While I was a volunteer at the Open Door Art Studio, I exhibited in at least two Book Arts shows. One was at Taproots School of the Arts and one was at Washington University. For at least one of these shows part of my display was what I called "Gallery in a Box".
When I was working on my undergraduate degree, I was involved in the 'zine and mail art scenes along with several friends outside of my class work. Through those activities I was exposed to different ways of thinking about books and publictions. Several people in the Open Door Art Studio were also very interested in Book Arts so that encouraged me to learn and in turn teach some basic book arts workshops at the Open Door Art Studio. I remember at one of these shows I traded one of my pieces for an accordion book lesson which I later turned into a class project for the Open Door Art Studio. I also learned the rudiments of paste paper from the internet and taught that as a workshop. Another Book Arts class I taught for ODAS was a ransom note poetry book.
The origin of the "Gallery in a Box" was early in my 'zine years when my Dad gave me an old briefcase of his to use for my 'zine papers. It's customary in the Mail Art and 'Zine worlds to trade stickers, so I started putting some of the stickers I was given on this briefcase. For at least one of the Book Arts shows, I decided to display some of the "book" related items I had recieved in the trading network in the briefcase. I made for the occasion a "scrapbook" of sorts to display some samples and photos of the more "conceptual" works I had been doing. Ever since this show I've kept this book and some of my collection in this briefcase. I have gotten it out on a couple of occasions during personal meetings with other mail artists. Last summer while getting my late friend Mark's art out of storage, since he partipated in these "scenes" with me on occasion, I got this briefcase out again and put it next to my desk for inspiration and reference. I've also started adding to the "book" again since it was meant to be added onto continuously. The leftmost of the two art journal pages above is a scan of the inside cover of this book, which I reduced in size and added to my art journal. I then added some more random additions to it in the spirit of the original
Things to be grateful for: