Life With the Pomegranate

This is a handmade book by my friend Evie Marenco, circa 2005. Evie has been an inspiration to me for years, and her book is a treasure. It's a collection of experiences with pomegranates, and how they connect her family through generations. Evie dyed the paper, printed and bound the book herself. It includes pomegranate-like beads on the stitching of the spine; and the book opens up to make a star. Between the french-fold pages are red sheets of paper so the book resembles a pomegranate itself, with the little disc's like the discovery of seeds held in the pith. Evie weaves imagery from playing cards throughout, which adds graphic impact as well as an extra layer of fun and personal meaning.

Fortune Teller

After the DaVinci notebooks were printed, I sent some copies to Red Horseshoe, since the project was sort of an homage to them, at least for me on a personal level. Robert Moore, one of the principles, sent me back a lovely note and this beautiful tin plate with their fortune teller artwork on it. It's an absolute treasure. I have been collecting their wares for years and years, even ordering direct before they had online outlets for resale. When my backpack was stolen years back, the most painful loss was my treasured Rodeo King Red Horseshoe notebook. I had been to a Patty Griffin concert the night before and my notebook had poems I wrote during the show. What a loss.

DaVinci Sketchbook

One of my favorite projects I've had the privilege to design was the pocket-sized DaVinci notebook. This was created for The University of Utah as a free hand-out to all visitors of Gunther VanHagen's Body Worlds 3, hosted at the Leonardo on Library Square in Salt Lake City. Demand was high, and we re-printed the book mid-way through the exhibit run. A quarter-million books in total. The design was influenced by Red Horseshoe (dimensions, rounded corners); the art was all royalty-free images from DaVinci's sketchbooks. The cover stock is Smart Paper's Carnival Cordwain, which has a leather-like embossed surface. The insides are Mohawk, a soft white printed with gold metallic ink. The gold isn't overpowering, since it's an uncoated sheet, but it gives it the shimmer that you might get from lead and makes the piece too special to throw away. My moment of delight: going to lunch with a friend I hadn't seen in a year and she told me how her daughter got this free sketchbook at the Body World's exhibit and filled it up with sketches, 'cause Jessica may want to become a forensic artist. She thought that was the neatest thing. It was neater for me to hear.