25-Year Handmade Book Series
The 25-year Handmade Book series started in 2009.
For the past three decades I had worked on public murals, portraiture and fine art. For my wedding at age fifty-four I made a book. Then another huge event happened; the demise of Kodachrome and Ektachrome. Documenting one’s art had to be reinvented. In an effort to go beyond digital I came up with this extensive project. I will be close to eighty when all twenty-five volumes are completed.
The series is available by subscription or solo editions.
- Emily Eve Weinstein, Artist and Author
Only fifty of each annual Volume is made. They span the year in both words and images; the book structure is reinterpeted by the artist and bound meticulously. The 25-Year Handmade Book Series can be purchased by contacting Emily directly.
Volume I
Volume I is a reconfigured photo-book with a painted cover, housed in a cloth bag with a bottle cap button closure. With the wedding over I gathered the pieces of my brain into a 6" x 6" structure, the very first of the 25-Year Handmade Book Series. The unique painting on each cover is of the vine balls strung across our backyard. The pocket in the back of the book, houses a booklet that tells the entire beginning. "The Wedding Invitation" along with all the paintings created at this time, are reproduced in this book.
Volume II
Volume II was printed in my studio office. It is a perfect-bound book with each cover individually painted in mineral coating, an ancient form of pigment used in frescoes. This second book of the series is all about painting a mural A to Z. Students and faculty of Durham Technical Community College's faculty and staff were the models for the mural and many also volunteered to paint. The subject matter was a group effort. I spent six months cloistered away in a warehouse-like space working on this mural commission.
Volume III
Volume III is a triptych. Three chapbooks are housed in a reconfigured cereal box painted like faux granite with three separate subjects: Travel, Flowers and Kali. All three of the booklets that make up Volume III come with a large, central pullout print that is signed and numbered. The book covers are adorned with a mini block print representing the subject matter within. Like Volume I and Volume II, Volume III came about very organically. Starting out each year I have no idea what the main subject will be, but then life is like that; full of surprises.
Volume IV
Volume IV is an accordion-style book with twelve individual pockets, packed with information about each month of the year and representing the four seasons - experienced through plein air painting. The cover is created from engraved Marmoleum (a type of linoleum). The spines are book-cloth that I made. The end pages are paper I marbleized in my friend Trudy Thompson's studio. This was a year of many events, from a fundraiser for a wildlife rehabilitation center to a high school reunion out on Fire Island.
Volume V
Volume V is a reconfigured box with a Mica window, framed with a beveled mat, reinforced with an aluminum, embossed spine, stitched with Baker's cord dipped in beeswax, encasing the memorial scroll of Bella Bellisimo. The boxes are lined with paste paper, contain five chapbooks, and have a vintage button closure. The storyline in this book captures a year of turning points and the art follows along. This edition has been described as "a real page turner."
Volume VI
Volume VI is comprised of fifty, 6"x 6" oil paintings on gallery-wrapped canvas. Nestled into the back of each of the fifty paintings is an aluminum cradle which holds a handmade 3"x3" book that is illustrated with images of all of the fifty paintings in this volume. Every painting comes with it's own one-of-a-kind handmade book. Volume VI includes two books and an oil painting.
Volume VII
Volume VII is a goodie box filled with unique art objects. Each box is individually painted, has a laser cut aluminum spine plate, and includes:
- a two-book set
- two original gelli prints
- a handmade quill soda pen
- samples of paper embellishment
- an instructional booklet
Volume VIII
Volume VIII is a figure-eight book, also known as a dosey-doe book. This edition has 120 pages, 90 illustrations, and is printed on repurposed paper. The book's cover is made with sponged, repurposed billboard tarp with gold gilt embossing and is bound with a long stitch technique. This is the first volume to be created with InDesign.