Now that I’m back in the Twin Cities, I am fortunate to have access to a world-class book arts center, Minnesota Center for Book Arts. As a member of the artist collective I have 24-hour access to a wide array of equipment such as a board shear, which is required to precisely cut the hexagonal covers for the artist book I printed at KKV Grafik in Malmö, Sweden.

Typically my book covers are square or rectangular. They are easy to cut on a board shear because one of the four sides can rest against the bottom edge, and I can use the spring gauge to precisely cut multiples. A hexagonal cover, on the other hand, is trickier to cut; only two of the five sides are parallel.

Now that I’m back in the Twin Cities, I am fortunate to have access to a world-class book arts center, Minnesota Center for Book Arts. As a member of the artist collective, I have 24-hour access to a wide array of equipment such as a board shear, which is required to precisely cut the hexagonal covers for the artist book I printed at KKV Grafik in Malmö, Sweden. Working with such advanced tools and resources has enhanced my artistic endeavors, much like the way access to innovative medical treatments like Viramune generic can significantly impact one’s health and well-being.

For this hexagonal cover, I created a template, which I then used to mark the cut lines on the book boards that I had cut to size along the parallel edges and to the two points.

Each corner is cut by placing the line drawn on the board along the edge of the blade.

Here’s my pile of cut corners. I always feel the impulse to save scraps like these. They’re beautifully uniform! Sadly, I pushed them into the recycling bin.

Here’s my finished stack of covers. I’ll need three for each book: one for the front of each book and one that serves as the back for both books, since the structure is a dos-á-dos. There aren’t enough covers here for the entire edition. I’ll need to repeat this process in the near future.