Two extraordinary hand-made books have landed on my desk recently, one printed conventionally but written in the author’s fluid calligraphy and illustrated from her field-journals, and the other entirely hand-made, even the paper.
Barbara Bash’s revised book, True Nature
The first, a revised edition of Barbara Bash’s beloved True Nature: An Illustrated Journal of Four Seasons in Solitude, chronicles a spiritual journey and an artistic one, as Bash makes clear up front:
This is the story of four solitary retreats spent in a cabin in the Catskill Mountains of upstate New York. During these times I practiced sitting meditation and nature journaling. Both activities are contemplative, developing awareness and attentiveness to the world. I wanted to see how they might weave together when mixed with the simplicity and starkness of solitude.
True Nature is simply beautiful, and as adventurous as the author finds herself to be. Sometimes the words become BIG, sometimes they dance around on the page, sometimes they stand out in bright colors.
Bash is candid about the difficulties of her solitary retreats, the fears that rush in uninvited, including a debilitating fear of the dark discovered years before in her only previous solitary retreat.
She is tests that fear, but the darkness defeats her each time. Finally, on her final session, she realizes she can “enter [the woods] at twilight and let the darkness gather around me.” She climbs onto a flat rock and waits,
my heart … beating fast, my breath high in my chest. Afraid of the dark. Afraid of what I can’t see. … Relax the brow. Relax the mind. Sitting, watching, listening.
The pages of the book itself trace the gathering dusk, shifting from ivory to a purplish watercolor wash, to deepest gray and then black with tiny stars and white writing. Bash stays through her fears until she “feels her way” off the rock in complete darkness:
Just as I step out of the woods, a bat banks and turns right in front of my face; its soft wings beat the air against my cheek. It feels like a salute.
(Read the full review on Story Circle Book Reviews.)
Resilience, Aimee Lee’s handmade book, with its handmade wrappings and a key to the paper, along with a note from the artist.
Resilience, the other book, came like a gift out of the air, a small package in my post box wrapped in pink handmade paper, from an unfamiliar address. I carried it home and opened it carefully, making sure to not damage the wrappings. Inside was a book and this note:
Dear Susan, I have been wanting to give this to you since I made it. Please accept it as a token of thanks for sharing all you have been living through. After having my first book published this fall, I admire your work even more! with love, Aimee
I held the book tenderly and read it through, even the hand-lettered colophon. Then I went to Aimee’s website and looked through her work. (Watch this video of her building a traditional Korean papermaking studio and teaching how to make the paper. Fiber-folk, check out her knitted books!)
A two-page spread from Resilience, illustrating the careful word-placement on the rough-textured paper.
A free-form poem written in pencil on just nine two-page spreads, Resilience is brief. But wise. And beautiful.
Here is the entire text, with apologies that I cannot achieve Aimee’s gorgeous word-placement on the page:
There are the famous words about
your one wild and precious life* (footnote: *Mary Oliver)and those about how life is like getting into a boat that’s just
about to sail out to sea and sink* (footnote: *Suzuki)There are words,
words,
so many words.
So many words in the world.Yet,
when you are lying in bed
deciding if it is best for the hot tears to run into your ears or
onto the pillow,more than words course through your body.
hot
tearsThen you pick up the pencil
tear
and return to words.
I read the key Aimee had included detailing what fibers each paper was made from and where it was made. And lay on the couch thinking that the world is full of such love and beauty and that sometimes we humans rise and embrace those qualities. Breaking our hearts open–intentionally or not–invites that goodness in, changing us in ways we cannot imagine.
Thank you, Barbara and Aimee, for opening my heart in new ways. And thanks to you all for journeying with me.
Oh, how lovely. thank you for sharing your gift. And this time I mean literally! (-:
Best, Vivian
Eagle Harbour, GVRD BC. Canada
Vivian, You’re welcome. I was floored by Aimee’s generosity and the gift of “Resilience.” I found both books inspiring. Two such very different approaches to making books more personal and “hand-made” as well as the perspectives on life.
Blessings, Susan
How ironic that you should be writing about a handmade book, Susan. Both books are gorgeous, but Aimee’s pulls at my heartstrings. I’ve recently re-discovered handmade books (AKA artists books) and have finally found a way to combine my writing and artwork, along with all the skills I’ve learned over the years–printmaking, papermaking, collage, painting, photography, desktop publishing–you name it. Funny, just the other day I saw a little book of haiku and thought about you and your photos and how they could be put together so beautifully in a handbound book. Anyway, just wanted to thank you for sharing these gifts with us. I’ll definitely check out Aimee’s work. And if you want a mind-blowing trip through the world of artists books, just Google it—there are lots more amazing creations out there!
Bobbi, What a great idea! You’d make incredible handmade books, I know. Have fun playing with the concept and finding your unique expression of it. I can see your books embracing all sorts of colors, snippets of fabric and other things, and paper made from native Texas plants–yucca makes great paper, BTW. Enjoy!
susan, i’m so glad aimee sent you this. it’s one of my favorites of hers. those tears in my hair and ears and pillow…the structure is lovely, completely suited to the paper and text. it’s one that, despite trying, i’ve yet to master!
Velma, I was stunned and astonished and honored all at the same time when I opened the package. I kept the wrapping and everything. Resilience sits on my shelves in my office on its nest of wrappings with the notes right there. Everyone who comes in comments about it. I feel blessed….
oh, susan! thank you so much. i was having a challenging night, so when this arrived, it came just in time. thank you for really seeing and understanding. it’s rare to really be seen and understood, so thank YOU for that gift!
Aimee, I am sorry that you were having a challenging night, and I hope today looks better. As I said to Velma, your gift of “Resilience” stunned and astonished and humbled me. I do feel blessed! I’m only sorry it’s taken me so long to honor your gift in this way. I was waiting for just the right book to pair “Resilience” with and Barbara Bash’s True Nature was the one. Many blessings to you….
i ought also to say how lovely true nature is, a book that i too have. i haven’y looked at it in a while, i will take it off the shelf to enjoy, again.
Velma, I think True Nature is quietly courageous, and such a beautiful revealing of self in relationship to the world around us. The new edition has 16 pages of field-drawing prompts in it, which makes it irresistible to me all over again.
How gorgeous, Susan–both.
And the knitting books are amazing.
I have been reading a book friends sent me called A Shepherd’s Life, by painter Victoria Crowe, a painter who made paintings of her shepherd friend, Jenny Armstrong (1903-1985). It’s a small book. It sinks in over time. I only wish I could see the paintings in person. There was an exhibition in 2000, and the book says “Since the original exhibition . . . , Jenny has found her rightful place in The Biographical Dictionary of Scottish Women.”
Also someone commissioned a tapestry to be made of one of the paintings at Dovecot Studios in Edinburgh.
Ah, the delicacy and power of the individual life, lived with awareness and noted with the work of the hands.
Thanks so much for sharing these books.
‘Morning, Deb, A Shepherd’s Life sounds like the perfect book for you! And you’re right about the “delicacy and power of the individual life.” What lasts is not the stuff or the money or the influence; it’s what we do with love and care and mindfulness, whether that’s raise a healthy child, write a book, tend a nation, paint a shepherd, or knit a book…. Blessings!
Yet,
when you are lying in bed
deciding if it is best for the hot tears to run into your ears or
onto the pillow,
more than words course through your body.
hot
tears
Then you pick up the pencil
tear
and return to words.
Beautiful words. Thank you for sharing them especially that deciding about tears…This morning in my crying with Jerry the Cavalier King Charles Spaniel jumped up onto the bed and began licking our tears from our cheeks.
Congratulations on your honor so well-deserved. You share so much of you and I am grateful.
Oh, Jane! I think of you and Jerry every day, and send strength (which to me is really flexibility, allowing us to respond with grace to what comes, not clench up and become hard and brittle). I send love and Light too. Bless your King Charles Spaniel for knowing just what to do to be comforting! Know that I and so many others are holding you both in our hearts….
Susan, I just ran across this podcast about Aimee (wasn’t even looking for it–LOL). Thought you might want to check it out—scroll down to the second one on the page.
http://www.bookbindingnow.com/
Cool! Thanks, Bobbi.
True Nature reminds me of Hannah Hinchman’s books. (I’ve not heard mention of her in something like a decade. Wonder whether she’s still among us; still continuing on.) As for Resilience, I’ve had books arrive seemingly from the ethers, and know what a stunning thing it can be. Had I received, Resilience, I don’t think I would have appeared particularly resilient after opening its package. Nor would I have minded that one iota.
Eduardo, It’s funny that you should mention Hannah Hinchman, since I just exchanged messages with her last night. She’s very much with us, and working on a new book I think. On Resilience, I think you would have been just as stunned and delighted as I was on carefully opening the hand-made paper package!
Wow! What an amazing gift and lovely surprise!
Denise, It absolutely was the best of surprises and an inspiring gift. Many gifts–both real and virtual–have come my way over the course of the strange and beautiful journey with Richard’s brain cancer and my new path as Woman Alone. I am very, very blessed!