Why create books?

Most of us have read books the majority of our lives, but have you ever stopped to consider the uses for them? Daily we use a variety of books...... address books, calendar style books, storybooks read to our children or grandchildren, phone books to look up telephone numbers, books to be read for entertainment, research, how to's and tutorials, as well as learning. We probably even take them for granted somewhat. Books also come in a variety of sizes, styles, and even bindings and each provide a different purpose in our lives. Everything form a brouchure to a pamphlet to a magazine to a bound book is available on the market today.

Anyways, I chose to get into creating handmade books for a variety of reasons. One I desired to learn how to, and secondly, I loved the possiblities they opened up for me using my artwork within them.

Simple brouchures can demonstrate a project or a technique in high stlye. Pamphlets can be visual or textual and offer a variety of purposes. One purpose with the mixed media world of artists is to use them as Friendship books, Gluebooks, and/or a Deco. A deco is a small handmade book usually used in a collaboration with other artists, passed from one artist to another for artwork to be created in it and shared with the remaining participants before being returned to the original created. Normally a theme will be created by the originator for others to follow. Such collaborations are known as round robins in the mixed media and altered book arts world, and circle journals or journeys in the scrapbooking circle, however the result is the same. One difference between a collaboration of this sort and a swap of a certain created item is often in the fact that all the pages are not created identical to the first one, making each a treasure to behold. Artist note: I don't mean to state that all artist swaps are accomplished by creating identical items for each person.... some are and some aren't; it mainly depends upon what the people involved in the swap have decided upon and/or what a swap hostess may propose.

Anyways, getting back on the subject here, I am often asked, "why I create books?" and my answers always vary. I use them for a variety of things so I'll list here, it isnt' meant to be an all-inclusive list, just some food for further thought:

Dairies and personal journals
Visual Journals
Art Journals
Address Books
Artist Portfolios
Collections of written materials such as quotes, poems, and short stories

but the number one reason I create them is simply this: I love creating them, binding them, and decorating within them either before or after their creation!!!! See, that was easily explained. {*big smiles}