This is just a quick hello from the Bay Area where I’m attending the Codex International Book Fair. I arrived a day early and had a wonderful time walking up to Mt. Davidson near my friend’s home, exploring Chinatown and attending an Indian festival.

The book fair today was amazing! I saw so many old friends and collectors and met many new ones as well. Thank you to those of you who came by and introduced yourselves! I ran into so many people from Portland, that I almost forgot that I don’t live there anymore.

One treat was meeting Chris Palmer, paper folder extraordinaire, whose work I featured in Paper Illuminated and Playing With Paper.

Chris had something like this sticking out of his shirt pocket, so of course I asked him what it was. I’m sorry i couldn’t take a video of him opening the ‘envelope’ and extracting the love letter that was inside (a uniquely folded piece of paper). He gently tugged on two corners of the letter, which completely unfolded the sheet and revealed a series of folds. Next he gently released the paper and it refolded itself into a flower form. Wow!
I hardly had a chance to leave my table and look at the other 175 booths, but I did see people walking by with papers they had purchased from Cave Paper, Hark! Handmade Paper and La Papeterie St. Armand.
The day wound down with a lovely dinner at The Greens restaurant in SF with my childhood friend who lives in the Bay Area now.
More soon!