Giving Voice grinding to reveal the mokume on the metal cover
Giving Voice metal cover in profile during photo shoot. Eastern repousse patterned mokume gane – copper, shubuichi, and sterling.
The ‘calligraphy brush’ Brody Neuenschwander made and gave to each student at the 2013 International Calligraphy Conference. It’s made of foam core, a piece of dish rag, and duct tape. I devised a way to use it with Japanese sumi ink to create Giving Voice’s mountain-like brushstrokes that thread their way throughout the book.
I thought you might be interested in a touch of behind-the-scenes for Giving Voice. It has been such a marriage of ancient and digital processes! If, when I began the illuminated manuscript in 2013, I’d had any idea how much time I’d spend grinding mokume gane, how much software I’d have to learn, or how many sleepless nights I’d spend worrying that Apple Books wouldn’t work with the animations, or that my indie publishing company would try 4, (yes 4!) different book printers before one got it right (I love you BookMobile!), I’m not sure I would have had the tenacity to see this baby through its elephantine gestation.
But I did. One could say, when it comes to mammoth projects, I tend to persist. I’m a” hell or high water” kind of person. My husband frequently reminds me that, together, we’ve never failed. True. Humbling, daunting. But true.
Post it note for the ‘how it works’ page in the Apple Book edition
My gaken dish for indigo colored Japanese stick ink. This dish lived next to my iMac for 2 years so my assistant Uduak could match the book’s blue inks in the digital images.
Recording day with composer and pianist, Roddy Noll, for the Apple Book edition. Roddy created the soundtrack for all the animations and part of the voice overs, which is more than fitting, since he figures prominently in the book’s story.
Late night working on the ‘Papyrus Calligram’ page spread in my dorm kitchen, hanging with my roomies at the 2013 International Calligraphy Conference
For Mothers Day today, my son gave me a gift certificate from my favorite garden store, my husband gave me AirPods, and a hacker group in Turkey hijacked my brand new website. (Rest assured! No evidence of hacking anyone’s data on the site but mine.) Instead of enjoying my garden with my AirPods in my…
Smell is the sense most strongly linked to memory. While I’ve always had a wildly accurate long term memory (I can remember my first birthday and party) my sense of smell has long been diminished by allergies. Maybe it’s my giving up and giving in and stopping all the benadryl and steroid sprays, but for…
From stardust we are fired and scattered, aggregated and evolved, only to spend our limited existence seeking to aggregate, create, and evolve quickly before the light burns away back into stardust. I wrote that one day at my local coffee shop in the middle of writing something else entirely. Apparently, while one part of my…
Architectural metalwork by Victoria Lansford incorporates ancient techniques utilized on large scale projects for contemporary spaces 1 of 2 projects for a 69 meter, custom built superyacht – stay tuned for more progress photos