Z Designs

Saturday, July 8, 2017

The Softest Fire Engine 🚒

I had a plan to stitch together this fire engine tissue box cover a while ago, but just now had the opportunity to get to work. My friend's son was turning 2 years old, and I saw the opportunity to create the perfect birthday gift for him. Usually toddlers are not my perfect clientele, but this boy loves fire trucks, and his momma can also use this as a tissue holder! I think that I turned a few heads at his birthday party, because I insisted that he open my gift while I was there. I can be an attention hog at times! This is something that I hope he can appreciate when he is older, and might even remember me for making it. This lovely design is from the fantastic Christina Laws.

Close-up of fire engine.

I'm serious about the presentation of my art, so I did not want to give the fire engine gift in, like, a plastic bag. I decided to turn an empty shoe box into a cloth tissue box holder holder. Yes, you read that right. I used fabric that I had lying around the house to cover every exposed inch of the box and cover. A problem was that the head lights on the fire engine were sticking too far up. So, I cut a hole where the lights go, and just covered cloth where the hole was. I think that was a bit ingenious of me - maybe, maybe not.

The underside of the cover.


My littlest client!

His mother took the initiative to send me a picture of her son with his brand new fire engine! I'm so proud of him for loving what I created. Yay!

Tissue for Your Alligator Tears 🐊


Alligator in my backyard!

I started this gorgeous tissue box cover about one year ago. It was designed by the amazing Joanne Wetzel. I had the idea in my head that I would finish it up in a few weeks at the most. But the responsibility of my college semesters proved more intense than I had planned for. So, my alligator tissue box cover project fell to the side. A year later, I found time to finally complete it, in the summer. I have never felt so happy to complete a project! In my past, I have left many needlepoint projects unfinished. This will never be on that list.
I usually don't exert much effort when I choose a background for taking photographs of my art, but this seemed like an obvious exception to me. Behind where I live, there is a lot of grass. I decided to put all this land to good use and show where my alligator usually lurks. Needless to say, I got a few strange looks from my neighbors. Oh, well.

Close-up of the alligator tissue box cover.

I just love that toothy smile!

How'd you like to find this guy in your living room??

The alligator tissue box cover serving as a nice windowsill companion.

The Rose Lattice Blues 💙 💙 💙

One of my clients came to me to request that I make a square tissue box cover for her friend's birthday. Her only request was that it be a square tissue box cover (rather than the rectangle one) and that it be as blue as possible, because her friend loves blue. So I got to work to find the perfect tissue box cover design that I had in my collection. I came across this design by the talented Nancy Marshall. This is not exactly how it appears in the pattern book, "101 Tissue Toppers in Plastic Canvas", but it appears that they don't make the same craft roses anymore. In the business of plastic canvas pattern books, many suggested materials are outdated. So I used what I could find, and I decided to make it a little different. I determined that having roses on ALL sides of the tissue box cover is too much. The roses and flowers are only on two sides of this tissue box cover, and on the top. I think that it's good to give people options, so when this friend displays the tissue box cover, she'll have a choice to show the roses or not - she can just pick a side. I wanted to keep the symmetry of the original pattern, so I made the flowers into a circle that is even in terms of colors. I wasn't crazy about the yarn colors when I was making this, but many people seem to think it's beautiful, so I'll take it.

✉ George and the Envelope ✉

The late and great Judge George William Crockett, Jr. on an envelope!

My great-grandfather died when I was two years old, so I did not get to know him. His name was George William Crockett, Jr. and he was a remarkable man. He helped opened the first known interracial law firm, he became a judge, and he eventually became a U.S. Congressman for the state of Michigan. To this day he has a charter school for grades K-8, named after him, in Detroit, Michigan. Detroit, Michigan is also the place where Judge Crockett is known to have centered his advocacy for equal rights and civil rights, before, during, and after the Civil Rights Movement. My great-grandfather did many praiseworthy things in his lifetime, which many of them you can read on his Wikipedia page. I am so honored to be a descendant of his.
The reason for my posting this is that I turned his face into art. My family has taken and kept many photographs over the years, including ones of my great-grandfather, Judge Crockett. It also helps our record-keeping that he was in newspapers so many times. In being the family historian, I had the chance to come across some cool office supplies and a Polaroid picture strip that my great-grandfather must have taken at some point. I think that this long strip of the same repeated photograph is just so artsy. When I told my grandmother that I had come across my great-grandfather's (her father's) things that could still be used today, she right away wanted some keepsakes. So I decided to imprint the image of her father on the envelope that I would use to send her the stuff I found. I used just a home inkjet printer to imprint the photograph onto an envelope. I taught myself this trick when I was working on my "Furry Friend Fright" book recently. This is also how I printed the inked title onto the fabric of the book cover. It just involves taping the envelope onto a piece of regular copy paper, while copying the image from the scanner. You need a printer that has a scanner. I just think it looks so cool. And what better way to honor my great-grandfather than to cement his face onto an envelope. He's never looked better.

The Google results to searching for my great-grandfather, Judge George William Crockett, Jr.

Sunday, March 12, 2017

Woah

"Woah" by Zoe Madison Waller (that's me!!)

I was very excited last year to learn about the upcoming pop up book exhibit at the Sandy Gallery in Oregon. I was so intrigued at the opportunity to create and submit an original handmade pop up book of mine for this exhibit, that I got to work creating one before my college winter break was over.I ended up with a single handmade book consisting of paper pop-ups paired with a single shower thought, on each page. I searched for hours to find facts obscure enough to put in my book, and I finally came across reddit.com. It was here that I found many people communicating their most profound thoughts discovered in the shower, and they were all just so great. Just to give a glimpse of one: "I wonder how many places I've visited for the last time." The idea here is that these thoughts are short and simple, but really make you think. I won't give away the whole book, but I assure you that I picked the most interesting and relateable 'thoughts'. That's really my thing with my books, I don't see a point in making them if no one can understand what I'm communicating.

Yes, this is a mouth - and it pops up!

Well, as you probably guessed, I was accepted into the exhibit! These fabulous shots that I took with photographer John Woo did not go to waste. I had a lot of fun making this book especially because it gave me a serious opportunity to explore my pop up making chops, and to kind of push those limits.

This pop up required a solid reflection, so I used mirror paper. Who knew there was such a thing?

This exhibit "Pop Up Now II" had catalogs made. Here is my page in the catalog!

My artistically talented aunt, Kyra Hicks, was also in this exhibit. Her submission was a brochure that asks 'how many African-American themed pop up books you can name'.

¡Viva La Babadook!

This post is dedicated to an amazing horror movie that came out in 2014, called "The Babadook". I love horror movies, so I was very excited to view this one. Little did I know, I was in for a pleasant surprise when I watched "The Babadook", because the movie uses an original pop up book as a prop! Apparently this movie had such a following that the creators of the pop up book used in this movie launched identical replicas of it, and sold them. My wonderful aunt, Kyra Hicks, surprised me with one for Christmas 2016. This was no cheap book, mind you - my aunt managed to buy it on eBay for a bit over $300. I'm sure it sells other places for much more, especially since there were only 2,000 copies made! To add to this story, I took the initiative of emailing the actual paper engineer who designed this book for the movie. His name is Alex Juhasz, and he gave me some pretty special advice about my paper artistry, after viewing this blog. I'm still starstruck that he even responded, but I'm forever glad he did! ¡Viva La Babadook!

The Whole Truth About Half Love

Front of the pocket

Okay, so you may not have been waiting for this post, but I've been waiting for an eternity. As can be seen in an earlier post from April 2015, I wrote, illustrated, and constructed the handmade pop-up book, "Half Love" in late 2014. Even before I had completed the first book, I was determined to get this story published - like for real published. I still am. After honest feedback from my peers who read and experienced "Half Love" I realized that I more or less had to start over, and create a more 'presentable' copy.


Back of the pocket

First off, I needed better string. More specifically bookbinding thread. So I paid a Graduate student, studying bookbinding (Marisol Ardon) to teach me as much as she could about bookarts, at my dining room table, once a week. She's amazing by the way, and wonderfully talented. I also needed to somehow get my sketched and colored images on a computer screen so I could print them out. In this way, they could be replicated as many times as I had the paper and ink for, without straining my hand by drawing so much. This is also a convenience because in this way, every copy that I form into a book will be identical. So, I signed up for two $800 courses that teach Adobe InDesign and Adobe Photoshop. These were each two-day classes, but well worth the experience. I am able to do so many artsy things with these programs that would be impossible otherwise.

The pocket is now unbuttoned

I also needed a new 'About the Author' cause mine was terribly outdated.


"HALF LOVE"

"BY ZOE WALLER" (That's me!)

For those who don't know, "Half Love" was created in response to my experiences with unrequited love. For many years in my short life, I had been so frustrated with feeling affection for these young men, that was never fully returned. One day, I just had a eureka moment and realized that these half-hearted, 'romantic' unions were teaching me something. And they were also blessings in my life. If I hadn't sought out these young men for affection, we would not have formed the friendship that resulted. Friendship is powerful.

The pocket is now open

When I printed out my first copy of "Half Love" since learning what I had to, and basically remaking the book on the Adobe Sketch app (I also had to buy an iPad for this!), I was blessed yet again. I now had a convenient Christmas gift for three of the fabulous women in my life. I'm a stickler for my more delicate handmade books having a sort of carrying case, so I sewed together these pockets (pictured) for one copy of the book to easily slide into.


The book is popping out to say hello

When I was small, I remember sitting on the playground during the summer, and stitching pointy sticks into leaves, that I had found on the ground. I would sometimes 'write' my name, or some random word. I thought I was so creative for doing this. Well, it turns out that those moments of childhood became of use. As you can see, in each of the pockets, I stitched "HALF LOVE" and "BY ZOE WALLER". I used this stitching not only as an adornment for the pockets, but as a method of holding the pocket folds in place.

I absolutely love picking out buttons to use in my art, so this was no boring task. The buttons are used to keep the pockets closed. Each of these buttons was picked out with a lot of heart, and my favorite button is the blue one! And while I'm being honest, I also love the satin pocket that is sewn with the blue button. I almost didn't want to give that pocket away!

Side view of the book, that shows my handmade stitching

I thank book artist Carol Barton for inspiring me to use the X's to sew my book together. They are absolutely PERFECT for this project.

An open page from my pop up book

I am very proud of this tape pop-up from "Half Love" because it always malfunctioned in my original copies of the book. But thanks to my weekend pop-up class by the lovely, Carol Barton, my tab pop-ups malfunction no more!