Annals of Bookmaking

Last week my studio was taken over by grey Davey board, linen threads, linen tapes and beeswax; paper, paint and relief-blocks; glue and glue-brushes and leather and many sheets of waxed paper; my Chinese chop and its porcelain pot of ink. The big bookpress was pressed repeatedly into service. I finished one small book that I'd already sewn but not covered, and made another one from scratch - a late Christmas gift for a close friend. Now that I've given it to her, I can share some of the process here with you. (It also gave me a chance to try out the close-up features of my new camera.)

The signatures, sewn on linen tapes, covered by a coarse linen mull, set between the cover boards.

The mull is glued to the inside of the cover boards, and then the tapes glued over the mull. The first page of the first and last signatures will be pasted over the tapes and mull, forming a strong hinge.

At this stage it starts to look like a book!

Printing the cover papers on a hand-painted base. I made four different sheets, different designs in the same basic colorway, and chose this one for this particular book. Unfortunately I didn't take any other photos of the process, but here are some pictures of the finished book, which is about 5 inches long by 4 1/2 inches high.

I love the fussiness of bookmaking -- it's probably perfect for a Virgo perfectionist like me. The binding process is very exacting, but there are a lot of creative decisions to be made along the way, and I especially enjoy making the cover papers. Parts of the process are meditative -- the sewing of the signatures, and sanding the edges of the cover boards, for instance -- and require a lot of patience. Other steps have to be carefully prepared and planned, and then executed very quickly. It's only through practice that you learn how to do that, and believe me, I've irreparably screwed up hours and hours of work at the very last minute! This one worked out pretty well, and I was grateful for that. Sometimes I realize I've been holding my breath for a long time, when doing the final gluing, for instance! That part can be pretty tense.

All the materials involved are tactile, special, and many have been used for centuries; for the same reasons that I like calligraphy, I enjoy this process and the feeling of being connected to so many anonymous, careful scribes and binders who have gone before. The Chinese signature chop was a gift from my pen-pal friend in Beijing; it's carved out of alabaster. She told me that the characters are a phoenetic representation of my name. I only seem to use it for bookmaking, where it feels appropriate, and it seems like it adds a special finishing touch.

I told the recipient of this book that she had to use it, it was meant to be written in! And today I was very happy to get a note from her saying she had written a short poem and some reflections in it this morning. Books should live.

Comments

[Martine]

Gorgeous! Will we see them on Etsy?

[Marja-Leena]

Beautiful book, beautiful photography, Beth! I've never learned that art though I'd love to - yet your mention of patience reminds me that I can be short on that with very exact work, even though I am a perfectionist too. Having great skill probably improves the patience. Will you be making more?

[marly youmans]

Beth, you have a wonderful roundness to your creativity--singing, sewing, bookmaking, printmaking, painting, writing, editing, publishing, taking photographs, and so on. It's really admirable. I always feel that I am utterly obsessive and do one thing, and I look with considerable pleasure at people who do a lot of different things in the arts. It must feel so good! And yet I can't make myself do otherwise...

(Oh, I suppose that I do also sing. But that was because I was dragged into a choir. I didn't choose it, as you do. Meanwhile, I am married to the man of a thousand hobbies, and my daughter skips around from film to drawing to writing. Entertaining to watch...)

[Mary]

Oh, this is so lovely.

[Rachel Barenblat]

How gorgeous, Beth. I love these close-ups of this process. The mull -- and how it's glued together -- and the decorated paper. So beautiful: I can almost feel the paper beneath my fingers! I love that you make books in at least two different ways.

[Rachel Barenblat]

I thought I had left a comment here, but it seems to have vanished. Whoops! I shall endeavor to leave it again.

This is a beautiful post about a beautiful book. I love the richness of the images, the linen, the paper -- I can almost feel it. And I love that you make books in at least two different ways: through designing and editing them at Phoenicia, and through shaping them in this way with your own hands.

[Beth]

Thanks for the comments! I'm happy to be able to share these. Martine, I'm not sure - I don't think I can sell these books for anything close to what would feel like a reasonable price for all the handwork that goes into them. The going prices for handmade notebooks on Etsy are really low. Maybe it's better to give them as gifts! I'd consider taking some custom orders, maybe.

Marja-Leena, I make these from time to time, sometimes as specific gifts or for myself to take on a trip, sometimes to keep on hand or just because I get inspired --so yes, I think definitely so!

Marly, thanks for that comment. Of course, I've always admired the single-minded artists like you, and how much you accomplish by focussing on one area...the grass is always greener, and all that!

Thank you, Mary!

Rachel, I'm so glad you like the book. And it's funny - isn't it - the high-tech on-demand process we use at Phoenicia, vs. these one-of-a-kind, handmade books. I think they share a certain sensibility though, and I hope my background in typography and calligraphy and page design, and my love for fine little books, comes through in the printed ones too.

I've been thinking about making a small edition of my haiku illustrated with original relief prints. For that I'd have to go to a workshop that has letterpress equipment; there's one here...I don't know, it would be a big project for very little return except the satisfaction of doing it - but that would be a lot in itself. We'll see. The same thing could be produced in an on-demand book as well, but it wouldn't have the tactile loveliness -- that's a lot of what you lose in mass-production.

[Clive Hicks-Jenkins]

Beautiful. Such meticulous yet freely creative work.

[Beth]

Thanks very much, Clive. I did a freer paper design that I liked better, but the scale was just a little bit too big for this book. So I guess I need to make another - maybe a sketchbook with some special drawing paper this time!