After many discussions with curators, conservators, and the craftsmen I had decided that I really needed to leave multiple markers on these caskets to tell of their origin.  One of the ways to do that would be to use a custom edge design instead of something that replicated one of the designs on the original caskets.  That is somewhat sad as I had some that I really loved – but I can incorporate some of them in other places.

So I would have to design something….what to do? As I ruminated about it, I ended up having a discussion with Dick Oedel and Lamora Haidar (Access Commodities) about branding the course.  That was the answer – of course!  Brand the course and use that branding to leave a subtle signature everywhere.

I highly recommend that you view the pictures on this part of the P&S Engraving site.  It shows the process of making the tools.  Just fun to know the backdrop of what you get in a kit!

Tricia

So we got out a piece of the paper – note, hand made paper.  That is a WHOLE other story.  The first custom colored ream of it arrive today while I was writing my blogs.  BEAUTIFUL.

Richard ran over it and was less than happy.  He was used to the perfection expected on leather bindings.  I laughed and said it was TOO perfect already.  Then I got out the period examples and we had a good chuckle.  It didn’t need to be perfect.  There were double images, improperly embossed edges, and all kinds of mistakes all over the caskets.  These pieces were done speedily and without care.

We spent quite a bit of time discussing how wide the strips should be, what type of designs would work well, should we use a period design or do something new…

Then there were the technical details.  How to design a roller for the class – the hub that fits his handle and things like that.  A million details to keep straight.  We also talked about how many stamps/wheels I would need – more than one to cover the different types of surfaces.  So I have just started to have them made.  Plus the availability of foils – I wanted silver but real silver seems to be unobtainable.  I did try – made many international phone calls – but it looks like we may have to do with faux silver.  Grr.  No one wants it because it tarnishes.  Of course – that is exactly why I wanted it – because it tarnishes!  ha ha

So I was now off to plan out how much strip we would need for the class, get the paper made, and design a roller that would somehow work for both the thin and thick edges we needed to cover.  Oh and look period but yet also leave a clue that this was modern work!  Realize that this was early October and I just received my cut wheel here in May…there is much work by many people in these last seven months.  (Think about what must be underway now….there are many balls and surprises in the air.  I talked to no less than six manufacturers in the last 24 hours on things I have going that I haven’t talked about yet!)

I had thought that the edging was embossed in situ after the papering of the casket.  Turns out I was right, from looking at the clues, and so how to do that for your caskets???  We all agreed that the labor to do the paper install and then emboss was just out of the question – students would need to do the paper install themselves.  So could we make strips of embossed paper for them to put on the casket?

We tossed around all kinds of ideas.  I brought Richard a sample of paper we were considering to see how well it could be embossed and gilded.  This is usually done on leather which is thicker and thus gives more to the tool.

Our experiments in the next blog…

Here you can see some period tools as well as some of the modern equipment that can be used to speed production.  We are going to go a bit more traditional than this!  At this fair, I met a gem of a individual from Harcourt Bindery.  Marie introduced me – hoping that we could find someone who would be able to do the stamping for our course and casket.  Sam Ellenport of Harcourt Bindery was a wealth of knowledge on traditional bookbinding and he thought he had the perfect individual for this project – his stepson whom he had trained in the arts.

As a side note, Sam was recently interviewed for an oral history project – his thoughts on books are recorded on You Tube over three videos.  Video 1, Video 2, Video 3.  I think it would be fun for you to hear someone who has gotten involved in the project to see the philosophy that guides them.  They are all fantastic and special people.

I mentioned the wheel that finally arrived yesterday for our edges on the caskets.  Well, let’s hit the rewind button and talk about how I got to that place!

So I recognized a very long time ago that bookbinding stamps were used on the edges of the drawers and other exposed edges.  They were embossed on paper that covers the wood.  So far, they have all been embossed in silver. I started to collect pictures of the stamps – in the hopes that somehow that might link up to makers or merchants.  Not sure yet, but who knows someday!

So if you don’t know what I am talking about – here are a few pictures from the first two caskets we have looked at in class in detail.

BTW – the UPS guy has gotten a few smiles from me this week – there were a few other great packages to be had, those stories soon!!

The information is all here on the EGA site.

Here you can see the drafting of a mirror frame in process.  I made an original – yet historic variation for a frame which is being made right now for the class participants to purchase if they want.

Tricia

Those in the course are getting a huge amount of info thrown at them about this (and will have a big chapter on it later this year).  But in a nutshell, the edges of the casket drawers and interior are all stamped in silver using bookbinding stamps.  I won’t get into all the evidence, etc. – that is for the class.  But we would need to replicate that.  I could have gone with existing patterns, but this is a great place to leave a marker – a trail for future historians, curators, conservators, and antique dealers.  Something that says – this is a modern piece and belongs to the grouping of this teacher.

So I spent a lot of time a few months ago trying to design a period looking logo and branding for the Cabinet of Curiosities.  Something that would carry through the packaging, instructions, and caskets themselves.  That way there would be enough clues left to help identify the worked caskets as modern.

I will discuss this in detail for the next few blogs – an important part of leaving a digital signature out there for the future – but first here is the wheel that will be used for everyone’s papers!

Tricia

D is for Dyslexia

 by D. Nguyen

Dyslexia is a disability and a gift, which turns out to being an advantage. This is because the disadvantages can be fixed, but the advantages can always be used. My mom says that the reason that dyslexics are disabled is because there are small bridges between different the parts of the brain and they have to get to other places for you to think. All the sounds and letters use the bridges. When some one is dyslexic the bridges have gaps and some letters and sounds fall through. My mom says that tutoring is the fixit company that puts in the extra parts of the bridge that prevent letters and sounds from falling through.

 Being dyslexic is like being a super hero, but you still get all the nasty kryptonite to sap your dream: reading, writing, and spelling. The dyslexic advantage is that our brain cells can send signals to farther parts of the brain; this allows us to see relationships between different things that others don’t see.  Being dyslexic leads to super powers like engineering, observation, hand eye coordination, story telling, design, art, and buisness making.

In first grade my parents could see two parts of my dyslexic advantage.  First I had made a small lego horse that was red. This horse was no ordinary creation. It could gallop like a real horse by the crank of a handle. When my mom saw this wonderful yet amature creation she started to tear up. This was when we both knew I had talent for engineering.  I have harnessed this talent by building with legos and doing complex building workshops. Second was when I was little I would walk behind random people and immitate what their walks were like from slouching to head held high. This is an example of how I can use my observation and story telling powers. Obviously, when my parents found this out they made me stop, because no one wants a little two year old trailing behind them immitating their walk. On another note my parents have also encouredged this immitating skill by signing me up for the middle school play. I use this power in plays and on television.  {ed. note. he has appeared in a PBS children’s program and will be filming again this year}

The troublesome time started in first grade. I sometimes couldn’t go a day without crying about my dyslexia. I cried about my difficulty with spelling and reading. Second grade was a time of troubles and worries. When we did writing assignments I sometimes couldn’t spell was. Isn’t that sad? My mom even had to go through therapy because of me. I was a real pain in the butt when it came to teaching me. First my mom tried flash cards and that helped a little, but it still didn’t do the job. Then she found the tutor that I have today. That was the one thing that worked. I was slouchy and miserable before my tutor took the job of fixing those bridges. I have gotten so much help from my tutor Mary. Because of her I now have the strength to tackle the hard and annoying writing assignments like this one pretty well. (No offence Mrs. Stiga.) Third and fourth grade was the time I was shining like a star, because that was when I had finally fixed the bridges. I was finally working well. My brain then had more time to think about the things I’m good at like engineering. My kryptonites are reading, spelling, and writing, which I can now shield with my kryptonian cape.

LIFE LESSON: No matter what you’re bad at, you’re always good at something.

Why so long to post the result?  I was emotionally exhausted and had to ignore it to get back to the business of getting the casket class up and running.  But I ran into friends at my son’s school this morning after an event and knew it was time to post.  They are also an over-achieving family full of creative dyslexics, and their son will be attending the famous Carroll School next year, leaving his friends behind.  So the two couples compared notes about having dyslexic children and why can’t schools get it right and we both agreed that the worst part was having to relive your own personal pain through their eyes – long after you had pushed it away into a dark place.

Every time I have to meet with educators about my children, I find the process full of minefields of my own despair at a young age.  I would much rather get into a yelling match about some detail about a military system I am working on with a general than talk to a 1st grade reading teacher or principal.  Those people scare me and reduce me to mush with their scorn because they just don’t get it.  So I had to walk away from it for a bit, although you never quite walk away, my kids bring it up daily.

I was inundated by entries – and some really wonderful creative ones as well.  I laughed a lot and cried some too.  I have still been getting emails from people who went out and read more or just had the link sent to them.  It also spurred on some very interesting conversations at home.  I told my kids about the pallet vs palette email and the response from the back seat was enlightening.  The older one has internalized my messages and is now accelerating at school (a late bloomer effect common to dyslexic children and adults).  He was all about ‘go to it mom – teach the world we have strengths, etc’.  The younger one was horrified.  He has just been diagnosed and is horrified that I might let anyone know I was dyslexic, and on the internet no less!  I asked him why.  He told me in no uncertain terms how I would be cast as a stupid person the rest of my life.  So sad and the root of all the pain we are going through with him at the moment.  The funny thing is that my kids are interracial and the school has all these opportunities for them to do things in affinity groups, etc.  They never do – that is not what labels them.  It is being ‘stupid’ for their difference in thinking.  There is no affinity group for those that ‘Think Different’.  Used to be, it was called the dunce cap.  (Had to explain that this week when the younger came home after that slur was tossed at him).

I did take the opportunity to do some reading and finished the Dyslexic Advantage in only two days (a record for me).  For a dyslexic, reading (or listening to the mp3 version, available through Amazon) that new book is life changing.  And I knew so much beforehand, but the perspectives and additional research I wasn’t aware of… wow.  Their website is full of amazing information.  I love the way the blog it structured.  Just for people like me.

Read the essay by a dyslexic MIT student – you will be impressed.  I think the quote that sums it all up is this:

It is important for us to stop seeing dyslexia as a learning disability and start seeing it as an alternative way of perceiving and processing the world, with benefits as well as drawbacks, and with the potential to contribute creative approaches to our world’s problems.

Lydia K. ’14

We have taken a new tactic since reading the Dyslexic Advantage in our house.  We like to thing of ourselves as superheros with some kryptonite to sap our strength.  I am going to have T-Shirts made up.  It is an image that resonates well with young children and says so much.  We were able to lable the older one’s superpowers quite quickly.  For the younger, we talked about the movie The Increadibles and how nobody thought Jack-Jack had superpowers until the end.  And he had a ton and had to learn how to use them like the older kids did.  That really resonated with him.  We go around theorizing about what my young guy’s powers might be as a family game.  Something to hold on to on dark days.

As dyslexics often become entrapenurers, my older son is wanting to go into a socially concious-business with this idea.  Something that we just might do.  He decided to write his middle-school essay on this topic last week, and just yesterday asked me if I would post it on the internet for him.  I will tomorrow.  I am so proud of him – not because of the content – but because he has embraced it and come to know himself and he wants to use his experience to help other kids.  That is powerful.

So who won the contest and the lovely spools of GST???  In terms of people closest to the number:  Wendy H (7 hr 16 min 35 sec), Carla B (7 hr 30 min), Laurie S (8 hr) and Penelope D. (8 hr)

Then there are those entries that just tickled me.  A spool goes out to all these readers as well:

I have to give a spool to Diane T. for this gem of an entry:

 Calculations:
52 min per diet coke so
52 min x 3 = 156 min
x dyslexia factor (I choose to use pi in celeberation of pi day last week)
156 min x 3.14159 = 490.08804 minutes
+ 21 minutes of walkabout breaks = 511.08804 minutes
divided by 60 minutes = 8.518134 hours

Plus an extra spool for Trish S. whose equation was:

Now let’s get to the heart of the matter.  Your Time.    I would have started with a good half hour of fuming time (FT).  Then, because I was passionate I would have dashed off the fruits of the fuming.  I am a moderately fast writer so I would take my time (MT) 3 hours and triple it for someone who has difficulty (3MT).  However, I would have to subtract a half hour for  passion (P) and an hour and quarter for a full bank of previously unwritten mental rants (UR).  I would also have to subtract an hour and a half for writing practice and hard won skill (WS).  I would use the three coke time (3CT) at an hour and a half each as a check on the correctness of my figures. (Such as they are…)

Calculations

FT+3MT-P-UR-WS=Tricia’s Time

 .5+3(3)-.5-1.25-1.5=Tricia’s Time

                         6.25=Tricia’s Time

Check

  CT=1.5

3CT=4.5

Based on my check, I have you at too long but I am going to split the difference and convert to approximately 5 hours and 22 minutes.

You grab a coke to sit down to do your post. You are pretty frustrated about the pallet -palette thing. I would suspect you could write the post in about an hour. But to edit, re write to clarify specific thoughts, check grammer (or is that grammar?)and check the spelling on the first draft about another hour. Then you re read it to do the second edit for clarification, spelling and grammar checks. By now I suspect you are pretty exhausted with the whole thing and grab the second coke. Then you start to wonder if all this is worth the effort and consider deleting it and just posting a pretty picture for everyone to enjoy – perhaps it is best to keep your personal issues to yourself.But, then you sit back and re read your writing and as you do so you realise that some things just need to be said and the devil be – with what comes from it. You have to make a statement and now is the time to do it. So you start to edit the piece again adding a bit here and there, and as you do so you know you will have to re check the spelling and grammar again…. this is exhausting and takes another coke to accomplish.

Now it is time to push the computer key that will actually put your thoughts out there for the world to judge you by and you think “just one more quick read and edit”. Then you press the enter key and hope your readers understand your thoughts, your feelings, and will learn a bit from what you have written.

My guess is 3 hours, 8 minutes, and 24 seconds.  I’m thinking a shorter time than some guesses because of the passion and personal emotion surrounding the topic.  That could make the entire writing process more inspired and much quicker.  As for the exact time breakdown, expressed as hours, this is 3.14 hours. . . which is pi. . . which would be a likely number for an engineer to hit. . . even subconsciously!