San Rafael’s downtown is getting a little more magical this month and next thanks to the whimsical handiwork of local artist Adrienne Biggs.
Her latest show, Black, White and Read All Over, transforms ordinary rescued books into three-dimensional sculptures that surprise and delight the eye.
From delicate folded pages to towering totems, each piece invites passersby to pause, look closer and experience the joy of discovery. With a free public demonstration and hands-on workshop in town, Biggs is not just sharing her art—she’s creating a playful, inclusive space for the community to connect, learn and fold their own stories into something new.
Biggs grew up in a deeply creative household. Her mother was a Grammy-noted singer with a passion for Montessori and Waldorf education, while her father, now 93, devoted his life to composing classical and modern music. Instead of sports, the family performed and toured together, filling their home with instruments and encouraging improvisation and harmony. Biggs began violin lessons at age three and still plays today, carrying forward the artistic foundation her parents instilled. And now, she’s here in Marin keeping the arts alive, vibrant and varied.
“I was living in San Francisco but working in San Rafael (at Skywalker Ranch, then Industrial Light & Magic). And I fell in love, and we made a baby. She is going to be 30 this November, and still lives in her hometown, Fairfax. So basically, to quote a good friend, I came to Marin from SF because I ‘swam upstream to spawn.’ Not unlike many families here these days. It’s a trend,” she said.
Biggs currently resides in San Rafael, where she has lived for decades. A lifelong lover of books and music, she has built a life centered on creativity, community and the joy of transforming everyday objects into art … including, of course, Bookagami.
“Book Folding and Altered Books is a global art genre,” she said. “I’d been a fan of the category for the past 30 years or so. I didn’t invent the art form. I just came up with the name (Bookagami, patent pending). My ‘oooh, I can re-use that for this’ instinct was pretty well-honed from an early age.”
Biggs explained that her mother was “a Depression-era baby” and her parents were full-time musicians. She grew up in a household where nothing went to waste. Plastic bags became liners for planter boxes, shoe boxes held toys and receipts, and newspapers doubled as gift wrap once they’d been read cover to cover.
Her mother’s years teaching in Japan filled the family library with books on origami, wabi sabi and minimalism, influences that seeped into Biggs’ own sensibility. In elementary school, she folded paper cranes by the dozen, and by middle school, she was bending the pages of assigned books into makeshift markers—an early sign of the art form she would later embrace.
“I think you can measure a person by the books on their bookshelf, or the tunes on their playlists, you know what I mean?” she said. “In my book publishing career, I saw a lot of waste. It was common practice to tear the cover off of books that had passed their sale date, and toss the rest of the book into a recycling bin.”
“Horrifying,” Biggs added. “So, what to do with physical books that have outgrown their usefulness in your life, but you don’t want to toss them? I thought about that often.”
She didn’t realize until recently that her approach to books and materials has a name: Circular Economy. This philosophy challenges the traditional linear model by keeping products in use beyond their initial purpose, addressing waste, pollution and climate change on an individual level. For her, it’s a natural fit to turn overlooked or discarded books into something new, beautiful and meaningful.
Her obsession began in 2024 after attending a two-hour Book Folding workshop at Town Books in San Anselmo, where she learned simple folds using donated volumes with no resale value. Folding one or two books a day, often in public, she drew attention from passersby, prompting her to create a name—Bookagami—and share her work through Instagram and workshops. While some book lovers grumble that the books can’t be read again, Biggs points out that these volumes were likely headed for the recycling bin anyway. Through folding, she gives them a second life as art and invites others to see the potential in objects one might otherwise overlook.
“When folded and hung, I’d say individual hardcover art, cooking or home décor books can really make an impactful, unique piece of art that doesn’t take up too much space in a home, office or workspace,” said Biggs. “For the stacked totems, thick paperback books lend themselves well to the 360-degree wow factor. Tiny books are super cute and easy to fold. Plus, who doesn’t like tiny everything?”
Biggs believes that handmade crafts have made a resurgence since the Covid era, and that book folding is well within the fold. She thinks there is a special magic in scoring that first fold—a simple, meditative act that anyone can do, anywhere. The practice offers both the joy of creating something unique and the satisfaction of rescuing discarded materials, giving them new life while doing a small good for the planet as well as local art lovers.
“[In Marin,] we have a vibrant live music scene almost every night of the week,” said Biggs. “[There are] diverse festivals and farmers’ markets, live theater, the world-class Rafael Film Center and the wonderful programming at the vintage single-screen Lark Theater, incredible bookstores and a county-wide library system, workshops of all kinds. And recently, San Rafael has been named by the State of California as a cultural hub and Downtown Arts District anchored by ArtWorks Downtown, MarinMOCA, Falkirk Cultural Center and MarinArts.org. So we’re getting there with arts and culture.”
“There are so many long-empty storefronts, especially in downtown San Rafael (where I’ve lived since 1999),” she added. “It seems the building owners would rather have them sit vacant indefinitely than host, at the very least, front-window exhibits by local artists. So I’m very grateful to Marelli Bros. shoe repair (now 100+ years old) and the independent non-profit art gallery (a tribute to the life of local artist Cynthia Pepper) for being open to the idea of converting their unused front window space into a rotating art window featuring underserved local artists (like me).”
Black, White and Read All Over will be on view from 10am to 4pm, Tuesday through Saturday, at Marelli Bros., 1318 4th St., in San Rafael through the end of October.
A free, public demonstration will take place from 5 to 8pm on Friday, Sept. 12, during the Downtown Art Walk. On Thursday, Sept. 18, Biggs will host a hands-on Bookagami workshop from 6 to 8pm at Pint Size Lounge in downtown San Rafael. For more details, visit adriennebiggs.com/art or follow @IntoTheFoldBookagami on Instagram.
