Chapter 1. INSTANT BOOKS
My first instant book came in the mail in 1988. I was a young mother then, living in a 4th floor walk-up apartment with a bathtub in the kitchen in New York City. I lugged my baby and stroller down the stairs and checked my mail on the way to the park. There was something from Ted Cronin. He had an artist book gallery that showed our work in New York’s flower district above a plant store--you walked through an urban forest of potted trees and up a back stair case to the gallery. It smelled wonderful there.
I opened Ted’s envelope with one hand as I walked along pushing the stroller. I was amazed and amused! It was a little book, made from a folded piece of photocopied paper with a slit in the middle. A kid on the street handed me a yellow advertising flyer. At the corner, while we waited for the light to change, I folded the flyer, tore the slit, and voila--an instant book!
Since that first book in my mailbox, I have seen this simple form in many sources--and heard it called many things--an origami book, an 8 fold book--but I will always call it an instant book. Its simplicity is its charm. I have made them from sugar packet papers in restaurants, from the backs of "Hello My Name Is" stickers in meetings, from a huge pieces of brown wrapping paper, from pages of promotional calendars, from the fronts and backs of posters that weren’t interesting enough to hang on the wall--or were out of date or were piled up, never posted from a failed political campaign or a past performance or art exhibit. I even made two from cloth with appliqué image--a baby book and then an abstract version.
They are very very easy, once you get the hang of them. Their 3 spreads or 6 pages, plus front and back cover, will not intimidate the shyest author or artist. One-sided, they can be published in a minute or two by pressing the button on a photocopy machine. Yet I find myself going back to them--we have even begun making a limited edition collaborative series subscription called INSTA-BOOKS.
