Wendy Yang

My final book would be a series of books under the name “Europe” and may contain about 3 books or more.  The first three books would be called “When in London…”, “When in Paris…” and “When in Rome…”. I want to make these books for myself and others because I have always wanted to go to Europe and visit the beautiful cities. I am planning to go to Europe after I graduate next year and not planning to go on a tour. Therefore if I can make books about the places I want to see and visit in my final book project, in a way I can use these books on my trip so I know what to visit without getting lost. My books would contain pictures, direction, location and information on places to visit and see in Europe.

At the moment I don’t have any pictures of what will be on my series of books.

For my stab sewn binding related theme book I decided to use scanned pictures of graffiti that I have drawn for the people I love, my friends and myself. I am not great at graffiti yet but whenever I have time I practice. And so my book contains some of the graffiti that I have done.

book cover

graffiti of my name

So I was on the subway going home and thinking about how I am going to make my stab sewing binding book. I thought about how the stab sewn technique seems very solid and thick. I wanted to work with things that you normally don’t see in a book so I thought about magnets. From there I thought about magnets on a fridge and decided I wanted to make a fridge looking book with magnets on the cover. And in the book would be pictures of food so it really looks like a fridge. =)

I walked around the hardware store to find things that I can add on my book. I found  metal plates with holes and decided that it would be nice to put it on the side near the spine, since when you put holes in the book the holes look very rough, and this metal would cover it up. Then I found a large version of the metal plates that would be good for the inside of my cover which can attract metal. It was heavy but thin enough for a book.

For the front cover I used a thick gift box that already had folds, then I taped the large metal plates on to the cover and then wrapped the whole thing with aluminum foil. I then took the smaller metal plates and used double sided tape to make it stay on the book. For the back cover it was the same process but just without the large metal plates. The pages within the book were just blank pages and I glued pictures of food onto each page.

Now the book is done and it makes me hungry.

book cover

fruit page

sushi page

work was in progress

My trip to the NY Art Book Fair was very interesting. I got to enjoy a lot of artworks, paintings, books and etc. It was more of an exhibit than a book fair since many of the publications where for eyes only or behind a glass case. However, the whole experience was very nice even though I only got to go to two floors. While I was there I picked out six books that interested me the most.

The first interesting book is called “Inside World” by Richard Prince. The price was not listed and the binding style was perfect binding. This book comes in edition size of 250. I wasn’t able to flip through the book since it was locked up behind a case but the cover did catch my eyes. It’s a red hard cover book with large gold letters saying “INSIDE WORLD”. On the side of the book there were three more red books with a white paper on top of each that is signed and with its own original handwritten joke. The first joke was: ”If I refuse to go to bed with you,” she whispered, “will you really commit suicide?” That’s been my usual procedure. Second: With all I’ve heard about A-bombs that’ll destroy a city and H-bombs that’ll destroy a state and chain reactions that’ll destroy the world – you know I just don’t have the incentive to buy a two pants suit. Lastly the third joke: I remember practicing the violin in front of a roaring fire. My old man walked in. He was furious. We didn’t have a fireplace.

“Like Ghosts” by Adam Shecher is a colorful cartoon picture book that seems to be a story of a wolf. The price and edition size where not listed. It was printed on glossy paper and was stab sewn binding. This book caught my eyes because it had a cartoon drawing of a wolf in an outfit. Throughout the book you just see cartoon pictures of the same wolf in different scenarios. The book was very simple and fun to flip through.

Third, is a book called “One Million Years” by On Kawara. The book was opened on the display table and weren’t allowed to be touched. The binding style seemed to be perfect binding and edition size of 500. Even though we weren’t allow to touch it but the book caught my eyes with it only filled with numbers of years in BC and AD. A little paper on the side said: Past “For all those who have lived and died” – Future “For the last one”.

“Drawings” by Julie Nord was one of my favorites. It cost $40, perfect binding and came in edition size of 1,000. Originally the book was in Danish and was then translated into English. This book was very unique. It was full of pictures that were both cute and evil, good and bad, very unique drawings.  Here is a picture of the cover of the book. As you can see on the left side you see an adorable girl with butterflies surrounding her and flowers in her hand, but if you look very closely notice that the flowers have skulls in it. The drawings show good and evil.

“My Shit is Gold” [Volume I] by Paul Herbst is a stapled bounded book that has a brown slip cover with gold letters. It comes in edition size 250 and the price was not listed. The book contains glossy pictures in mostly black and white, very little colors. I just like the book because of the book’s title.

Lastly, the sixth book is called “Reading Your Face” by Franticham.  It is a large book that has cardboard reused boxes as its cover and toilet brown paper as pages. On each page is a picture of a human face that was drawn with different colorful chalk. This book was $130, saddle stitched with 3 holes and came in the edition size of 23.