I created *soft book* this year for the Focus on Book Arts 2022 Faculty Staff Exhibit, which features works of art by workshop instructors and volunteer staff. Soft Book is a hand-woven and sewn book, made with gray-purple wool yarn and embroidery floss in shades of yellow, orange, and teal.

Soft books, children’s books for pre-readers, offer comforting, tactile interactions. Soft Book, geared for adults, invites both a reading experience and a visual/tactile one. Raised cross stitches create each letter of single-syllable words to reveal insights about the book-making process: “say book” to “sew book” to “sift book,” and so on. Readers find each page opens flat, so the back of each embroidered word—and the stitching process—is highlighted. Soft Book, an object that exposes and celebrates its own making, offers readers a tactile and intellectually stimulating engagement with the book form.

@ the FOBA Exhibition website

The entire exhibition is online at the Focus on Book Arts (FOBA) Virtual Gallery, so spend some time exploring all of the innovative books, prints, and objects on display! If you’re in the area, you can visit the exhibit in person at the Valley Art Association gallery in Forest Grove, OR — the FOBA exhibition will be on display through August 27, 2022.