i like rainy days, and after yesterday's snow, then wild cloudy sky with sunshine all day, this rainy gray is peaceful. there is an edge of cool, but it's not cold. most of the trees are bare now, but still lots of floliage in the underbrush.

and gunshots. they're hunting geese someplace nearby, it sounds like thunder. and the one or two or three shot volleys are the guys with their deer rifles, missing mostly, by the sound of it. of course i have to deal with poachers on my land, trespassers, because i like the idea of going out on my land, though i seldom do in hunting season.

i spent a while looking at some letterpress printers online, and decided i just plain love the look of big type and layered colors on posters, especially the stuff i see from amos paul kennedy, and hatch show print. i like those BIG words.

i've always looked at the doings at the university of iowa, and their new website has a great video about the book arts program. i have iowa flax paper in my flat file that i use for book covers, i have purchased their books kits which are now produced and sold by gary frost and joyce miller at iowa book works. one of those kits taught me how board books work.

map board book

but this is one of those mornings when my thoughts meander and i think what it is about books. and i realize that for me a book is art and ideas all packaged in a format that i can carry around with me, to read, to share, to relive at will. i will be out soon in the mill making more rock book pages with dogbane and abaca, and cutting the last deckle for the biggest pages of all. all these pebbles will be roiling about in my head as i prepare for the show. the frames came, and they are wrong, so i have to deal with that later, get ready to reorder tomorrow and return these lovely but unusable ones. sigh.