Further adventures...

The Movable Book Society conference in D.C. has now passed and we have to wait two more years before the next gathering. Luckily, it will take about that long to process all the amazing presentations and book collections that I was able to witness over the three days. The conference was a great success and I must share some of the special moments here.


The first presentation was on the wonderful artist and paper engineer, Julian Wehr, brought to life for us by his son Paul Wehr. After sharing the life’s journey of Julian Wehr, he presented many rare drawings and prototypes from the Wehr Archives in the University of Virginia. My favorite was a color mock-up of a sequel title of Wehr’s first book. This unpublished animated book shown above exhibited stunning movement from his trademark rocker tab and delightful graphic endpapers. The book was ready for publication, but the timing was not right, so it was lost in the shuffle. What a tragedy. Maybe some day “The Further Adventures of Finnie the Fiddler” will see the light of day. Until then, it’s a good thing it was all in protective plastic sheets because there would have been drool all over this one-of-a-kind movable book!

To learn more about Paul Wehr and his quest to keep his father’s work alive, visit: http://www.wehranimations.com.

- Kyle