2010 Standards of Excellence

October 14-16, 2010
Radisson Suites Tucson
Tucson, Arizona

 

Quick Links:

• Register for Standards Online
• Download printable Registration Form (please note that credit card payments can only be accepted online)
• Important Registration Information
• Online Vendors Registration
• Scholarship Information
• Seminar Schedule
• Presentations and Presenters
• Tours
• Hotel and Travel Information
• GBW Newsletter Standards Pullout Section (large PDF)
• Auction Donation Form (PDF)

 

Registration

Registration is limited to 140 people. Deadline to register is September 14, 2010. This year online registration is available and encouraged. If you are paying with credit card, you must register online. All questions regarding registration should be directed to Alicia Bailey, Treasurer. All fees listed on the registration form are in US dollars.

Cancellations will be accepted with full refunds (less 10% cancellation fee) through September 14, 2010. No refunds are given for cancellations made within the 30 days prior to the conference. Cancellation fees do not apply to scholarship applicants who do not receive an award and are unable to attend without financial assistance.

 

Scholarships

• Download Scholarship Application (PDF)

Scholarships are available to attend the Standards of Excellence in Hand Bookbinding Seminar to Guild of Book Workers members for whom attendance would create a financial hardship. There are scholarships for both student and regular members. Non-members may apply, but are required to become a member prior to attending the Seminar.

The scholarship consists of a waiver of registration fees to the seminar, banquet, and four nights lodging at the Seminar hotel (does not include phone calls, movie rentals, or any other room service). Recipients are responsible for making their own travel plans and hotel reservations. Recipients may be asked to help with newsletter coverage and/or assist with other tasks during the seminar. Applications must be received by August 14, 2009. Address questions to Andrew Huot, Scholarship Committee Chair.

 

Seminar Schedule

Wednesday, October 13, 2010

3:00 - 8:00 pm: Registration and Information Table

 

Thursday, October 14, 2010

8:00 - 5:00 pm: Registration and Information Table
12:00 - 5:00 pm: Vendor Room
9:00 am - 4:00 pm: Tucson Time Travel Tour
9:30 am - 3:00 pm: University of Arizona Art and Conservation Tour
6:00 - 8:00 pm - Opening Reception (University of Arizona Special Collections; transportation between the Radisson Suites and the UA Special Collections provided)

 

Friday, October 15, 2010

8:00 am - 5:00 pm: Registration and Information Table
8:00 am - 6:00 pm: Vendor Room
9:00 am - 12:00 pm: Morning Session (30 minute break at 10:15)
12:00 pm - 2:00 pm: Lunch
2:00 pm - 5:00 pm: Afternoon Session (30 minute break at 3:15)
5:00 pm - 6:00 pm: GBW Annual Business Meeting

 

Saturday, October 16, 2009

8:00 am - 5:00 pm: Registration and Information Table
8:00 am - 4:00 pm: Vendor Room
9:00 am - 12:00 pm: Morning Session (30 minute break at 10:15)
12:00 pm - 2:00 pm: Lunch
2:00 pm - 5:00 pm: Afternoon Session (30 minute break at 3:15)
6:00 - 7:00 pm: Cash Bar and Silent Auction
7:00 - 8:30 pm: Annual Banquet
8:30 - 10:00 pm: Auction

 

Presentations and Presenters

Michael Burke – Byzantine Binding

Michael Burke started his working life as a chemist researching the transformation of coal into oil. He later worked in occupational health with asbestos. Michael sudied bookbinding with Dominic Riley and paper conservation with Karen Zukor. He was involved in establishing the bindery at the San Francisco Center for the Book, and edited Gold Leaf, the journal of the Hand Bookbinders of California.

Michael lives in the Lake District, England, where he teaches bookbinding at the Brewery Arts Centre in Kendal and at Society of Bookbinders (SoB) events across the UK. He is a past chair of the North West and North Wales region of SoB. He has taught for diverse book arts groups across the USA, including Los Angeles, Seattle and Salt Lake City and in 2007 he taught at Paper and Book Intensive in Michigan. Last year he travelled to São Paulo to teach for the Brazilian group ABER. In recent years Michael has been researching the structures of ancient and medieval bindings. Michael will demonstrate the making of a medieval Byzantine binding. This leather binding is unique in that is bound from the boards to the center, resulting in a natural rounding of the spine, at which point the two halves are joined.

Nancy Ruth Leavitt – In Search of Content, the Joys and Challenges of Creating the Book Form

Nancy Leavitt is a calligrapher specializing in unique hand lettered and painted manuscript books. Leavitt's interest in the hand lettered book developed as a result of her studies in the U.S. and Great Britain. Her work resides in many prestigious collections and she has received several grants from the Maine Arts Commission for research into her craft, including quill cutting. She lives, works, and sings in Stillwater, Maine.

Like an engineering project, a book is a complex three- dimensional design made up of many parts. Content is the central idea of the design and narrative is how it unfolds, how the story is revealed and concealed. Our goal as bookmakers is to intentionally integrate all aspects of the design to strengthen the structure, form, and content of our works. Through demonstration and example, Nancy discusses her rigorous yet playful method of researching, compiling data, developing, and realizing materials for her manuscript books.

Martha Little – Book Forensics: Interpreting Evidence of Structure

Martha Little has been a bookbinder and book conservator since 1976. She was Book Conservator at the Yale University Library and Head of Conservation at the University of Michigan Libraries, and is now in private practice in California. Her early training was with Jane Greenfield, who incorporated a study of historical structures and the making of models into the work day, and with Roger Powell in England, whose powers of meticulous observation will always be an unattainable standard. Martha took part last year in a condition survey of manuscript books at the National Library of Egypt in Cairo, where she learned that two people can look at the same detail and see two different things.

 

Every book conservator accumulates a knowledge of some of the small details that are clues to a book's invisible or lost structure. A remnant of a leather strap may lie in a board; extra holes suggestive of an earlier sewing may be apparent in the folds; raised areas where the covering material has become worn reveal where cords are laced in underneath. Martha's presentation will examine more ways of interpreting physical evidence when examining a book, in order to determine how it was made and what materials were used. She will bring old books to look at and discuss; recreate evidence though different means to see which interpretation seems more plausible; demonstrate some simple tests to identify materials, and show how the knowledge of the observer can both help with and get in the way of seeing what's there.

Jeffrey S. Peachey – Late Eighteenth Century French Binding Structures

Jeffrey S. Peachey is the owner of a New York City-based studio for the conservation of books and the inventor of conservation tools and and machines. He is a Professional Associate in the American Institute for Conservation and a previous chair of the Conservators In Private Practice. For more than 20 years, he has specialized in the conservation of books and paper artifacts for institutions and individuals. A consultant to major libraries and university collections in the New York City region and nationally, he has been the recipient of numerous grants to support his work. A well-known teacher, Peachey also provides conservation-focused guidance to students in art, bookbinding and conservation programs.

This presentation will focus on the structural aspects of a typical 18th century full calf French binding by comparing contemporary descriptions in bookbinding manuals, examining extant bindings and experimenting with reproduction tools and equipment. In some respects, this structure is the end of utilitarian leather binding- 50 years later the cloth case begins to predominate. Some features of this binding style include cutting the boards with a pointe, ploughing the edges in-boards, four variations of transverse spine liners and sprinkled cover decoration. Primary texts include Diderot's Encylopedie (1751-1780). Gauffecourt's Traite de la Relieure des Livres (1763) and Dudin's L'Art du Relieur-doreur de Livres (1772). Specific conservation concerns for these structures will also be discussed.

 

Tours

Both tours take place on Thursday, October 14, 2010. Only one tour can be attended, if desired. Please make selection on Registration Form.

Tucson Time Travel Time:

The San Xavier Mission and the Titan Missile Museum

Travel to the 18th Century. The San Xavier Mission is a national historic landmark. It was founded as a Catholic Mission in 1692, and the current church has been standing since 1797. It is the oldest intact European structure in Arizona and is filled with original statuary and murals. The mission still serves its original purpose of ministering to the religious needs of its parishioners. Then travel back to the future. The Titan Missile Museum is the only publicly accessible Titan II missile site in the nation. Tour the underground missile site. See the 3-ton blast doors, the 8-foot thick silo walls, and an actual Titan II missile in the launch duct. Visit the launch control center, experience a simulated launch and more.

University of Arizona Art and Conservation Tour:

UA Center for Creative Photography, State Museum Conservation Lab, and the School of Art

The UA Center for Creative Photography is an archive and and research center that retains the archives of Ansel Adams, Edward Weston, Gary Winogrand, Harry Callahan, and other great 20th century photographers. The UA State Museum holds vast and varied collections focused primarily on the peoples of the Greater South- west. Their state-of-the-art conservation lab provides both preventive and interventive treatments to the Museum's vast collections. The UA School of Art is ranked among the top art schools in the nation and has an active book arts and letterpress program. The School has recently acquired a building where they will establish a Center for the Book, which they hope will be up and running by our visit.

Tour Lunches:
Lunches come with chips, pasta salad, cookie, apple, and soda. Choices include Chicken Caesar Wrap, Italian Sub, and Veggie Sub. Please select one choice on Registration Form.

 

Hotel and Travel Information

The conference hotel is the Radisson Suites Tucson
6555 Speedway Blvd.
Tucson, AZ 85710
Phone: (520) 721-7100; (800) 333-3333
www.radissontucson.com/index.cfm

The Guild room rate is:
$119, Single or Double rate
$129, Triple rate
$139, Quad rate
Applicable taxes will be added to this rate.

This room rate is available until September 10th
or until the Guild's room block is full.

Transportation

Free parking is available at the hotel.

The Radisson Suites offers shuttle service between the hotel and the airport. The cost is $15.00/person each way. This cost may be billed to the hotel room bill. Reservations must be made two weeks in advance by calling the hotel with flight information: (520) 721-7100.

Arizona Stagecoach Shuttle Service offers shuttle service between the hotel and the airport. www.azstagecoach.com, 877- 782-4355. The cost is about $35/person.

Three companies under contract with Tucson Airport Authority provide taxi service from the airport. Taxis are available on the commercial roadway on the lower level of the airport in front of the terminal. Rates are $4.50 flag drop, $2.50 each mile, and $22.00 per hour waiting time. It is approximately 12 miles from the airport to the Radisson Suites Tucson (on Speedway Blvd.).

Sun Tran, Tucson's public bus system, provides service to/from TIA every hour. Check with the Airport Information Centres or call 520-792-9222 for schedules.