Telling a story on one sheet of paper

By Cindy Landrum  

JANUARY 12, 2012 1:06 p.m. (0)

And complicated.

That’s what Greenville artists and residents are being asked to do in the Minibook Collective, a project that got its start when Greenville artist Melinda Hoffman read about a project in the United Kingdom that challenged artists around the world to create small books using a single sheet of paper that created a sense of place and told the story of their home.

“The books show the essence of where you live,” she said.

The only two rules of the Somethink Collective were the books had to be made on a single sheet of paper and, although the paper could be folded and cut, it had to remain intact enough so it could be laid into a flat piece of paper.

Greenville’s Minibook Collective, which will accept entries until Feb. 29, adopted those same rules, although it is allowing the books to be made from either an 8.5-by-11-inch or a 11-by-17-inch piece of paper.

Hoffman said she loved the idea because it is inexpensive and totally creative.

“You could be a city planner, a writer, an artist in any genre, a park lover or somebody who has never done a piece of art before and you can still work on a piece of paper and fold it,” she said. “This is wide open – as long as you follow those two rules.”

Art and Light on Pendleton Street will host the opening reception on April 6.

Martin Radecki, former curator at the Indianapolis Art Museum, who now lives in Flat Rock, N.C., will jury entries in March.

There is no entry fee and awards will be given.

The collective will be on display at Art and Light during April and then move to BookQuest, an antique and book shop in Fountain Inn, for the first two weeks in May. Art and Light owner Teresa Roche said they hope to book additional venues for the Minibook Collective throughout 2012.

“We’re looking for something that gives an essence of something in Greenville County,” Hoffman said.

Greenville artist Kevin Isgett teaches bookmaking and folding at Bob Jones University.

A piece of paper can be folded into a 32-page book, but the pages could only be about 1-inch by 2-inches.

A 12-page book would have pages about 2 ½-inches by 3 inches, he said.

“You’ve really got to edit down your ideas,” he said. “It’s really about self-editing and the main thing you want to get across because you can’t waste space.”

The books are themselves sculptural, he said. Isgett and Bob Jones University art professor Jon Andrews will present a workshop on bookmaking and paper folding at Art and Light on Jan. 21 at 3 p.m.

“They all stand a little differently so you have to think about form,” he said. “Some books look like they have secret passages, like something’s hidden. You can take advantage of that in your book.”

The key to a successful book is having something to say and having a unifying element such as color or the layout, he said.

“It has to be something worthy of a book. You can look at it, but if it’s not something you want to look at again, it’s not a successful book,” he said. “A successful book is one that’s worth sharing and looking at again.”

A key, he said, is to have a unique viewpoint.

“There will probably be a lot of Liberty Bridge photos or drawings, but there’s so much more to Greenville than that,” Isgett said. “People should really think about what makes Greenville special and how they can say it personally.”

Hoffman plans to do a book on the late Greenville whirly-gig artist Herron Briggs.

Some minibooks from the Somethink Collective will be on display in Greenville, she said.

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