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A custom
bookmaker
creates heirlooms
— starring your
loved ones.

BY SHELLI LIEBMAN DORFMAN

Above: Robin Spencer Arm spins
her yarns from her home studio.
Top: The Barr family of Birmingham
commissioned a book to be photo-
graphed at their cottage Up North.

B 1 2 •

JANUARY 2008 •

TN platimun

There may be many books in Sharon Brown's Bloomfield Hills
home, but a special one, titled Papa's Treasures, is the one Brown
maintains is a cherished keepsake.
The book, created for her husband, Richard, by custom book-
maker Robin Spencer Arm, was presented to him as a surprise
70th birthday gift during a recent family vacation.
As with Arm's other books — created to mark milestones,
chronicle family histories or profile a special someone — she
invited the Brown family to include their personal writings and
photos, along with some of her own. "Richard and I are blessed to
have three married children and 10 grandchildren," Brown says.
"Each family member, including myself, wrote a brief paragraph.
Surrounding the messages were photographs Robin had taken of
us over a period of several months."
While working many years in the advertising business — most
recently as a senior vice president-creative director for McCann
Erikson in Troy (now of Birmingham) — Arm was involved with
projects like Tiger Woods commercials for Buick and with big
brands like Princess Cruise Lines, Kroger, John Deere and Kraft.
But she found her demanding professional life beginning to take
up valuable home and family time — sometimes work took her out
of town for five or six weeks at a time.
"When our son Jesse, who is now 11, was younger, I could take
him with me," Arm says. "But as he got older, if the shoots didn't
coincide with his school vacations, he couldn't join me."
So Arm formed Spinning Yarns Press, named for her art of
"telling stories" — and which allows her to work her own hours.
"I run my business out of my [West Bloomfield] home — and
Starbucks," jokes Arm, who holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree
in graphic design and photography. "I have a small home studio
for portraits and a lovely wooded yard where I sometimes shoot."

Other locations include lakes, private homes and parks — includ-
ing Manhattan's Central Park. Clients have brought her to
Chicago, Florida, California and Up North.
"Since there weren't many similar businesses to model after,
I had to learn as I went along," Arm says. So she purchased her
first digital camera and took photographs of her son with her
nieces and neighborhoods kids in their Halloween costumes.
After writing the copy and designing the layout for the book, she
printed it on her own photo printer, had it bound and titled it
Little Monsters.
"The feedback I got was phenomenal," Arm says. "Everybody
wanted one."
The books have since evolved from Little Monsters, a story with
a beginning, middle and end, into books that are more a collection
of poems and short stories that accompany diversely chosen photos.
Three years — and 275 books later — Arm has clients in
Detroit, New York, Florida and Las Vegas. Books are commis-
sioned for everything from tributes and milestones to corporate
projects and what she calls a "Party in a Book," compilations of
existing photos provided by friends, family and colleagues of the
book's honoree.
Each creation begins with client meetings where Arm learns
about the purpose of the book and the character and interests of
the recipient. For those who will be including her photography in
their book, the location of a 200- to 300-picture photo shoot is
set. When kids are involved, she says, "It includes dress up, sports,
snacks and fun." In addition to welcoming photos and personal
words provided by clients, Arm creates her own poems and writ-
ings, customized for each book.
For Ann Feldman of Waterford, the photos Arm took of
Feldman's children Aaron, 9, and Sara, 7, were beyond what she