/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22953794/IMG_0048_2.jpg "Here are the best AirPods deals you can get right now")
In the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, widespread lockdowns led many to explore ways to keep themselves busy; largely, this meant finding – or rediscovering – ways of keeping our hands busy. There was the sourdough spike, sure, but people around the world picked up paintbrushes, colouring books, knitting needles and crafting supplies.
There is some irony, then, to the fact that A Handmade Assembly, an annual celebration of the intersection of fine art, community and the handmade that had taken place in Sackville, N.B., since 2011, was unable to continue during the pandemic. Instead, to commemorate the event’s 10th anniversary and to stand in lieu of it, the event’s organizers – the Owens Art Gallery and Struts Gallery & Faucet Media Arts Centre, with the support of the Fine Arts Department at Mount Allison University – commissioned a book of the same name from award-winning designer Lauren Wickware.
Published in 2023, A Handmade Assembly is, Wickware says, not just a record of the exhibition, but also an extension of it. “Even if you never attended the event, you could have a similar experience” by flipping through the book.
This is largely because it’s no ordinary coffee-table tome: A Handmade Assembly is a hardcover chronicle that features images of past exhibitions, collages, knitting patterns and even an image of a hammer, marked up paper doll-style, that encourages readers to rip the page out and fold the hammer into a 3-D paper tool.
The challenge, for Wickware, was to include these disparate elements in a book without it seeming like “a dog’s breakfast” visually. To accomplish this, she borrowed the cut-and-paste look of zines, whose aesthetic naturally lent itself to the variety of works on display within its pages. The Globe and Mail went behind the scenes with Wickware last summer as she put the finishing touches on the book.
‘);
var parentEl = document.getElementById(“giScriptEl”).parentNode;
parentEl.removeChild(document.querySelector(‘#giScriptEl’));
// *** start add your photos and text ***
var mediaCardObj = {
“element”: parentEl,
“media”: [
{
“video_url”: “”,
“photo_url”: “https://www..com/files/editorial/Arts/rv-makingabook/artbook-1”,
“landscape_contain”: “true”,
“portrait_contain”: “true”,
“credit”: “”,
“textbox”: [
{
“title”: “Paper sample selection”,
“position”: “centre”,
“text”: [
[“Lauren Wickware considers paper samples for A Handmade Assembly’s cover. The cover of the book is debossed, giving it an eighties wallpaper look.”]
]
}
]
},
{
“video_url”: “”,
“photo_url”: “https://www..com/files/editorial/Arts/rv-makingabook/artbook-2”,
“landscape_contain”: “true”,
“portrait_contain”: “true”,
“credit”: “”,
“textbox”: [
{
“title”: “”,
“position”: “centre”,
“text”: [
[““I wanted it to feel like it was covered in a fabric or material that you’d have left over from something else,” Wickware says, echoing the book’s zine inspiration.”]
]
}
]
},
{
“video_url”: “”,
“photo_url”: “https://www..com/files/editorial/Arts/rv-makingabook/artbook-3”,
“landscape_contain”: “true”,
“portrait_contain”: “true”,
“credit”: “”,
“textbox”: [
{
“title”: “Cover templating”,
“position”: “centre”,
“text”: [
[“The book’s final cover has three foil-stamped pieces of paper, each with one word of the book’s title, that are glued to the book’s cover.”],
[“Each of these three foil-stamped pieces of paper is glued on by hand.”]
]
}
]
},
{
“photo_url”: “https://www..com/files/editorial/Arts/rv-makingabook/artbook-5”,
“video_url”: “”,
“landscape_contain”: “true”,
“portrait_contain”: “true”,
“credit”: “y”,
“textbox”: [
{
“title”: “Proofs”,
“position”: “centre”,
“text”: [
[“Wickware checks proofs of A Handmade Assembly against an ink density sheet. Ink density measures the amount of ink that is printed on a sheet of paper, and therefore determines colour saturation.”]
]
},
{
“title”: “”,
“position”: “centre”,
“text”: [
[“For the book, Wickware worked more closely with the curators at the Owens Art Gallery than she did the artists themselves to, as she puts it, “logistically translate something that was on a wall or was designed as a poster or something else to work within the confines of, you know, pages.””]
]
}
]
},
{
“photo_url”: “https://www..com/files/editorial/Arts/rv-makingabook/artbook-6”,
“video_url”: “”,
“landscape_contain”: “true”,
“portrait_contain”: “true”,
“credit”: “”,
“textbox”: [
{
“title”: “”,
“position”: “centre”,
“text”: [
[“Pages were pulled from the printer at intervals to compare and contrast, and to ensure quality control throughout printing. “]
]
}
]
},
{
“photo_url”: “https://www..com/files/editorial/Arts/rv-makingabook/artbook-7”,
“video_url”: “”,
“landscape_contain”: “true”,
“portrait_contain”: “true”,
“credit”: “”,
“textbox”: [
{
“title”: “”,
“position”: “centre”,
“text”: [
[“The process of physically printing a book, Wickware says, can usually take about three to six months, from layouts to the actual printing press; A Handmade Assembly took somewhat longer owing to some of the “printing tricks” involved, such as embossing, debossing and die-cutting.”]
]
}
]
},
{
“photo_url”: “https://www..com/files/editorial/Arts/rv-makingabook/artbook-8”,
“video_url”: “”,
“landscape_contain”: “true”,
“portrait_contain”: “true”,
“credit”: “”,
“textbox”: [
{
“title”: “Embossing”,
“position”: “centre”,
“text”: [
[“There are more than 25 different typefaces in the book, including Braille.”]
]
}
]
},
{
“photo_url”: “https://www..com/files/editorial/Arts/rv-makingabook/artbook-9”,
“video_url”: “”,
“landscape_contain”: “true”,
“portrait_contain”: “true”,
“credit”: “”,
“textbox”: [
{
“title”: “”,
“position”: “centre”,
“text”: [
[“While most of the book’s pages were printed using a traditional printing press, the Braille required the use of a magnesium die, which was used to emboss the pages after they were printed on a specialized Heidelberg press.”]
]
}
]
},
{
“photo_url”: “https://www..com/files/editorial/Arts/rv-makingabook/artbook-10”,
“video_url”: “”,
“landscape_contain”: “true”,
“portrait_contain”: “true”,
“credit”: “”,
“textbox”: [
{
“title”: “”,
“position”: “centre”,
“text”: [
[“The pages will then hand-affixed to the book’s cover.”]
]
}
]
},
{
“photo_url”: “https://www..com/files/editorial/Arts/rv-makingabook/artbook-11”,
“video_url”: “”,
“landscape_contain”: “true”,
“portrait_contain”: “true”,
“credit”: “”,
“textbox”: [
{
“title”: “Bindery”,
“position”: “centre”,
“text”: [
[“Once the final pages of the book are printed, they are collaged into 16-page segments known as “signatures.” These signatures are sewn together with a binding thread to form the main pages of the book, also known as a book block.”]
]
}
]
},
{
“photo_url”: “https://www..com/files/editorial/Arts/rv-makingabook/artbook-12”,
“video_url”: “”,
“landscape_contain”: “true”,
“portrait_contain”: “true”,
“credit”: “”,
“textbox”: [
{
“title”: “”,
“position”: “centre”,
“text”: [
[“While most books are sewn with white thread, Wickware chose to match the thread for the book’s binding to its cover, “to add more materiality” to the finished project.”]
]
}
]
},
{
“photo_url”: “https://www..com/files/editorial/Arts/rv-makingabook/artbook-13”,
“video_url”: “”,
“landscape_contain”: “true”,
“portrait_contain”: “true”,
“credit”: “”,
“textbox”: [
{
“title”: “”,
“position”: “centre”,
“text”: [
[“Book blocks are then affixed to endpapers, which are attached to the book’s cover.”]
]
}
]
},
{
“photo_url”: “https://www..com/files/editorial/Arts/rv-makingabook/artbook-14”,
“video_url”: “”,
“landscape_contain”: “true”,
“portrait_contain”: “true”,
“credit”: “”,
“textbox”: [
{
“title”: “The finished book”,
“position”: “centre”,
“text”: [
[“Each of the artworks featured in the book is preceded by an essay by the artist, and each of these essays appears in a different typeface.”]
]
}
]
},
{
“photo_url”: “https://www..com/files/editorial/Arts/rv-makingabook/artbook-15”,
“video_url”: “”,
“landscape_contain”: “true”,
“portrait_contain”: “true”,
“credit”: “”,
“textbox”: [
{
“title”: “”,
“position”: “centre”,
“text”: [
[“Wickware poses with a final version of the book. “It feels like A Handmade Assembly, the event, lives on through the book,” Wickware says. “It’s celebratory.””]
]
}
]
}
],
“credit”: “”,
}
// *** end add your photos and text ***
if (typeof giapp == ‘undefined’) {
giapp = {};
}
giapp.mediacards = giapp.mediacards || {};
if (!giapp.mediacards.galleries) {
giapp.mediacards.galleries = [];
}
giapp.mediacards.galleries.push(mediaCardObj);
})();
