About the Commission:

Redline Contemporary Art Center in Denver, Colorado commissioned this tribute book for the 2015 Laura Merage Transforming Communities Award, to recognize the contributions of community leader Irit Waldbaum.  Ms Waldbaum has served as board member at Redline and at Denver Jewish Day School, JEWISHColorado, Jewish Family Services, Hillel Colorado and Denver Architecture Foundation (among many others!). The book created for Ms. Waldbaum was designed to incorporate the many tributes to her from colleagues, friends and family into an elegant and one-of-a-kind gift.  

About the Book and How It Works:

What appears to be a simple cube with a decorative wrap is, with the lid removed, shown to be a more layered and complex book structure.  A stack of connected pages are built into the walls of the book-cube, and as each side folds down, the pages can unfold.  Progressively smaller pages fold out with text on both sides, so that more than 40 tributes are contained in the book.  After reading, the pages fold up again and are secured with a ribbon fastener. A photo of Ms. Waldbaum’s beloved family is mounted at the center.

About the Materials and Processes: 

The walls and panels of the book are constructed from dual layers of book board with a connective layer of tinted Tyvek between.  The exterior walls are covered with black unryu paper and are held upright by button-and-string closures at each corner, utilizing black acrylic buttons and red embroidery thread.    The closures are mounted on black cover paper, and a decorative wide red grosgrain ribbon stretches beneath them to apparently encircle the book-box.

Inside, a folded stacks of panels are hinged to each other with Tyvek, such that they form an extended line of tributes when unfolded.  The panels are covered with black unryu paper, scarlet unryu paper and other decorative red/black papers; they are held in place by black grosgrain ribbon straps attached to each side of the upright wall.  Velcro attaches the straps to each other and a stitched line of red embroidery thread decorates the ribbon ends.  

The font used for the tributes and colophon is Optima; the tributes are laser printed onto white linen cover paper.  Ms. Waldbaum’s family photo is color-printed onto text-weight paper and mounted to the bottom of the book-box with dry mount tissue.