Go to Guide: Artist Books

Have you ever stared at your jewelry box for a long time, and wondered what a cool story it might have to share with the world. Imagine how many jewels are kept inside or stones that are waiting to break out and share what it feels like to be trapped inside of a box! Well, creating artists books taught me how to lift open the lid of jewelry boxes and fabricate stories to tell. I first heard about artist books while listening to a lecture my professor was giving regarding creative artist projects. The class focused on handmade works that local Miami authors were creating during Art Basel 2013. This caught my attention because I love anything regarding creative aspects and authorship. Since then, I have been creating artist books for certain events and have had success in showcasing them. The following steps provide you a fast and easy guide to creating your personal artist book to share with friends, family, or even local art or book scouts.

Step One

What is your story behind this artist book? What are you trying to convey when you make it or what message is it going to tell the reader? I recommend that you select a short story to work with so that you fill the rest of the space with creative objects you find at craft stores. Artist books are not necessarily long in nature, since they tend to deal more with visual components. Although you can generate a long story to tell inside your artist book, just keep in mind that it will be hard to paste it inside the mass array of crafty items.

Step Two

Find a craft store or any online shop that carries craft supplies. You should keep in mind that you are purchasing gluing tools, stickers, markers, sheets of paper etc. The bill can become really steep if you do not keep if you do not keep tabs of what you’re purchasing. I usually go run up a $50 to $70 dollar total, but if I were to think frugally, I could pull off $25 to $30 on an online craft shop.

Step Three

What makes the artist book memorable is the type of box you use. The wooden/paper box could resemble a jewelry box or a book. I have used both options and believe both work well. I typically choose dimensions that are 12 inches long by 7 ½ wide by 4 ½ inches high. This becomes the ideal size for most artist books, but some might want to go smaller or even, bigger. It depends on your story and the message you want to promote.

Step Four

After choosing your box, make sure to select craft items that can transition to your story. For instance, in my artist book, “Forgotten Essays,” I printed a bunch of old college essays and attached them with thumbtacks to the inside of the artist book. This is one example, but there are many other forms of expression as well. Let’s suppose you are doing an artist book for Halloween, and you want to tell the story of a scary pumpkin– you purchase colored paper, cut it in the size of a pumpkin that fits well within the dimensions, and insert your story on the pages inside of the artist book. In essence, you should look to purchase the most you can while trying to look out for costs. Some go to items include: gorilla glue, fancy papered sheets, colored markers, and pop out stickers.

Step Five

This becomes the creation phase! Start your artist book in the manner that you feel most comfortable. Remember it is in a manner that you wish to tell your story. Whether you want to wrap up your book first or last, it is up to you. Some people start brainstorming what they want to write, and others just jump into gluing and pasting things into the book. You can write the story on pieces of paper or not write the story at all, and have the visual content speak for itself. To best understand how you want the finished product all becomes a result of your thinking: big or small/ too much or too little. Take a look at the following examples of finished creations to understand the direction to take.