Next week, on Monday night, I will be presenting at the MCBA
Visual Journal Collective from 7-9 pm. My presentation will be about my experience as a part of the moly-X sketchbook exchange project, my frustrations working with the Moleskine books and the paper that is in them, (which pushed me to create my own accordion "molys"), my experience with taking the exchange into my classroom in a high school, and some of my discoveries about journaling on a topic in my own accordion style books.
You can explore the
moly-x project sketchbook exchange, started by Marty Harris, on the project's Flickr site. There are links to all the different project blogs and photos of work done as a part of the many exchanges past and present. The exchange that I am a part of is
Moly_X 81. I am one of four artists in the exchange and we are about to send our books around for the second time through the cycle.
As a part of my talk I will have many different books with me including my moly test book and in process moly_x books and images of books, along with finished exchange books and my own version of the Moleskine accordion book both empty and full.
I am also going to be teaching a class this spring at
MCBA that was created as a result of the sketchbook exchange project and all the fun I have been having with the idea of exchanging sketchbooks or collaboratively journaling on a topic. It is a combination of a book binding class, a journal/sketching technique class, and a collaborative project between the participants. The class is called "Hardcover Accordion Visual Journal: Collaborative Chain Journaling", you can register by following this
link to the MCBA course list for spring or by calling the Shop. It begins on Sunday, May 8 from 10-3 with a book binding day where we will make an accordion journal (see above photo) with a hardcover and high quality artist paper suitable for both wet and dry media, which will be followed with five follow-up meetings on Thursday evenings from 7-8:30 where there will be a brief demonstration on a journal technique or tips as well as time for participants to share and exchange their books for the following week. By the end of the class participants will learn how to bind an accordion style journal and they will have an accordion book filled with multiple entries created on a single topic or theme of their choosing.
It should be loads of fun!
