Peg Simone (Debra Catanzaro)
To avoid any confusion for those who know me as either Peg or Deb, Peg Simone was a name used by my Grandmother, not actually her name, but a name she liked to use from time to time. Long story short...and it's a good long-short story, I borrowed the name from her when I started performing solo and so, it stuck. That's that. For the past so many years, too many to mention, I've spent my time writing, creating and performing music in various bands and solo which has brought me from Pittsburgh to San Francisco to New York. A few years ago I started something called the "Sunday Song" series in which I posted a new song every Sunday. From this series, were born four short episodes in the spirit of oral storytelling called "Behind Uncle Bernie's Bar". I wanted to do a print version of the stories and knew that Vince had been doing great work with hand-made journals and notebooks so we decided to collaborate and turn these stories into a cool little book. That was the start of what I hope will be many more to come. Each book is carefully thought out from the artwork on the pages to the paper used for the pages. There is a musical component to each book via mp3 download codes and each book is uniform in size in limited editions. I like to think of them as palm-sized trading cards you can listen to & read. |
Vince Curtis
In 1987, after some number of years in the Pittsburgh punk rock scene, I started making jewelry because I wanted a few bracelets. That turned into several years of art festivals and local selling. I diverged into a long career as a teacher of kungfu, and started making books in 2012 after I stumbled on a video on the making of a simple flat-backed journal. I like the possibility of someone owning something I made, possibly for the rest of their life, and looking back at words they will have written or pictures they will have drawn and making a connection across time. It's an interesting, deeper view that makes an object meaningful. As I continue in bookbinding and learn more, I see the possibilities of combining design and content into tangible, meaningful objects of aesthetic and personal value. |