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Publication:Journal Santa Fe Section;
Date:Mar 23, 2006;
Section:Lifestyles;
Page Number:7
Draw the Connection Between Words,
Art in An 'Illuminated Journal'
JEFF GEISSLER/FOR THE JOURNAL Sherry Bishop sketches a plant branch in her journal during a words-and-art workshop at Hunt+Gather.
By Polly Summar
Journal Staff Writer
"I don't make books; I don't do marbling," said Victoria Mournean, as she looked around a table of women who know each other from Santa Fe's 200-strong Book Arts Group.
But Mournean says the idea of a workshop called "Creating an Illuminated Journal," by well-known book artist Andie Thrams, was too intriguing to pass up.
"Writing deep thoughts in a journal ain't me, though," says Mournean. "Mine is definitely going to be a lot of illustrations."
Part of a diverse lineup of workshops at the cozy Hunt+Gather bookstore, last week's class focused on the connection between letter forms and visual imagery.
Bookstore owner Suzanne Vilmain, herself a book artist, said she doesn't think it's so much the hands-on experience that draws people to her classes as the chance to be among like-minded souls.
"I think we've lost our tribal connections," said Vilmain, "and are desperately trying to get them back. And we make something special in the process."
Vilmain's part in building those connections was to start a kind of book center last November. "This is not just a store," she said, explaining that she wants the space to house a variety of activities related to making books.
"It's going to be a place where you can read a book, design a book, print a book and show a book," Vilmain said, adding that Hunt+Gather already exhibits books made by some 24 different artists.
The store, at 311 Aztec, also provides space for a graphic designer, Michelle Goodman, and will house a letterpress sometime this year. "We want to 'seed' the community's mind with what's possible in having your own press," Vilmain said.
And she wants to keep the options for the letterpress wide open: from printing manifestos or broadsides to chapbooks of poetry. "We're not just going 'retro' with the letterpress," Vilmain said. "Now you can get plates made from your computer so you don't have to set type— although you can set type if you want to."
Vilmain spent a year in Berkeley, Calif., recently, and was inspired by the area's Center for the Book, where she learned of book artist Thrams and invited her here to lead the workshop.
Thrams, who has a studio in the Sierra Nevada foothills of California, is known for the grids she creates in her books to hold her detailed botanical watercolors and journal writings. "It's a device for shortcutting the thought process," Thrams said of the rectangles she lightly draws on the page for placing the art and words. "It provides a structure for placing the elements.
Workshop instructor Andie Thrams, right,
talks with Kim Martin about painting the colors of a plant.
"I like doing this now," Thrams said, referring to the grids, "and being in another part of my brain to do the creative work."
Once the creative part begins, Thrams said, "You can ignore the grid, if you want. It's the interplay of the plan and the spontaneous you're looking for."
Also attending the workshop was Freya Diamond, who shows and sells her handmade books at Hunt+Gather. "I love Suzanne's space— it's more like being invited into a home. It's everything a bookstore/meeting space should be," Diamond said, explaining that the store is like a neighborhood bar for book lovers. "I think everyone likes to have a place they feel is 'their' place."
Like many book artists, Diamond said the medium combines all her interests. She has lived in Los Angeles, where she painted and worked in design before moving here 13 years ago. A friend invited her to a meeting of the Santa Fe Book Arts Group, and Diamond said, "It just turned into a perfect marriage of everything I had done before in terms of design and my other artwork."
JEFF GEISSLER/FOR THE JOURNAL Victoria Mournean, foreground, and Ann Hawkins enjoy a dinner break during a journal workshop at Hunt+Gather.
In the meantime, Vilmain's collection of used books— an eclectic gathering of classic, fiction, travel, poetry and more— is very much in the foreground. There are chairs throughout the store for lounging and reading, and she keeps a box of free books on the porch.
"That's a tradition at a lot of used bookstores," said Vilmain, who has worked at library bookstores in Los Alamos, Española, Santa Fe and Berkeley. She learned typesetting in the '80s at Moontree Press in Albuquerque and graphic design at Copygraphics on nearby Read Street here.
During her year in Berkeley, at a meeting at the Center for the Book, "They asked me to show my books and I realized I had trunks of them," Vilmain said.
But another part of her impetus for opening the store came from the last years she spent with her father, who moved to Santa Fe later in his life with his wife and died a year ago.
"We loved to go to bookstores," said Vilmain, the oldest of eight children who grew up in Cedar Falls, Iowa. "He'd sit down and read, and I'd pick up a few books at a time over the past five years."
The bulk of her collection now for sale is from the years she spent visiting bookstores with him.
"I want to have this store for the rest of my life," said Vilmain, who continues to make books a family affair, with her mother sometimes minding the store. Vilmain and her husband, Steve Smith, who works at Los Alamos National Laboratory, found and built bookshelves for the store and even teach some workshops together, including one on map making, which she describes as "metaphoric cartography folding a life into a pop-up book."