The Breakfast Journals

Volume Ten

The Breakfast Journals is a collaborative bookmaking project between Hattie Eshleman and Ashley Roth. Since 2016, we have been making small handmade books in pairs and then filling them with drawings and collages. Different volumes have different themes and parameters, and the rules we set help us to discover new and interesting things. For each volume, the books are worked on simultaneously (with one of us in possession of one at a time). Books are traded back and forth between the two of us, so that volumes usually have about 50% Hattie's content and 50% Ashley's content. We hope you have as much fun looking at these as we did making them.

Vol. 10 (481)

Vol. 10 (R)

Vol. 10 was made in collaboration with the Companion Plants Collective.

Volume Nine

1/1

Slightly different than the rest of the collection, Vol. 9 is a Zine! The book has illustrations by both artists and is available to purchase for $4 plus shipping

Buy One!

Volume Eight

Vol. 8 (yellow stitch)

Vol. 8 was inspired by an earlier volume (Vol. 6). In both volumes, Hattie and Ash collaborated by both working on the same pages with one person starting a page and the next finishing the page. As a result, all pages have content from both artists. For this specific book (Vol 8. yellow stitch) Ashley started the pages with drawing or collage elements and Hattie finished the compositions.

Vol. 8 (red stitch)

For the red stitch Vol. 8 Hattie started the pages by adding only words. Ashley responded to the various quotes, phrases, magazine clippings, song lyrics, etc. with images (and sometimes additional words).

Volume Seven

Vol. 7 (Proof)

Vol. 7 (Air Mail)

Shortly after graduation, Ashley worked for the Chicago History Museum Research Center where her job involved making a lot of photocopies. Through out the process there were of course extra copies or copies that didn't print right. She was allowed to keep these and we used them to make Volume 7. The covers are designed solely using material from these copies and all of base pages were cut from these copies which we then drew/collaged/painted on top of.

Volume Six

Vol. 6 (Blue)

Vol. 6 (Spots)

Vol. 6 (Blue)

Vol. 6 was the first volume that was completed long-distance (after graduation). Wanting to keep the conversational nature of our work without having to do a lot of shipping back and forth, we decided to make each page collaborative. Instead of finishing a spread, each artist did half a composition, giving the other artist the job of completing the page. The Spots book was started by Hattie and completed by Ashley. For the Blue book Ashley surprised Hattie by giving her only words and phrases to prompt the compositions.

Volume Five

Vol. 5 (Black on White)

Vol. 5 (White on Black)

For Vol. 5, the pages were made out of Duralar. This made for an interesting challenge, since the transparent quality of the pages meant that we had to consider the previous compositions when designing a spread. We worked together to design and screenprint the covers.

Volume Four

Vol. 4 (Cruella)

Vol. 4 (Robin Hood)

Vol 4 was made in the same way as the previous volumes; we traded the two books back and forth about once a week (after completing a spread a day). However, whenever we traded books we also gave each other bags of collage material which we had to use for our compositions. As a result, pages completed by Ashley were completed using material from Hattie's practice, and vice- versa. Picture having to write an essay using only words and phrases from someone else's vocabulary.

Volume Three

Vol. 3 (Bolts)

Vol. 3 (Smokestack)

Hattie and Ashley were both nominated for the Windgate fellowship award, and as a result, chose to keep Vol. 3 as simple as possible. Made with bits of notebook paper, old book pages, and other scraps, this volume was kept primarily to drawings, notes, and blackout poems.

Volume Two

Vol. 2 (Wha? Ok!)

Vol. 2 ("It's A Good Tea." The Best.)

Throughout the course of working on Vol. 2 we were constantly referring to "the pink one." Our rule for this one was that in the "Wha? Ok!" book we could only use shades of pink. The pages of both books were made with the same misc. collection of paper (pulled from magazines, wallpaper sample books, posters, etc.), all of which was either grey or shades of pink and purple. Since we traded the books back and forth we both had equal opportunity to work with the color limitation.

Volume One

Vol. 1 (Butterfly)

Vol. 1 (Blue Ridge)

Well folks, this is where it all started. Here is Vol. 1 of The Breakfast Journals. They are (all) 2.5 x 3 inches. We each constructed one of the two books and then completed a spread a day every day for about a week, after which we would trade books. The end products are about 50% Hattie’s content and 50% Ashley’s content. Sometimes we would have Bkfst Journaling dates and work on the books at the same time. As a result there are some spreads that match each other-- made at the same time with the same material.