Book club

I’m lucky to be part of a fabulous book club with a bunch of friends/coworkers from Meredith. Actually, we are all but one from Meredith. The odd man out is a wonderful woman who joined via a Meredith gal.

We just finished our first year of the club and thought we should have a holiday party to end the year. It was a great night minus the blizzard going on outside the doors. But, remarkably, we all managed to get there safely. We held it at Azalea, and it was wonderful. If you don’t know, Azalea is located in the historic Hotel Kirkwood Building on 4^th and Walnut in downtown Des Moines. They feature “New southern cuisine with contemporary and inventive interpretations on traditional southern fare.” It’s delicious and I would highly recommend it.

I wanted to do something special for these ladies, not only because they are great friends and coworkers, but because they have supported me so much this past year. I’ve had two art shows that I know wouldn’t be as successful with out the support of my friends. I just wanted to show them how much it really means to me. So I had this idea to give them a bit of art – book club style.

I went to Goodwill to find old, hardcover books that were all about the same size and thickness. Goodwill had an abundance of old books. And I think I paid about $1.50 for each one. It was a steal. I took them home and removed their paper covers. Then I took Mod Podge and adhered all the pages together and the covers down. This was a lot easier than I thought it would be. I really didn’t have to use too much Mod Podge. I just coated the outside edges of all the pages a couple times as well as the lining of the covers, and it all just stuck together really well. I let them all dry and then I applied a couple coats of white primer to each one. This also helped in keeping the books one solid piece. After I had all the primer coats on, I went to work designing and researching what I wanted each cover to be painted. Each cover is specific to each member of my book club. We’ll start with Billie.

Billie and her husband are ISU super fans. I’m talking season ticket- tailgatorific superfans. So I turned Jane Austen’s classic Pride and Prejudice to Jane Austen Arnaud’s Cylcone Pride and Prejudice.

We have two Lindsays in this group. A Lindsay Berg and a Lindsay Berger. It’s really difficult to keep it straight. This Lindsay has a lovely little cat named Ike. But this lovely little cat can sometimes turn. When his personality changes to a not-so-nice cat, he’s Spike. Lindsay will sometimes come to work with wounds from Spike. So I thought I would do a take off of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde for Lindsay’s book cover. And I had to use some James Bond type skills to get a picture of Ike to paint from. When Lindsay was away from her cubicle, I took this picture of her picture of Ike in her office from my digital camera.

Here’s the other Lindsay. Lindsay is the fashionista in the group. I mean, really. EVERY day, she dresses beautifully. It kind of makes you sick. She has such a great style, that Audrey Hepburn in the movie Breakfast at Tiffany’s immediately came to mind. So I went with Truman Capote’s book for this one… except with a local twist. It’s Lunch at Dillards instead of Breakfast at Tiffany’s. Notice the Tiffany’s blue on the Subway cup? Yeah, that was intentional.

Ashlee is a super hip, funky, music lovin’ friend of mine. I love when I walk by her at work and she has her awesome purple headphones on. For her, I took the classic Moby Dick and turned it into Moby Chick. People know who Moby is right? I immediately think of his glasses when I hear his name, so I ran with it.

Kelsey hearts volleyball. Well, I don’t know if she loves it, but she was on like eight volleyball teams at one time this year I believe. Ok, maybe it was two… but regardless I wanted volleyball to come into play for her book cover. So I took One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and changed it to One Flew Over the Opponent’s Net for her book cover.

During our Book Club Holiday party as I explained to each lady why I painted what I did for them, I’m pretty sure I told Nicole and our whole group that I thought her husband was attractive. Appropriate? I don’t know. Maybe it was the wine talking. But Nicole’s book is a take off of The Catcher in the Rye. Nicole’s husband was a big time pitcher, and now works for the Iowa Cubs, so I thought it was fitting to do The Catcher of my Guy for her.

Lovely Jill. Jill is now a stay at home mommy to her beautiful little girl Adeline. But when she was working here with us at Meredith, she was like an all star. I mean, I was just starting when Jill was leaving, but I still hear people sing her praises. She was just an awesome proofreader among other things. So I took Catch 22 and made it Catch 22 Mistakes. Notice the correction marks on her cover?

Megan is also a graphic designer here at Meredith. I don’t work with her now, but I did a few years ago. And this lady is talented. A nerdy designer might know what the color build of orange is. That is what color build of cyan, magenta, yellow and black you use to get the color. It’s geeky, I know, but I took A Clockwork Orange and changed it to A Clockwork C-0 M-47 Y-100 K-13 for Megan’s book.

Erin is the one girl who hasn’t worked at Meredith. It’s nice to have an outsider in the group. She came to us through Lindsay Berger and we’re so glad she has! Erin is a pharmacist, so I thought it would be fun to do To Kill a Mockingbird and change it to To Heal a Mockingbird, using a little bandaid over the word kill.

It was such a fun night and I’m really looking forward to next year’s book club! Here’s a group shot of all the girls with their books!