Yes, I will freely admit it: I love a good pop-up book. This love affair began with my sister's copy of the Hallmark book "The Adventures of Doctor Doolittle", and continues to this day. Whether this book was my first pop-up is not known or important; it is the one which made an indelible impression. I can still remember how the neck of the pushmipullyu (the white, two-headed figure on the left) moved back and forth, and the double page whale pop-up was amazing to my 8-year old eyes. Fast forward many decades later, and pop-up books are among my most cherished volumes in my studio’s art book collection. I am thankful to have been given amazing pop-up books as gifts. Most notable and spectacular is the one from the Carolina Mixed Media Art Guild: “America’s National Parks”. It is filled with astonishing paper sculptures, because that’s what they really are, or as pop-up designer and author David Pelham calls them: paper poetry (don't you love that?!). Here are two of my favorite spreads, the Grand Canyon and Glacier National Parks, which surely ascend to the level of sculpture or poetry.
And since words aren't as descriptive as images, I will simply share some of my favorite pages from my collection...I'm truly thankful I can be amazed, amused, and delighted whenever I open one!
In case you're curious, here's the list of books included in the slide show above:
1. Dimensional Mazes, An Entirely New Way of Losing Yourself in a Book (love that title!), by David Pelham
2. Funny Birds, by Philippe Ug
3. ABC3D, by Marion Bataille
4. 600 Black Spots, A Pop-Up Book for Children of All Ages, by David A. Carter
5. Trail, Paper Poetry by David Pelham
6. The Ultimate 3-D Pop-Up Art Book (you know I had to have this one!) by Ron Van Der Meer and Frank Whitford
7. and 9.: Botticelli's Bed & Breakfast, by Jan Pienkowski (this one has 56 art masterpieces contained within its 10-room house, and has a guidebook listing them all!)
8. The Christmas Alphabet, by Robert Sabuda
10. Pop Gami, Where Pop-Up Meets Origami, paper engineered by James Diaz, illustrated by Francesca Diaz
~MDP
