Spokes.

Bike Wheel in Cemetery, originally uploaded by smwarnke4.

I've been working pretty steady in the art studio the last few weeks. Not exactly marathon sessions, but at least a couple of hours each day, and I'm making art, more than craft.

I've been working on two handmade books this week. I find that I am obsessed with bicycle and ferris wheels - a thread picked up from some work I did a few years ago but hadn't looked at until more recently.

Some of the structures were inspired by work I saw in Esther K. Smith's book. She does beautiful work. It's hard to keep going when I compare my work to hers.

Sometimes I wish I had a printing press, but then again, you can do many things with a piece of office paper and a color photocopier. I went to a workshop back in 2000 that was entirely about how to use the photocopier in the construction of artist books.  The two day class was taught by British artist Sue Doggett at the Minnesota Center for Book Arts.

Many of the photocopy techniques are published in Doggett's book, along with other ideas for making artist books. (Did you know you can preview entire chapters of books on Google?)