Resin paper book

My "big" class at Art and Soul was a day+ with Susan Lenart Kazner. We spent the evening making resin papers, and then the next day binding them into a book.

Making resin papers was awesome. Depending on the paper used, you get varying levels of transparency. I used a bunch of tissue paper that I collected, as well as a vintage book pages and some other scraps. I also tried using some paper cutouts I had done. I was having a great time. I just want to make pages and pages of these to hang as is! I also tried a couple of other resin bezels, which I haven't photographed yet.

We let everything dry overnight, and the next day worked on the book. We made the spine using rebar and wire wrapping to hold the "vertabrae" in place. Then made the frames with the same materials. My discovery is that I am terrible at wire wrapping. Don't look too close. Once the frame was done we attached the covers. This involved putting eyelets in the pages (yes, I did too many) and then stitching it to the frame with linen. This part I could do!

Putting the pages into the book involved inserting a longer piece of metal tubing, binding the pages together, and then inserting a length of rebar into the stitches and attaching it to the spine. This part I don't feel worked as well. Susan's skills are definitely as a jeweler, and this felt like an awkward binding technique. It also meant the pages didn't move freely, which is too bad given how cool they are.

Regardless of that, I did finish it, and it is now on display in our house.

Lessons learned:
1. Resins are cool. I will definitely be ordering some soon to play with.
2. I am not a jeweler. Metal working is not my strong point!
3. Susan Lenart Kazner is very fun to work with, and she makes some amazing things. If you are a jeweler of any sort, you should take a class with her if possible. In fact, I'd probably take a class with her again, despite lesson #2 above.