GBW BLOG

Bookbinding 2000 Demonstrations – Don Etherington, Fully Dressed in Leather: Conservation Style, RIT Cary Graphic Arts Press, ISBN1-933360-6, DVD running time 68 min, $40 (or $33 if bought as part of a set)

The conference Bookbinding 2000 brought together an international audience of binders and bibliophiles to commemorate the installation of Bernard C. Middleton’s collection of books on binding and related arts at Rochester Institute of Technology’s (RIT) Cary Graphic Arts Collection. Part of the proceedings consisted of twelve lectures or demonstrations. Of these, the RIT Cary Graphic Arts Press has released six in both VHS and DVD format. This review only covers Don Etherington’s “Fully Dressed in Leather: Conservation Style.” The others will be reviewed in upcoming Newsletters.

Let me start off by saying that this is by far the best bookbinding instructional video I have seen to date. Don presents the information clearly and fully, and the video quality and editing is top notch and of a fully professional production.

In the video, Don demonstrates just the covering of the book (smooth spine, hollow back) in full leather. However, prior to the actual demonstration he gives a detailed explanation of how the book was forwarded and the reason why it was done this way.  One detail is the beveled boards, which allow much thicker leather to be used and still end up with elegant and pleasing edges. I found that throughout the demonstration, Don’s explaining why he was using a certain process was extremely informative. Instead of just following a step-by-step course, I understood the underlying reasoning behind it.

Following this brief introduction, Don then covers the book in full leather. It is here that the excellent camera work and editing come into play. In his Abbey Newsletter (Vol. 24, No. 1) article, Terry Belanger comments on the filming of the Bookbinding 2000 demonstrations: “[T]he star of the show was a video camera on an articulated boom whose unseen operator could cause his instrument to buzz around the demonstrations.”

Throughout the demonstration you are clearly able to see what Don is doing. When a close-up is needed it is there and in focus. This attention to detail makes the entire demonstration easy to follow and understand.

Once the covering is completed, Don gives a brief explanation of what he would have done differently had the book been done with raised bands. Questions from the audience are closed-captioned.

Given the high quality of the demonstration (this is Don Etherington after all) and the quality of the filming, I can highly recommend the video. The pricing is also very reasonable, especially if bought as part of the six-DVD set.

Frank Lehmann is a bookbinder/conservator in private practice. He runs Lehmann Bindery, located in Northern San Diego County, which consists of himself and two dogs—and he has no delusions who really runs the place.

Thanks are due to the GBW Newsletter, where this review was originally published.

Just My Type: A book about fonts by Simon Garfield with a foreward by Chipp Kidd.

GOTHAM BOOKS  Published by Penguin Group (USA) Inc. Hardcover, dust jacket, 5¾ x 8½ inches, 356 pages, U.S.$27.50, Can$32.00. ISBN 978-1-592-40652-4

An announcement of the publication of Just My Type caught my eye (the dust jacket design is striking) and I found myself smiling because it was somewhere out there in the world and not in a book related publication. It looked to be entertaining and informative, so I requested a copy to review.

I was enjoying reading it enormously until I came across another review  by Paul Shaw in ‘Inprint-The Online Community for Graphic Designers’ which pointed out, on many occasions, that some of the information wasn’t true. That rather spoiled it and I put the book aside for several weeks, picking it up now and then to read a few pages or a chapter out of order.

Maybe it was Garfield’s humor that got up Shaw’s nose. Most of the time I really enjoyed the way Garfield presented the information and told the stories associated with the design of type. I do though have to agree with Shaw in taking exception to the statement, “And calligraphy is virtually gone, a craft Prince Charles is said to be keen on, hanging on grimly behind glass on the qualification certificates of quantity surveyors and chiropractors.” Shaw’s description is “snotty put-downs.” I just think Garfield is ill informed.

Just My Type is entertaining and informative. Apparently not all of the information is entirely correct, but overall I would say it is enjoyable and certainly taught me more about type design and has given me added reason to appreciate the work involved. This is not a history of type design, but does give historic information through chapters on various designers and observations on major shifts that have taken place as a result of technological changes in print communication.

Through my work as a binder I am aware of type design, but the stories Garfield tells have made me even more aware and did get me thinking of those early days, studying binding. We did so much work then with brass engraved hand held letters which were so incredibly expensive to purchase. Oh the hours we all spent trying to decide what type face to purchase and then what size. And the greatest disappointment was to find that what seemed a fail safe way to title a book, in the type face it was printed in, didn’t always look right or read well impressed with gold on a leather spine. The chapters in Just My Type illustrate similar specific examples of use which explains different typefaces’ use and influence.

This is a great read and will spark your curiosity to continue research. You will find yourself smiling when you pass the next road sign, turn on the computer or go to the grocery. The endpapers are the The Periodic Table of Typefaces and there is a bibliography to begin the list for more information.

I enjoyed this book so much I think GOTHAM BOOKS should publish another version with better reproductions of the examples and double check on the accuracy of all the information!

Gabrielle Fox is a bookbinder trained in England and now based in Cincinnati, Ohio. She is the author of The Essential Guide to Making Handmade Books and is now writing the history of Larkspur Press.

Thanks are due to the GBW Newsletter, where this review was originally published.

Dissertation-in-progress by Melissa Moreton

PhD Candidate, Department of History, University of Iowa

My research concerns the role religious women played in the production of medieval and Renaissance manuscripts, as scribes, illuminators and early printers. It is commonly understood that much of the classical and Christian writing that survived from Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages was copied and preserved by monks. However, it is less well known that female scribes and illuminators accounted for a significant contribution to this production throughout the Middle Ages, Renaissance and into the early modern period. Nuns also participated in the printing of books in the early decades after the advent of printing. It is these contributions, particularly the production of secular and religious texts by Italian nuns, which is the subject of my dissertation.

More than fifteen female religious houses have been identified as sites of book production in fifteenth and sixteenth-century Italy, and almost two thirds of these are located in Florence. Nuns’ book production in Renaissance Florence took place in a variety of female religious communities, including Dominican, Benedictine, Vallombrosian, Brigittine, Clarissan and Augustinian. One convent in particular, the Dominican house of San Jacopo di Ripoli, embodied both the technologies of manuscript production and printing. The San Jacopo nuns produced liturgical manuscripts throughout the Middle Ages and Renaissance, working on scribal production, musical notation and sometimes illumination. In the 1470s a printing press was also established at their house by two friars from San Marco, a male Dominican house on the other side of town (known for the famous friars associated with the house, Fra Angelico and Savonarola and its patronage by Cosimo de’Medici who commissioned a library there). The nuns played an important role in the patronage of this early Florentine press, providing a site for production, commissioning religious works and sometimes working as compositors, setting the type for secular works such as Pulci’s Morgante and perhaps other humanist and classical works as well. Active for eight years, the San Jacopo press was only the second press ever to be established in Florence and the first to produce a substantial body of work, printing over 100 secular and religious titles (12,000 volumes) as well as pamphlets and broadsides.

Colophon identifying nun-scribe Sister Angela, of the convent of San Jacopo di Ripoli, in a Florentine manuscript of c. 1500

At Le Murate, a Benedictine house in Florence’s Franciscan neighborhood of Santa Croce, the nuns produced devotional and liturgical manuscripts from the early 1470s through the sixteenth century. Some of these were luxury manuscripts, given as gifts to wealthy and influential patrons – for example, a Medici pope, wealthy local businessmen or aristocrat with family ties to the nuns in that house. As gift objects, these manuscripts created and solidified ties of patronage, connections that were essential to the financial survival and prestige of the religious community. Another site of book production was the Brigittine double monastery of Santa Brigida al Paradiso just outside of Florence, which housed both monks and nuns. The scriptorium was active during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, producing mostly devotional and theological texts, with at least 48 manuscripts identified with scribal signatures by Paradiso nun-scribes. Some Florentine women’s houses produced both scribal and illumination work.

My research concerns the role religious women played in the production of manuscripts and books – as bookmakers, scribes, early printers – and intellectual participants in the lives of their communities. Evidence of their work serves to remind us of women’s role in the transmission of classical and early Christian literature and also presents historians with a wealth of information concerning the nuns’ levels of education, literacy, religious and artistic life and practice. However, their contributions go beyond their own religious communities. The nuns’ intellectual and artistic pursuits, business acumen, as well as their ability to forge alliances through their craft production allowed them to survive, thrive and make a significant impact on life both inside and outside their convents. Nuns collaborated with secular male illuminators, religious counterparts and bookbinders to produce their books – from affordable early printed books for secular and religious readers, books for internal convent use and the education of the nuns, books for humanist book owners and members of other religious communities, to high end luxury manuscripts used to solidify ties of patronage. As the makers of books, the nuns of Renaissance Florence became essential contributors to the burgeoning community of scholars, artists and intellectuals who shaped Italian and European history in this period and into the modern era.

Melissa Moreton

PhD Candidate, Department of History

University of Iowa, Iowa City

melissa-moreton@uiowa.edu

Last year my husband and I had the amazing opportunity to spend a few months living just outside of Paris, France. We took in many incredible sights, and one of the most beautiful to my bookbinding eyes was our walk through Relma, the bookbinding shop pictured in these photos.

As someone who doesn’t live near the few stores in our country that are stocked with a wide variety of supplies and materials, it was a special treat to walk into the shop and be surrounded by all of this splendor.

In the first GBW blog post, Andrew Huot said that the blog is “for everyone interested in thinking about and making books.” Looking at the great variety in Relma certainly set my mind churning, I hope these photos do the same for you.

- Monica Holtsclaw

A 40 year retrospective of Twinrocker Paper, arguably the most important American paper mill of the late 20th century, is currently on view through December 17, 2010, at the Robert C. Williams Paper Museum at Georgia Tech in Atlanta, Georgia.  “Twinrocker: Forty Years of Hand Papermaking” is a celebration of the exceptional work of the husband and wife team, Howard and Kathryn Clark.  The exhibit encompasses the breadth, depth and exquisite quality of the work produced by them through the inclusion of photographs and videos of the Clarks, as well as examples of their superb work.

A bit of history, Howard is a mechanical engineer by training and degree, Kathryn holds an MFA in printmaking.  While living and working in San Francisco in 1971, the Clarks began to explore the process of hand papermaking when Kathryn wanted to use handmade paper for her prints.  She quickly learned that none was being made in the United States at the time.  Thus, began the Clarks quest to make fine handmade paper available.  Working collaboratively in their respective areas of expertise, and through much trial and error, they explored and gained competency in the process of hand papermaking. Their first order for paper came from Roger Levenson of Tamalpais Press, and their circle of collaboration grew.

With the death of Howard’s father in 1972 Howard and Kathryn moved to the Clark family’s farm in Brookston, Indiana, northwest of Indianapolis.  They immediately got to work and built a 24 x 48 foot studio.  As people heard of the Clarks’ work, orders for papers began to come in from all over the U. S., including Pauper’s Press, Landfall Press, and Bird and Bull Press, and the Clarks worked with each press to create a paper to suit their individual needs.

As one approaches the entrance of the exhibit, one sees a portion of the Academy Award nominated film “The Mark of the Maker: Twinrocker – Handmade Paper,“ as it is shown in a continuous loop.  It is a tantalizing tease of what is yet to come.  Several photographs, taken in 1982 and 1983 by Todd Matus, show the Clark family farm and the paper studio in Brookston, Indiana.  The pictures include a somewhat forlorn farmhouse, Kathryn’s studio with several works in progress, and an uncompleted roll that Howard was working on.  Perhaps the most charming photo is of Kathryn examining a newly pulled sheet of paper still on the mold.

The items produced by Twinrocker that are included in the exhibit were produced from the mid 1970s up until the present, and the collaborative nature of the Clarks’ work is evident in everything.  The Clarks worked with the client, be it an individual artist or a press, in order to produce papers that were most suited to the vision of the artist, whether it was for a broadside, book, or painting.  In “Self Portrait in a Convex Mirror,” 1984, the Clarks made round sheets of paper for the Arion Press publication of John Ashbery’s work.  It included original prints by Richard Avedon, Elaine de Koonig, Willem de Koonig, Jim Dine and others.  The Clarks also worked with the artist Chuck Close to create paper for many of his works.  One of his pixelated self-portraits is included in the exhibit.

The books included in this exhibit are stunning.  Through the years the Clarks have collaborated with a large number of private presses, including the Janus Press, Perishable Press, Yolla Bolly Press, Brighton Press, 21^st Editions, Pacific Editions, Avit Press, Sherwin Beach Press, and Red Hydra Press.   Most are case bound bindings, but there are a few less traditional structures, like “Self Portrait in a Convex Mirror,”  and concertinas.  The earliest piece in the exhibit, “Aura,” is from 1977.  The 4 foot long landscape of colored pulps illustrates the poem by Hayden Carruth and is clearly a beautiful collaborative effort between Twinrocker and Janus Press.

My favorite book in the entire exhibit is extremely subtle.  It is “Inscription,” by Diane Samuels, 2001.  At first glance it appears to be a leather bound blank book, albeit, a beautifully bound blank book.  Upon closer examination one sees that there actually is  text on the pages, or rather, in the pages, as the text is created in watermarks.

All of the pieces call out to be touched and opened, and closely examined, but that is not possible as they are all behind glass or plexiglass.  So it is good to note that a sample book of  Twinrocker paper is available and allows people to feel the exquisite nature of many Twinrocker papers.

With so many items from Twinrocker available in a single location, this is definitely an exhibit worth seeing.

Marcia Watt

GBW Member, Southeast Chapter