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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Click here to see a digital exhibit of all the books Peter and Donna have made since 1977.


Friday, February 8, 2019

Wandering westward. Heading home.

Last November we left the caravan in Waco, Texas, in the good care of Baylor librarian Josh Been, and then flew home to catch up with life and make books. In a few days Peter will be flying back to Waco, and then driving the caravan west, towards home. Please take a moment to look at the route, and if you are interested in getting in touch, or taking one of the workshops, send us an email.

We thought our wandering would end in 2018 but it has stretched into 2019. In a few weeks this trip will end in Albuquerque, NM,. Then later in the spring, or perhaps early summer, we will drive through Colorado, heading for Jim Croft's Old Ways Workshop in Santa, Idaho. In October there will be a show of our work at The University of Idaho, then we will drive home through Seattle, Portland, Eugene.

This last winter we spent our time at home binding unbound copies of our edition books, printing what needed to be printed, and Donna made a few stunning one-of-a-kind books. Below you will see one of them: A Great Song, Four poems Celebrating the Power of Nature to Transform and Inspire. The binding is the structure we call the Nested Accordion, which is described in our 2004 book More Making Books by Hand






A Great Song, Four poems Celebrating the Power of Nature to Transform and Inspire. (2019) Rainer Maria Rilke, Johann Goethe, Walt Whitman, Donna Thomas. (Full leather  binding with bas relief leather pattern on front and back panel covers. 14 by 8 1/8 inches. 14 pages, 5 watercolor paintings painted on location while backpacking in the Sierra. Nested accordion structure, running stitch design sewn on pages. Clamshell. Sold to the Bancroft Library, UC Berkeley.

at 10:29 AM

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