Four minutes to explain bookbinding — that was my exciting challenge today during a live TV taping of "Talk of the Town" on Nashville's News Channel 5.
You can see the full segment — my first experience like this — on the Talk of the Town website.
I got this opportunity because of my upcoming book arts workshop at Watkins College, through their Community Education department. The show's host, Meryll Rose, invited me on to demonstrate one of three miniature book ornaments that I'll be teaching on Nov. 15 (details here). It's a class I love to teach, and this season I've created a more in-depth workshop that should be better than ever.
Of course, for the show, I was doing a dramatically abbreviated explanation. I got ready in a way quite different from a normal class. Similar to a cooking show, I had to prepare my bookbinding "ingredients" to show each step. This means I had a lot of partially completed books on hand — some folded pages, other pieces of book board partially covered with decorative paper, and a few loose ribbons.
I was calm before going on the air, but I'll admit the last minute before we went live passed quickly, as did the four minutes on air. After the whirlwind experience, I had to wait a few hours to see the clip online, catching up to what everyone else in the city had seen earlier in the day. It was cool to see my little handmade books featured under the bright lights, with multiple cameras zooming in and out.
My morning at the TV studio gave me a neat behind-the-scenes view. And while I liked getting a taste of local showbiz, I'll probably stick with talking to students about bookbinding instead of into the camera.