Souvenirs de Voyage, A Traveler's Keepsake Book

Kollenbaum, Louise

ISBN 10: 0811832872 ISBN 13: 9780811832878

Publisher: Chronicle Books, 2002

That scallop-edged napkin from the cafe in Paris; a tiny shell from that deserted beach in the Caribbean; the ticket stub from that overnight train trip through China. The small mementos you collect on vacation can be as varied as your travels, and combined into collages, they make personal and evocative reminders of the experience. In Souvenirs de Voyage, Louise Kollenbaum offers her own travel collages along with tips on collecting, journal writing, and making art from your souvenirs. Glassine envelopes throughout will hold and protect your treasures.

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About the Author:

Louise Kollenbaum is an award-winning art director and designer. As founding art director of Mother Jones, she won numerous design honors including the prestigious National Magazine Award. She has also worked as creative director for Smith & Hawken and design director for Banana Republic. Ms. Kollenbaum currently lives in San Francisco.

Review:

At the end of the road, the traveler, laden with a suitcase full of dirty clothes, returns home to a stack of bills and the frantic blink of the answering machine. Immediately, the vacation glow begins to fade.

All that remains of the journey is a jumble of seemingly useless flotsam that is usually swept into a bureau drawer.

Louise Kollenbaum, a Bay Area author, graphic designer and founder of Mother Jones magazine, has written and designed a journal, "Souvenirs de Voyage: A Traveler's Keepsake Book" that corrals the ephemera of travel.

" 'Voyage' was inspried by my own love of collecting and the discovery that active gathering along the way sparks an attention to detail that can make one look upon the trip differently," says Kollenbaum. "Later, even the simplest scraps can both insprie and call back memory."

The 128-page book, easily tucked into a carry-on bag, contains tales of Kollenbaum's favorite journeys, as well as chapters on collecting, design, the art of collage, preservation and composition.

The canvas-trimmed binding is fitted with elastic bands that allow for expansion. The exquisitely crafted collages star Kollenbaum's personal stash of ticket stubs, stamps, eggshells, fabric swatches and a single pressed grape leaf that has the power to invoke a miagical Tuscan idyll.

Interspersed are glassine envelopes that protect viewing of treasures, as will as lined and blank pages upon which to capture reveries - and mementos.

Kollenbaum's elegant bok imbues the traveler with the creativity to craft a talismanic travel diary as evocative as one of Proust's beloved madeleines. -San Francisco Chronicle

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