Web site for books made by Peter and Donna Thomas


UWM Digital Exhibit a show of our edtion books	Bibilography	Wandering Book Artists' Blog	Ukulele Books & classes	Muir Ramble Route the 2006 walk across CA

PETER & DONNA THOMAS

Artists' Books, Fine Press Books, Miniature Books, Handmade Paper

260 Fifteenth Avenue, Santa Cruz, CA 95062 (831) 515-2757
peteranddonna@cruzio.com

For those of you who are new to our work: Donna does the illustrative art work for our books.
We make our own paper, print and bind the books ourselves...with occasional exceptions...
(There are always random exceptions in real life.)

The Legacy Press bibliography of our books is now available to purchase
Peter and Donna Thomas, Bibliography, 1974 - 2020. 8.5 x 8.5 inches, 446 pages, 946 full-color photographs, hardcover, sewn. $100.00

More links:

Read the blog we keep about our travels as Wandering Book Artists. Click here

See pictures of the medicine-wagon, tiny home, artist's bookmoblie, trailer we traveled in on the trip. Click here

Watch a video made about our wandering trip by Levin Kim, reporter for the Michigan Daily, September 201 . Click here

Read an article about the "can opening"event at Emory University for our edition of Steinbeck's Cannery Row. Click here

Read an article about our work -The DaVinci Creed - in Fine Books Magazine. January 2009. Click here.

Watch us on Park City TV in Ori Hoffer's 5 minute interview on YouTube. Click here.

A short video made when we were visiting RIT. Click here.

An article about a show of our work at the University of Idaho. The Northwestern Archivest, October 2019. Click here
.
Wandering Book Artists in Tiny Home visit the University of Idaho Library. October 2019. Click here.

Watch a 47 minute video of a talk we gave at the University of Colorado in 2011. Click here.

For a link to our book, "More Making Books by Hand" Click here.

Book Arts Music
To see my ukulele class and book arts folk song music page. Click here.
Listen to Peter play the book arts folk song titled "What's a Book?" on a ukulele book. Click here.
Watch a 3 minute interview by Jim D'ville about our instrument books. Click here.
Watch a different 3 minute interview showing a collection of 5 different instrument books. Click here.

The Muir Ramble Route
Read about our walk from San Francisco to Yosemite following the route John Muir used in 1868. Click here.
Buy our guide book for walking to Yosemite following Muir's route. Click here.
Read Muir's account of his 1868 trip published by the Yosemite Conservancy. Click here.

Being a book artist by Peter Thomas

Being a book artist is more than just making books; it’s living and breathing them. It’s about becoming so involved with the subject matter that the physical attributes of the book reveal themselves. It’s about listening to the materials invoke the proper text. It’s about loving those materials and knowing them so well that we feel their desire to be used in the book we are making. We didn’t begin our artistic careers planning to be artists of the book. It was more a case of being called, inspired with the desire to make a Good Book: one that, through the materials, in the text, and by the visual and tactile impact, will move the viewer from the everyday to a new place, a place that stirs the soul.

I see the library as the book's "museum" and take great pleasure in finding our books held in library collections. It is my belief that to be really successful, an artists' book must be just as satisfying to view in a glass case as it is to hold and read. The book's exterior (binding) needs to be like a sculpture (by this I mean a stand alone aesthetic experience) so that even if a viewer can only see the binding they will still find aesthetic satisfaction. And the book's interior also has to be like a painting (by this I also mean a stand alone aesthetic experience) so that when a viewer looks at it (even if only behind glass) they will find aesthetic satisfaction. Finally, to be really successful, a book must have meaningful content, so that when a viewer has the opportunity to explore the text and illustration, they will find another layer of aesthetic satisfaction. In the finest of artists' book, a thing I like to call the "Mona Lisa of the Aritsts' Book" these three elements (structure, visual content and literary content) will all work together seamlessly so that the viewer will find asthetic satisfaction on every level.

We live in exciting times. Since the invention of the printing press the book, as a medium for the artist, has been encumbered by function. Over the course of the last two decades the personal computer has released the book from servitude to information, and thus set it free to become an aesthetic object, a work of art. Now, free of function, the book has become a recognized medium for artists to work in. The book artist marries content, form and the passage of time into a single unified artwork called an artists' book. The book is the most complex and versatile art medium that exists, and so I believe by the end of this century paintings and sculpture will be moved to the storage rooms of musems and in their place visitors will find artists' books on display.

About the Artists	Wandering Book Artist Blog	Miniature Books	Miniature one-of-a-kind Artists' Books	Ukulele Books & Book Arts Folk Songs	Contact & Ordering Information
Articles and Essays	Hand Papermaking	Fine Press Editioned Artists' Books	Large one-of-a-kind Artists' Books	Classes & Exhibits	Home