On January 1, 2010, I set out to write a poem a day and make a book a month. The daily poetry component petered out in mid-June, with continued fits and starts for the rest of the year, but the book-a-month project continued all year through…a whole year of handmade books – quite exciting!

January: a map-inspired book that I gave away before snapping pics…

February: a flower-inspired book that I also gifted pre-photos…

March: caught and gone: a conversation

April: bloom

May: forget-me-not

June: love.

July: A miracle somehow

August: mountain girl

September: I don’t have a pic of the September book, which is a shame, because she was a beaut and created with my favourite Nepalese paper.

October: letting sunday in

November: fall joy

December: …you’d be home by now

It was so exciting…and somehow so manageable to create at least one book a month. I found myself really looking forward to the whole process – compiling the writing, sketching out the cover ideas and layout ideas and most excitingly, playing around with ideas I’ve always been meaning to try – paper cut covers (in March and November), letterpressing (in June and July), collage (in December), accordian books (in October and April), incorporating pressed flowers (in May), and even a softcover (in August) which was only because I ran out of coverboard, but something I’ve been meaning to play around with for awhile.

All in all, a pretty fabulous 2010. So exciting, in fact, I’m going to continue the book-a-month project for 2011.

I’m thinking some collaborations might be in the works…

(ps: some more book-a-month musings on The Paper Place’s blog…)

This fall was a doozy. A blind-siding, topsy turvy season. But on November 1st, a dear friend on the west coast sent me a note, suggesting we send each other a ‘hurrah, it’s fall’ daily moment.

And so, the daily joy project was born. I will admit, I was not on board at first. All I saw were grey skies and rain puddles. At first, I was humouring her…but then, as it always does, the joy crept in…

…the first snowfall (Nov. 20^th in Comox!), putting up my Christmas tree (it’s in all caps on Nov. 23^rd), bike rides and brunch and white squirrel spottings and chai lattes and surprising moments of sunshine and gingerbread cakes eaten over heel-turning knitting parties (complete with balloons).

In reading through this compiled joy, it seems there was a lot of gingerbread involved…

I turned this month of joy into a book, complete with a paper-cut cover. Alongside the quilt I made for my favourite newborn, I think this is the most exciting piece I created in 2010.

It is so full of goodness and joy, it makes my heart nearly burst.

letting sunday in

found paper, metallic thread, Nepalese paper cover

a falling sky collects on
the edge of the
sidewalk grey.

In my make-a-book-a-month-for-2010 goal, I realized in the last few days of August that I didn’t have any cover board. So, I decided to go with a soft cover creation, inspired by Susan Kendal’s newest choreography, Mountain Girl (co-choreographed and performed by Brittany Duggan).

With a glacier deep skirt burying her thighs,

and topographical maps printed

on the insides of her wrists,

her elbows, the hollow of her throat,

(north, north, northwest, north),

she carries with her

skies that are wider than

the reach of her arms.

~ Lindsay Zier-Vogel