they are your votes.
4. Here is the base line: at the time we filmed "Xs and Os" the "Sleepwalking" video had about 600 views.

Pictures of our Tiny Home on Wheels

Then to a related subject: we were looking back thru our files from the trip and found a collection of photos of our wagon taken by students in a photography class at the John C. Campbell Folk School. They gave us copies to share with our readers and so here they are:

We will be back at the Folk School in May, teaching Beginning Ukulele, plus a Jug Band Class! Will you sign up and come have fun with us? There are lots of amazing classes at the Folk School and you will not regret making the trek to North Carolina.

Mid-west weather says "Californians, time to head home."

Donna just spent hours making a fantastic final post. I went to edit it, and in the blink of an eye, and a misplaced keystroke, I deleted it. It was unrecoverable. The only time I felt worse was on the trip, some time around week 9 or 10, when the temperature dropped, ice started appearing, and Donna and I looked at each other, both of us thinking..."I want to be home...."

But we still had lots to do, and of course, had a great time doing it.

We found very interesting work going on in Karen Baldner's book arts classes at the Herron School of Art and Design in Indianapolis.

And the Herron's art library always has artists' books on display for the students to study. Here are a few that inspired us.

We ended the trip visiting the University of Kentucky, where we got a clear sign it was time for us to be heading home..... As we walked to the King Library:

And this is what it looked like later in the day:

Here is our class at the King Library Press at the University of Kentucky. We had participants of all ages, who helped one another, created cool books and generally had a good time!

Peter and director of the press Paul Holbrook pull a print on the historic hand press:

The University of Kentucky hosted one of our "40 year" shows:

Finally, we packed up the truck and trailer and left it in Dave Peter's back yard. Dave co-teaches Peter's Introduction to Ukulele classes at the John C. Campbell Folk School in North Carolina.

Dave has a fine sense of humor! It was his wizardry that created the "Sleepwalking in a Tiny Home" video we made earlier on the trip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WCNJAC_hFn8

We are at home now in Santa Cruz, busy filling orders of books we sold on the trip.We have books yet to bind and the winter is a fine time to be inside in the studio. See our books on our website here.

The book, Piute Creek is currently a favorite!