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LIA DAVIS :: DESIGN & CRAFT

I love to work with my hands...

Bookbinding

I learned to make books at the Denver Waldorf School, where bookbinding is part of the high school arts curriculum. I have made both hardbound and softbound books. I enjoy the "craft" aspect of this work—it requires specific materials and tools, along with precision, to get good results.

Handmade books seem to carry a preciousness and a certain solemn weight. Perhaps this is because we are so familiar with machine-made books and sometimes take them for granted. Handmade books beg to be touched and held and simply enjoyed... Each page was hand-folded. Embroidery floss is visible between the pages. There are imperfect bits — signs of human touch.

Birdhouse Construction

My friend Gabriel Bergeron and I jointly designed and built birdhouses for a local "Birdhaus Bash" / competition at The Denver Botanic Gardens.

:: Tau Haus

Tau Haus was built with slate tile and stained glass. The design was influenced by the architecture of Mies van der Rohe, specifically, his Barcelona Pavilion. It also incorporates mathematical proportions from the Golden Mean (derived from the Fibonacci sequence). We wanted the final house to look like planes of floating glass and slate intersecting with one another. We built two houses — one to be auctioned at the Birdhaus Bash, and one to keep. Tau Haus won "Best of Show" in the Denver Botanic Gardens Birdhaus Bash in 2000.

:: Birdland

Birdland was constructed out of cement, wood, and copper piping. The design is an architectural embodiment of the song "Birdland" by Weather Report. Aspects of the melody, the bass line, and the song's form are depicted through the spacing of the house's windows, perches, and rings of copper piping along the supporting pole.

Knitting

Knitting is a part of the Waldorf School curriculum; adorable first graders run around with wooden knitting needles and woolly yarn. A quiet Dutch woman named Marielle taught me to knit—she was (and probably still is) the Denver Waldorf School's handwork teacher. These days, knitting is what I do on my bus rides to and from work.