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bookbinding journal

November 2003

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11-1-03  I am officially back to bookbinding, or maybe that should read "officially back to journaling."  Even though I'm involved making handmade paper throughout much of the year, I still do occasional books.  This past week I have been working on a project that is almost complete, but pictures and additional information about it can't be uploaded until November 11.  And there is information on this site about a book I did back in September for Brian Boggs to use for a patron sign-in book at his shop.  **Today  did a bookbinding demo at the Kentucky Artisan Center at Berea.  It's a neat place, and the work represented there is truly outstanding.  I find demos a little unnerving, probably because I have difficulty talking and working at the same time, at least if the project requires concentration.  For demos, I try to pick something to do that requires little or no thought.  Today I worked on a simple Coptic bound book.  The covers are handmade paper from mixed plant pulps and the spine protector is agrimony.  I also did the stitching for a quarterbound book, which I will finish in the next few days.

11-2-03  If you're reading this strictly for bookbinding information, bear with me for a short while.  I'm still in transition from papermaking.  Today was spent test beating shredded cotton/ramie for a friend.  I pulled a few sample sheets, but the bulk of the pulp will be used at the Berea Arts Council for a free Christmas card pulling day.

11-14-03  This is the book that I couldn't upload information about until after the 11th.  It was presented to Allison Kaiser, the Director of the Kentucky Guild of Artists and Craftsmen at the November Board meeting.  She is leaving KGAC at the end of November to head the Lexington Art League.  Although I hate that Allison is leaving, I had a ball doing the book.  It began at the Fall Fair as loose, folded sheets on which the members wrote their good wishes and messages.  Some used one page, some the two facing pages, which made for an interesting time assembling the pages into signatures.  But before they were assembled, pictures from Allison's past four and a half years were printed throughout the book.  I've played default photographer for KGAC for the last six years and so was fortunate to have just about anything needed to make the book memorable and, at times, funny.  One of the first pages held members' head shots snipped from one picture or another.  Made for some...interesting(?) expressions.  Fortunately, these people know me and will still be friends after this.  The cloth for the cover is a cracked paint print cotton from Wal-Mart.  The spine is also cotton from the same source.  Both were backed with paper using a wheat paste.  Allison's name was printed on the same cloth as the spine, then that mounted on a very thin sheet of davey board.  This was set into a recessed area on the cover.  I really, really wanted black ribbon to play off the black cracks in the cover, and had it not been close to Halloween, the odds of finding it here in Berea wouldn't have been great.  But Wal-Mart had it, along with orange, which I passed on.  Once it was bound, I collected additional message for Allison from the Mayor, City Manager and additional members of the craft community.  As I said, it was a fun book to do.  **This is a book I have been meaning to do since back in the summer when I pulled paper especially for it.  I wanted to bind it for a very special person who tried her best to teach me sumi-e.  It was a lost cause, but not the teacher's fault.  The paper for the book cover is cattail head fluff accented with a scrimshawed deer antler.  The inside pages are a mixture of spiderword, blue fescue, hickory and cotton rag with giant selloum inclusions.  The end sheets and pastedowns are rose mallow and curly dock leaf stems.

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