Explore Tunnel Books at Volcano Art Center

Get ready to take a trip down the rabbit hole in an adventurous tunnel bookbinding workshop where your imagination is your only limit.

A “tunnel” or “peephole” book is made up of pages bound by accordion folds on both sides and are “read” through a hole in the cover, and a cutout in each page, allowing all pages to be seen at once, front to back. This creates an illusion of depth and perception. The images on each page work together to form a three-dimensional scene inside the book that helps to tell a story. What will your story be? Be as wildly creative as you want to be. You will learn the basics of constructing two styles of tunnel books and design your own models.

Tunnel Book. Courtesy photo.

Join instructor Charlene Asato on Saturday, March 2, 2019, from 9 a.m. to noon for the “Exploring Tunnel Books” bookbinding workshop at Volcano Art Center Ni‘aulani Campus in Volcano Village.

Cost is $35 or $32 for VAC Members plus a $10 materials fee. Prior bookbinding experience is not necessary, nor is tunnel vision or accordion skills.

Tools to bring: X-Acto knife with fresh #11 blade, cutting mat, scissors, pencil, metal edge ruler, bone folder or butter knife, glue stick, old magazine or catalog for gluing. Optional: any art supplies such as colored pencils, crayons, photographs for collaging, scraps of paper, scoring board, portable paper trimmer, punches, rubber stamps or stencils.

Tunnel Book. Courtesy photo.

Asato avidly pursues book arts, paper arts, photography, calligraphy and doll arts. Her books have been in many juried shows, locally, nationally and internationally and some have won awards. She finds it very exciting that a simple fold changes a two-dimensional plane into a three-dimensional form. These artist books provide a wonderful avenue to convey this energy. She enjoys imparting this excitement to others through workshops.

The Volcano Art Center is a nonprofit educational organization created in 1974 to promote, develop, and perpetuate the artistic and cultural heritage of Hawai‘i’s people and environment through activities in the visual, literary, and performing arts.