「草花の響き/ Botanical Resonance」

Plant is a powerful medicine. What if the plant-medicine tincture is in the form of notebooks instead of a bottle?

With the possibility of light rain this afternoon, the morning air feels as if it’s full of potential and anticipation for something emerging - something invisible is expanding and filling the space that was once a void. I see birds in the garden keeping themselves busy, foraging for food before they need to take a break at the onset of rain.

With it, I see my new projects also emerging. Gently nudged by many friendly encouragements (thank you, Eunice, and everyone who shared the thoughts with me about this in the past), I decided to start sharing my hand-bound notebooks at Baum-kuchen. Perhaps first, just with in-person customers when we open on Sundays, and maybe later down the line, I will have enough to share online. Here are stories I shared in the past about my book-binding journey.

Binding pages... and creating a universe

[Becoming] of an artifact

Making things and the circle of reciprocity

After trying different ways to create cohesion between the outer covers and the inner pages, as well as methods to achieve clean finishes, I feel settled and grounded in how I make notebooks now. Both Frido and I have been breaking into the notebooks I bound in the past, and the construction is also holding up to the test of everyday use.

Being inspired by so many wonderful plant-dye artists in my friendship circle has really helped to bring the ideas for the cover together. After hosting a BK plant-dye workshop for our team members, my friend and artist, Caitlin, offered me some of her oak gull ink, which she had freshly made the night before. The satisfaction I felt after dipping the first stack of papers in that ink was beyond my words. Combined with constant inspiration from my dear friend/artist Jen, spending more time with the lovely plant-dye artist Haru in Kyoto, and also having to literally dip my hands in a living microbiome full of indigo-dye barrel last summer in Tokushima, I’ve been obsessed with the plant-dye process and also how much protection I feel when I carry or wear artifacts that were dyed by them. So when I stumbled upon the idea of using plant-dye paper as a notebook cover, everything came together like synchronistic magic.

“Plant is a powerful medicine, friend, and ally. What if the plant-medicine tincture is in the form of notebooks instead of a bottle?”

Once I posed the question on my journal page, there was no going back. So here it is. I will be sharing a notebook series called 「草花の響き/ Botanical Resonance」in the near future. Every step of the way, from the first stage of collecting plant materials to the finished binding, will be done by hand, and each cover will feature unique imprints of plant magic, both metaphorically and visually. They will most likely come in A5 Slim size because that is the size I learned produces the least material waste.

Right now, Frido is designing a graphic that will be added to each notebook cover. Meanwhile, I am binding the next small batch of notebooks with white sage, which were dyed with white sage kids brought home from their school’s farm (they had so much of it that they were giving it away!). A stack of notebooks I made with mugwort dye is also going through the last process of being cut to the correct size.

Side note. Mugwort has a captivating companion property to poison oak. Along the creek, I see them growing side by side, and mugwort is used to soothe the symptoms of poison oak irritation. They are also a trusted friend for dream work, and we love making tiny mugwort sachets to put under pillows using dried mugwort leaves. The fragrance is earthy, medicinal, and beautiful. Can you believe the essence from this plant transforms into rusty amber, like the color you see in the notebooks I recently bound?

Mugwort is growing happily and healthily on a local trail

A stack of notebooks is in binding progress. The cover's color comes from mugwort dye.

Like anything and everything we do around here, preparation to launch something new is time-consuming and deliberate… and we enjoy the process tremendously.

What will happen when these notebooks that contain plant magic land in the right person’s hands at the right time and right place? The anticipation of answering the question is enough to keep me going.