Book Bomber Michelle Wilson visits Lost Coast Culture Machine

Book Bombs first encountered Lost Coast Culture Machine when we participated in their exhibition, Paper! Book Bomber Michelle Wilson recently visited the space - check out her post about them here.

Every Day Work

Some shots of "Every Day Work," the exhibition of Impractical Laborers at St. Mary's College in Notre Dame, IN, featuring Book Bombs! Copies of "The Ethics of Wheatpaste" (downloadable here) and "Horizontalidad," are free for the taking. AS MANY HOURS AS IT TAKES

Horizontalidad! Book Bombs Issue 6

Horizontalidad: Book Bombs Issue 6 was released this past week in conjunction with Occupy Together and the Friends of Dard Hunter Regional Meetings (a gathering devoted to handmade paper).

This zine addresses the Occupy movement, the economic situation, and the term horizontalidad.

In Argentina, they call actions like the Occupation horizontalidad – “horizontalness” in English. A word that arose from autonomous movements, indicating a lack of hierarchy and a level playing field, Horizontalidad goes beyond revolution to the idea of ongoing evolution without entrenched ideology.

Covers are printed via letterpress on handmade paper incorporating scraps from other papermakers. The zines invite readers to add their own stories to the narrative of the zine, and to distribute the zines in public spaces (and to send us documentation!). Zines were distributed in Pittsfield and Dalton, Massachusetts, including gallery and hotel spaces. Look for coming news of wider distribution, including a pdf download, on the blog.

 Interiors were printed at the Crane Museum of Papermaking, thanks to Peter Hopkins, with binding help from Allison Roscoe.

Thanks to Melanie Mowinski, proprietor of Press: Letterpress as Public Art, for letterpress printing support!

 The covers, hot off the Universal.

Book Bombs Zine #3 Available for Download

The Ethics of Wheatpaste, #3 in the series of Book Bombs zines, is now available for download as a .pdf file at www.bookbombs.net. Print out the 8.5 x 11 single-sided sheet and follow the instructions in the corner of the page to fold your own book.

The Ethics of Wheatpaste was released as part of Amze Emmons's Refugee Reading Room at Space1026 in February 2011.

Book Bombs in Minneapolis!

Book Bombs is will be part of the upcoming exhibition, Readers' Art 11, Urban/Urbane, at Susan Hensel Gallery, in Minneapolis, MN. The exhibition runs from March 4-April 30, 2011, and features 29 artists exploring issues of urban living in artist book form.

Join us for the opening reception on First Friday, March 4, from 7-10 PM, where we will be distributing copies of Book Bombs #4. The weekend following will involve a public print bombing of Minneapolis, taking a quite a new form from some of our bombings past....

Book Bombs and the Friends of Dard Hunter

Book Bombs recently were presenters at the Friends of Dard Hunter Conference at the Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts in Gaitlinburg, TN. We discussed the projects we've completed over the past year, and released Book Bombs Issue #2 , We Walk Asking Questions. We met and made many new friends at the conference, and for those of you who are on Facebook, we invite you to become a fan of Book Bombs!

We Walk Asking Questions was printed in an edition of 200, and is wrapped in a half-cover made of paulownia and pampas grass, invasive plants from the two coasts on which Book Bombs resides. The binding was done during the conference, and help was received from Nicole Donnelly, Katharina Siedler, and (not pictured) Lindsay Beal. To Nicole, Katharina, and Lindsay - thanks! We couldn't have done it without you!


Of course, the conference had many other highlights. Below are just a few.


Catherine Nash demonstrates her techniques of combining encaustic with handmade paper.


Some of Randy Arnold's amazing handbuilt bookbinding tools.

Examples of arborglyphs by Earle Swope.


An amazing, ginormous handmade sheet of paper from China, presented by Sidney Korestsky. A video of making an even larger sheet is available from Carriage House Paper.

Above and below, images of pulp spraying and its results in a workshop with Betsy Dollar.

Princess Tree Bark Cooking

Last summer, Book Bombs had harvested both leaves and bark from Paulownia tomentosa, also known as the Princess Tree. The leaves were made into paper for our February Print Bombing. The bark (above) was dried and put aside for another project.

And now, for part of the upcoming Book Bombs Issue #2, this bark was pulled out of storage. For its preparation, the bark was soaked overnight. The resulting dark plant liquor (below) was then poured onto the garden as fertilizer.


The fiber was cooked in washing soda, and then rinsed and rinsed and rinsed and rinsed to remove traces of the washing soda and the black gunk from the fibers.



The resulting fibers were a rusty color, however here you can see them prior to rinsing the black gunk. Book Bombs discovered that if the fibers were again soaked overnight, most of the gunk fell off the fibers to the bottom of the bucket and the fibers then could be scooped off the top. However, we made the mistake of dumping the bucket entirely into the strainer and having to rinse it all by hand. Live and learn!

Still more to come on processing. Stay tuned...

Cooking Andean Pampas Grass

Andean pampas grass, (Cortaderia jubata), is a native of South America. In California, it was introduced and is still grown as an ornamental plant, however, it is highly invasive, especially on fragile coastal dunes.

Pampas grass was recently harvested to be made into a part of Book Bombs' upcoming zine (more information on that to come). The image above was a tussock that grew alongside railroad tracks in Richmond, California. It has razor sharp leaves, and we recommend gloves for any harvesting that our readers might attempt.

The light, fluffy blond seed-hair was collected and saved for future projects - see below:


The stalks and leaves were cut down and soaked overnight . . .


. . .and then cooked in washing soda prior to beating. Interestingly, pampas grass turns a rusty orange when cooked.



More to come on the processing this into paper. Stay tuned...

Reading in the Park

They're out.
The zine pictured here lives on a bench in Rittenhouse Square.



























We found one of the early March mugwort prints still hanging from a bench, after all the rain of the past several weekends.

Making a Deal with the Weather

Book Bombs Zine #1 is ready for distribution...but we're not so sure about the park benches! Just a heads up that you may not see zines first thing Wednesday am, because we want those benches to dry off a bit for the zines make their way to them. They're not quite as tenacious as the paulownia and mugwort papers! But start looking for them in their scheduled locations by tomorrow evening....

Zine Bindathon!

Following our evening of Print Bombing last First Friday (see post), Book Bombs has been copying, cutting, folding, and binding our first zine, Rooted Within, Book Bombs Issue #1. Zines will be bombed in various parks throughout Philadelphia, as well as distributed at our Zine Release Party at Nexus Foundation for Today's Art on March 26, from 6-9 PM. Join us for food, wine, and your own free copy of Rooted Within. The event is free and open to the public.

And thanks to Emily Currier of the Philadelphia City Paper, who joined us for both printing and bombing. Check our her coverage of our project here.


Nexus is located in the Crane Arts Building, located at 1400 North American Street in the Kensington neighborhood of Philadelphia - diagonally across from an empty lot that Book Bombs harvested some of the plants used in our paper!

March Print Bombing

This past First Friday, Book Bombs struck out on our third print bombing, striking in and around Rittenhouse Square, Louis Kahn Park, Christ Church Park, and various points in between. We were excited to see that despite time, over a foot of snowfall, and rain, that some of our February prints are still out there (see above). For larger images, click on the images.

And thanks to Emily Currier for the Philadelphia City Paper shout out - check it out here.


Finally, don't forget to march your calendars and join Book Bombs on March 26 from 6-9 at Nexus for our Zine Release Party!

Third Print Bombing and Upcoming Zine Release

In another visit to that undisclosed West Philly location, Book Bombs printed the third print in our series this past weekend. Watch for us this First Friday as we once again bomb the city. This time, we will target areas in and around Rittenhouse Square, Louis Kahn Park, and Christ Church Park.


A preview of the print, printed on paper made from mugwort (Artemisia vulgaris).

In addition, stay tuned for the Book Bombs culmination - the zine bombings towards the end of this month! And join us at Nexus Foundation for Today's Art, located in the Crane Arts building at 1400 North American Street, from 6-9 PM on March 26 for our zine release party! While there, you can also check out numerous other Philagrafika exhibitions and events.

Thanks to Rebecca Gilbert and Nexus for this opportunity for Book Bombs.

The Tract House Comes to Philly

Lisa Anne Auerbach's Tract House has come to Philly as part of the Out Of Print series for Philagrafika. Check it out at 231 North 3rd Street in Old City or visit it online here - and make sure to pick up a copy or download Book Bomber's Mary Tasillo's tract Slow Down.