Standards of Excellence 2023

The Standards of Excellence Seminar in Hand Bookbinding is the annual Guild of Book Workers conference. Held annually at a different location around the country, participants attend presentations by leading experts in the fields related to the book and paper arts.

Tours of binderies, conservation facilities, rare book libraries and papermaking establishments are regularly arranged in conjunction with the event.

A list of past presentations is available on the History of Standards page. Additionally, many Seminar presentations are recorded and are now available to stream on Vimeo.

The Guild's Annual Meeting is held in conjunction with the seminar. Many well known Vendors also attend the conference and offer high quality tools and supplies for sale throughout the event. The vendor room is open to the public.

Registration Rates:

All questions regarding registration should be directed to Lawrence Houston, Treasurer. All fees listed on the registration form are in US dollars. There is a cancellation fee of 10% of the Registration Fee up to 30 days before the Seminar. 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. Registrations may not be shared and are non-transferable.

Time: 9:30am - 4:45pm 
Cost per participant: $60
Number of participants: 12

Travel by van to the East Bay to visit three fascinating workspaces! Zukor Art Conservation specializes in the repair and preservation of art and artifacts on paper - prints, drawings, watercolors, pastels, documents, maps, manuscripts, and rare books. John DeMerritt Bookbinding produces small editions of books, boxes and portfolios. The new CODEX Foundation Logan Book Arts Center aims to be a vital part of the arts and culture community in Berkeley, focusing on the art of the handmade book – a dynamic crossroads between the visual and literary arts.

This tour will include time for lunch on your own at the Public Market Emeryville.

Time: 9:30am - 12:30pm AND 1:00 - 4:00pm
Cost per participant: $30
Number of participants per tour: 5

John Sullivan will lead this workshop at his studio in the Project Artaud artists' community. Participants will learn how to make paper out of kozo fibers which have been previously prepared, how to charge the vat, and will learn sheet formation using traditional sugeta. There will be sufficient time to repeat these steps so all participants can form and dry multiple sheets of washi.

Please note that morning and afternoon tours are the same. This tour is wheelchair accessible.

Time: 9:30am - 12:00pm
Cost per participant: $20
Number of participants per tour: 18

Located in the Potrero Hill neighborhood, San Francisco Center for the Book is a non-profit organization that fosters the appreciation of bookbinding and letterpress printing and the critical consideration of artists’ books as a medium of self-expression. Public programs include exhibitions, artist talks, the publication of our annual Small Plates imprint, and group tours. Offering in-person and online workshops, SFCB provides learning opportunities at all levels, from introductory classes to advanced courses spanning the range of bookbinding and letterpress printing techniques.

GBW Standards participants will tour SFCB’s bindery classrooms and print studio, working with staff to print a pre-designed keepsake poster on a Vandercook press. “Datz Press: Global Voices in Contemporary Photobooks” will be on view in SFCB’s exhibition gallery.

Time: 1:45pm - 3:30pm
Cost per participant: $20
Number of participants per tour: 11

The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art is one of the largest museums of modern and contemporary art in the United States and a thriving cultural center for the Bay Area. Conservation at SFMOMA links the lives of objects with the efforts of people across the museum. The Library and Archives preserve and provide access to a growing collection of scholarly and archival research materials, including books, serials, exhibition documentation, ephemera, photographs, and media collections. This tour offers a look behind the scenes at the workroom and conservation studio in the new SFMOMA.

This tour is a walking tour. Participants in wheelchairs may contact standards@guildofbookworkers.org to arrange for alternate transportation. SFMOMA is wheelchair accessible.

Time: 10:00am - 12:00pm
Cost per participant: $20
Number of participants per tour: 18

The Marjorie G. and Carl W. Stern Book Arts & Special Collections Center houses important research collections on printing history, calligraphy and lettering, wit and humor, little magazines and zines, early children’s books and several smaller collections. The SFPL Preservation Unit is responsible for the preservation and conservation of the circulating, reference, and special collections of the San Francisco Public Library and its 27 branches.

This tour is a walking tour. The San Francisco Public Library and conservation lab are both wheelchair accessible.

Friday, September 29 at the American Bookbinders Museum, hosted by the American Academy of Bookbinding

The American Academy of Bookbinding will host a reception honoring graduates, and celebrate 30 years of providing access and opportunity for binders to experience an exceptional education. The event will be held from 7:00pm - 9:00pm at the American Bookbinders Museum, 355 Clementina Street, a short walk from Union Square.

If you arrive to the Seminar early, you will not want to miss the San Francisco Center for the Book's (SFCB) annual Roadworks Steamroller Printing Festival. Sunday, September 24, 2023 marks the 20th anniversary of this illustrious all-day public printmaking and book arts extravaganza. The general public join the festivities, which include free hands-on printmaking and book arts activities, demonstrations, vendors, an open house, and more.

For more information, visit: sfcb.org/RWgeneralinfo.

Finishing tools are expensive and often difficult to find, so being able to make one’s own is an asset to any binder. Though primarily used on leather surfaces, these tools can be used on cloth, paper, and, with some additional consideration, even wood. This presentation will focus on empowering bookbinders to fashion their own custom finishing tools. Brien will demonstrate the process of transforming commercially available brass stock into beautiful and functional tools through metalworking operations such as sawing, filing, drilling, more filing, and basic engraving. With an emphasis on approachability, he’ll illustrate how simple hand tools can result in finishing tools that suit one’s own aesthetics and needs.

BRIEN BEIDLER is a bookbinder and toolmaker whose work celebrates the structure and aesthetics of pre-industrial bindings in a 21st century context. He also enjoys making finishing tools for fellow binders, and teaches workshops on bookbinding, gold tooling with egg glair, and finishing tool making. In his own work, Brien is deeply inspired by the processes of pre-industrial bookbinders and uses tools and techniques that replicate the structural and visual properties of the books they made. His binding practice includes the fabrication of finishing tools, and these occupations work in parallel to explore the beauty and symbolism of individual tool impressions made on book covers. beidlermade.com

Hanji (Korean paper) is an ancient material, made from the inner bark of the mulberry tree. With a long history deeply intertwined with the development of printing and books in Korea, hanji remains a transformative and adaptable material. This presentation will cover a history and technical overview of Korean papermaking as well as a demonstration of Korean bookmaking, with a focus on how book covers were traditionally prepared. The presentation will move on from tradition to explore the intersection of hanji and textiles and the use of hanji for creative expression, including methods for using paper to create patchwork bojagi (a traditional Korean textile). We will conclude with a discussion of recent projects that use hanji as a vehicle for collaboration and community building.

STEPH RUE is an artist working primarily with handmade paper and books as her medium. She received her MFA degree from the University of Iowa Center for the Book and BA degree from Stanford University. She is a 2015–2016 recipient of a Fulbright Research Grant to South Korea, where she studied traditional Korean bookbinding, papermaking, and printing. Her artist books and paper works are held in a number of public and private collections, including Yale University, The Metropolitan Museum of Art Library, and the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco. Steph is a co-founder of the Korean American Artist Collective and a member of the Book/Print Artist/Scholar of Color Collective. She is also a co-founder of Hanji Edition, a publisher of fine art and print works with/on hanji. Steph teaches workshops and classes on papermaking, bookmaking, and related arts, with an emphasis on East Asian techniques. She has taught at Mills College and the San Francisco Center for the Book. Her current project, supported by an NEA grant through the City of Sacramento, is to collect stories of immigration from Asian communities through the study of papermaking and natural dyes. Steph lives and works out of her home studio in Sacramento, CA. bookprintcollective.com/steph-rue

Gabby Cooksey will be showing how to tattoo on leather. Cooksey has always loved illustrative line work and wondered how to incorporate that into her design bindings. In 2021, when designing for a book about human skin bindings, the opportunity finally came about. It took her 3 months of self-taught experimentation which has led to an array of new and exciting ideas. She’ll cover details of the tools used in tattooing, show a brief history of tattooing and finally how to experiment with it yourself so you can make indelible marks on your own skins. .

GABBY COOKSEY is a full-time bookbinder and book artist in Tacoma, WA. Her use of odd materials and mythical stories inspire her books. She went to American Academy of Bookbinding and graduated from North Bennet Street school in 2014. She was the studio assistant for Don Glaister and Suzanne Moore for 6 years and continues to work for Jessica Spring at Springtide Press. Gabby’s work can be found at the Boston Athenaeum, University of Puget Sound, and the Library of Congress. boundbycooksey.com

Detached boards are arguably the most common problem in bound book structures. Traditionally, rebacking was the go-to treatment, but recently less invasive techniques have been developed. The rise in minimally invasive treatments is especially prevalent in book conservation, as books are becoming material evidence of historical communication networks rather than repositories of textually based information. Peachey will present a new way of organizing fifty ways of board reattachment. There are five overarching categories: sewing extensions and joint tacketing, inner and outer hinge repairs, interior board attachments, and rebacking. An overview of the first four categories will be presented, a selection of practical techniques demonstrated, and a framework of their relative advantages and disadvantages established.

JEFF PEACHEY is the owner of Peachey Conservation LLC, a NYC based studio which specializes in preserving the intrinsic, artifactual, aesthetic and historic values of books. With more than 30 years experience, he has been awarded numerous fellowships to support his book history research, including from the Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Center (Italy) and the University of Toronto. He invented the Peachey Board Slotting Machine, which is used in book conservation labs around the world for board reattachment. He also designs and manufactures other specialized conservation tools. A well known instructor both nationally and internationally, he teaches the Historical Book Structures Practicum to US graduate book conservation students from New York University, the Winterthur/ University of Delaware and Buffalo State University. His forthcoming publication, The Binder’s Curse, explicates the bookbinding poetry and work of the early 19th century New York City bookbinder John Bradford. Books: jeffpeachey.com Tools: peacheytools.com .

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