Ask anyone who knows me and they’ll undoubtedly mention how much I love books. ‘Mikele? Oh yeah, brown hair, about 5’2″, loves books…’ I love every aspect of them; the paper, ink, the stories, and the art that cover them all hold a piece of my heart.
Freestyle is very much about creating the future and being inventive and new, yet I have chosen to use the freedom I have been given here to head in the opposite direction.
The first opportunity I had to design my own project, I chose to attempt bookbinding. After research, I discovered that there are countless different ways to structure a book. I eventually settled on form known as Japanese Stab Binding.
When my second opportunity came around, not only did I learn a new bookbinding style, I also incorporated recycling my own paper. For each of the covers, I recycled paper by hand. The green and yellow paper I dyed using natural pigment. I extracted the chlorophyll from leaves and then applied it to a batch of paper. I used turmeric powder for yellow dye. The other colors of paper are the result of the paper I started with before recycling it.
