The Q Lab

30

2012-01-04T21:40:00.001-07:00

i am now 30!

which means i allow my 6-year-old niece to do my hair any way she pleases...

...and wear shark masks in public.

to celebrate, i decided to try and do 30 things i'd never done before between the beginning of October and my birthday on december 7th. i must admit i fell short by 3, but i have every intention of completing those others in a timely manner (i.e. sometime this new year). i realize now i should've photographed the evidence of me dabbling in newness and stepping more than a toe outside my comfort zone. but alas!

here's what i learned and did and enjoyed:

1. a little mountain biking for real
2. ran about 4 miles (a new longer distance for me) in a tremendous downpour as only the new hampshire woods can deliver (a new, soggier climate for me to run in)
3. darned a sock
4. drove from centerville to provo via scenic canyon roads instead of the interstate
5. ate a gourmet lunch in little red riding hood's grandmother's cottage (true)
6. ate a chrysanthemum and rose hip berries
7. went sailing on the charles river in boston
8. handled an actual 10th century book with script written in actual carolingian miniscule!! (i've done a lot of research on this period of book but have never seen let alone handled one. thanks boston public!)
9. gathered eggs from live hens!
10. ate clam chowder in boston for the first time (at legal sea foods-also a first)
11. chatted with homeless guys in boston
12. went bouldering (a tiny bit)
13. something shocking having to do with traffic lights
14. went through several haunted houses at halloween
15. made and thoroughly enjoyed eating a green tomato pie!
16. raked leaves in the middle of the night by the light of a full moon
17. went ice skating with a boy and found that together we skated as well as any olympic skater. we are now preparing for the 2014 winter olympics.
18. learned how to make grape juice
19. learned how to make a LARGE post binding

like so

20. completed 30+ repairs on books in 30 days (here's about 2/3)

21. ate at Los Hermanos in Provo (it was awful, but it's a provo institution so i had to try it. the people who own it aren't even mexican. yes, awful and overpriced)
22. hemmed a skirt!
23. viewed the international creche exhibit in midway
24. ate Ethiopian food (delish!!!)
25. bought and decorated a real live christmas tree for my own house (best idea ever).
26. finished two new bookmobiles (pictures forthcoming)
27. read the book of mormon in 55 days (i've never read it fast. i loved it!)
28. pending: give away a book of mormon
29. pending: start learning to drvie stick
30. pending: visit antelope island

a little anti-climactic, i know. but it was a great 60 days in which i had to be a little more adventurous. a great way to start a new decade.

from the attic: just to unnerve susannah

2012-01-04T21:07:00.001-07:00

from my former life: a personal essay unrelated to books

2011-10-18T21:34:00.000-06:00

i have been perusing old papers from my undergrad years now 7, 8, 9, and 10 years ago. i'm surprised and a little pleased that they aren't all complete rubbish this far down the road.

my former life as a potential academic feels far away, but somehow in school i managed to make nearly every big writing assignment a very personal project. so many of my papers end up being like somewhat more polished journal entries. they are now exciting windows into my thinking and passions of the time. something exciting i am finding is that those passions relating to family, ancestry, story, creativity, and wind (of all things) remain largely unchanged in my life.

so without further ado, and because i am taking far too long to post my book related posts, here are some words about art and music in my life and why they are important and how they came to be that way.

It all began in the living room on Sunday afternoons. My addiction to art, that is. For as far back as I can remember, Art and I always spent these lazy afternoons together, delving through the painting and poetry books my parents filled our the bookcases with. Depending on the day Art and I might explore the galleries in the Art Institute of Chicago, roam the elegant halls of the Huntington Museum and Library in Pasadena, meet Abraham Lincoln in Carl Sandburg’s poem, sail with the Owl and the Pussycat, or pick out who of the lavishly dressed Gainsborough or Reynolds damsels was me that day. I was well on my way to becoming addicted to art with no hope of recovery. But why recover?

My condition worsened when the Fall I turned five I enrolled in BYU Creative Dance and two Falls later started my first piano lesson. I became a lost cause when eight more Falls down the road that sleek, black instrument known as oboe added a sparkle to my otherwise forgettable junior high life. The oboe (which I affectionately called “the elbow”) stayed by my side through Junior High and High School orchestra, including countless recitals and festivals. Yet after reaching a soaring height of participation in the arts my senior year in High School, I bid “the elbow” farewell, hugged my piano teacher goodbye, and danced through final dance concerts and classes.

Growing up with Art opened my eyes to new, more interesting ways of articulating feelings and ideas that words might merely mangle. I learned that pounding out fiery anger and frustration on the piano with Brahms was far more therapeutic and exhilarating than pounding stairs and walls. Choreographing love and praise for God through my face, arms, hands, legs—all of me—gave a vitality and exuberance to my feelings that words fell short of. These refreshing windows of communication cast a different slant of light on the world; I basked in this light, elated with more fulfilling ways to share and feel life.

Art and I rarely visit the Art Institute together and no longer dance or play Beethoven in the orchestra. Even so, we still regularly enjoy each other’s company. He lights my spirit as I enthusiastically study the arts and humanities and watch performances instead of performing. But it is Art’s magic carpet woven from the strains of the music I listen to or play on the piano that sustains me each day and carries me to lands of comfort and peace.

As the Colorado River has carved a deep and grand impression through the western desert, so has music carved a deep impression in my life. Music also played a leading role in my childhood home, competing with those books beckoning me on artistic adventures. My siblings and I grew into a band of musicians, wielding drums, piano, flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, base clarinet, trumpet, and voice! We were and still are crazy kids who love listening, working, and dancing to music—all the time. Our house was bursting at the seams with the gloriously inescapable stuff. However, only in eighth grade did I discover how music truly engenders good feelings, peace, inspiration, love, and comfort.

Isn’t eighth grade the time of life many seem to prefer forgetting? Eighth grade was my insecurity around friends and anxiety about them even being my friends; eighth grade equaled dread. Many nights I was like Little Miss Shy hiding under her bed in hopeful fear that she would not have to go to Mr. Funny’s Party. Except I dreaded school and the pressures waiting for me there. What was wrong with home school, I wondered? What was wrong with me?

Music became my solace. I can remember listening again and again to the soundtrack for the 1995 film production of Little Women or the traditional Celtic music of the local ensemble, Kirkmount. Little Women and Kirkmount could change my mood from depression to peace just as fast as the flick of a switch floods a dark room with light. This instantaneous mood change catalyzed simply by music surprised me then and still awes me today when I feel the same effect. The simple strains from the harp or fiddle were empathizing with me. From then on I knew how much I could rely on listening to music or playing on the piano to assuage fears, crowd out negative thinking, and even persuade the corners of my mouth to turn up a little.

Music fine tunes my life perspective more effectively than any other art I experience. Its cells course through my veins and arteries, bringing a different kind of life to my heart, mind, and spirit, and healing in a way blood never can. Music is my spiritual sustenance. It liberates me from thoughts and feelings that spiral me downward. I do not want to forget eighth grade. Even though that whirlwind of fear and depression caught me in its clutches, unveiling music’s mysterious magic calmed this storm in my spirit.

When I relate to music the way I did in eighth grade, I imagine a connection forming between me and the artist’s creative inspiration. This vicarious participation in the artist’s epiphany or inspiration sometimes brings me to my own epiphanies. I think of it as a feeling of Aha! Art exclaims “Aha!” when its form, an honest idea, and the Spirit harmonize to poke and prod me toward new perspectives and feelings. The philosopher Immanuel Kant labeled this moment of artistic harmony the “Sublime.” (But I think “Aha!” more suitably describes that moment when Art steels my breath away.) The Aha! moment is also a connection I feel with God and the divinity of creation. It sends the fundamental need for art and expression coursing through my veins. The “Aha!” draws people together, creating new channels of discussion and debate which provoke people to discuss truths, values, beauty, spirit, inspiration and the importance in expressing them in countless ways. If this shared feeling is the true beauty of art, then defining art exactly seems far less important than continually creating and participating in moments of “Aha!”

The shape of my life is squished and molded by art. Art keeps my tempo in rhythm; it keeps me in balance and covers me with all sorts of textures and colors. It makes me galumph like an elephant, sing out like the angels, speak like a visionary with new confidence and enthusiasm, and think trapezoid or hexagon instead of square. Creative expression resounds more and more clearly in the halls of my mind and spirit as it brings me closer to God and helps me discover the potential for divinity in my soul. God created man and our world, and we in turn are learning how to create and lift each other to our divine potential. Art touches and speaks to souls in positive and beautiful ways; in not always the most predictable ways, it draws the beauty and truth in life to the surface. I no longer dance, and piano practicing comes in spurts, but I know I will dance, and play, and squawk on my oboe in eternity. But whether I am actually in the dance or just watching in the wings, art will always be my companion through life, inspiring me to higher thought and happier, more inspired living.

from the bindery: broken

2011-07-29T03:23:00.000-06:00


Book Repaired book broken again

bad repair job broken again + soggy corners


cleaning the paper off the spine before gluing it back actually matters


Spanish bindings from the turn of the last century are beautifully crafted even if they break


grain direction matters


sewing only lasts with proper adhesive and lining


bizarro breakage

classic. sawn-in cords disintegrating

tree calf leather disintegrating

secret paper lining revealed!

also classic

from the bindery: welsh crown roast

2011-03-19T12:30:00.001-06:00

a little book about welsh cooking came into book repair recently. even tho i'm Welsh, i will never eat this. it is a sight to behold.

from the bindery: graffiti dialogues

2011-02-17T23:01:00.000-07:00

every once in awhile i come across a book at work that has lots of graffiti in it from different patrons, and every once in awhile that graffiti is actually a dialogue between patrons, and typically the book topic has some bearing on readers' moral and religious beliefs, and inevitably some of those graffiti voices are just a wee bit self-righteous. my find this week was the book of essays, God the Mother, whose title page was covered in impassioned comments. apparently several patrons felt the essays bordered on heresy and felt the need to warn other readers that they would go to hell for reading this book or subscribing to its views. others wrote in the author's defense.

take a look:

from the bindery: zapped by cocktails

2011-02-13T21:36:00.000-07:00

one of my current projects at work. yes, it is in the BYU library. i love this cover.

from the bindery: lent lint

2011-02-13T21:26:00.000-07:00

This damaged slip greeted me the other day as i was reviewing books for repair. . . . So i read the attached note:

Everything is wrong about this....but also so funny!!! For one thing, you don't repair anything that is lent to you by another library in the interlibrary loan system. For another thing, you never use tape (4 letter word, remember???) I loved that this patron was aware of the problem of the tape's stickiness to devise a way of making it less sticky--

---lint from their jeans! (it's still pretty sticky)

From the bindery: Librarians Do Have Dates!

2011-01-09T15:30:00.001-07:00

From the Wilson Library Bulletin, 1947--another gem from book repair

from the bindery: bind-o-rama

2010-10-27T23:55:00.000-06:00

bookbinding heaven

2010-10-08T10:24:00.002-06:00

covering a full leather fine binding for the first time in over two years in the comfort and quiet of my own home.

from the bindery: banana

2010-07-13T22:53:00.000-06:00

from the bindery: production, just like old times

2010-04-20T18:05:00.001-06:00

today at work i mended, chopped, and glued up 10 adhesive bound books. i have 7 more waiting to go tomorrow. i was on my feet nearly the full 8 hours. i worked hard. i stayed focused. i had fun! in about one week or less, i will have these 17 books bound (and gagged). just like old times.

how is this possible, you ask?

finals and the semester break leave book repair all ghost town-y.

finals and the semester break leave me working hard and steady on my own, just like the good ol' days at north bennet. those were the days where i would stand all day, every day and then hobble back home across boston to brighton with swollen ankles, calloused fingers, and bleary eyes.

this is the best feeling--to feel tired from a good day's work for the brain and the body.

a brief pause for reflection

2010-03-25T23:31:00.000-06:00

as i've suspected all along, it seems being a reluctant bookbinder will never be enough.

from the bindery: The Book of Irish Curses

2010-03-17T20:34:00.001-06:00

just in time for st. patrick's day, a book about irish curses made its way into book repair. here are a few of the gems hidden inside it's acidic, brittle mid-20th-century pages. part of the humor in these curses comes because these are translations from the original gaelic, and therefore less poetic:

an exchange that might occur as part of a cursing contest:

Farmer Willis: May your hens take the disorder (the fowl-pest), your cows the crippen (phosphorosis), and your calves the white scour! May yourself go stoneblind so that you will not know your wife from a hay-stack!

To this sally [farmer] Murphy retorted in the following manner and defeated his opponent:

May the seven terriers of hell sit on the spool of your breast and bark in at your soul-case!

another exchange in another contest:

"The roasting of the salmon to the very end on you!"

"Six horse-loads of graveyard clay on top of you!"

an example of a ritual curse to curse a house

"If one wished to curse a house, one entered it backwards while cleaning a boot! In this case, presumably, the inhabitants of the house would need to be absent when the bearer of malediction was providing such an inviting target to anyone wishing to kick his rear as he entered."

informal cursing

"May the Lamb of God stick his hoof through the floor of heaven and kick you up in the arse below in hell!

Of a more rabelaisian kind is the following remark by a taxi-driver who was describing a journey at speed over a stony road: 'The stones were hopping off the car like the curses of Jesus Christ on the windows of a whore-house!"

!!!!!!

"There is the old saying addressed to hens who trespassed on the kitchen of a farmer's house: 'Glass legs to ye!', a neat way of expressing the wish that they might break their legs!"

"A child be within you, for ever unborn!

Or if be born, may he not be like a Christian!

A pig's snout on him and the mouth of a sheep,

A beak of a duck that could dredge in the sludge!

Lest he be a hangman that would hang the people!

"Whoever put me into impotent grief

And took my white tom-cat in secret from me,

May the mice come in waves as his company,

And the rats from the kiln give him the pursuit."

General curses

"Destruction to that mule!"

"May the cats eat the women!" (This misogyny was uttered by a beggar who was disappointed in his reception at a house where he sought food. He desires that the cats (household animals) may eat the women. He had been offered food which he considered fitter for a cat than a human being." !!!

"A fox on your fishing-hook!" (Instead of fox, hare or rabbit might also be substituted. This was a Galway curse on a fisherman. . . . Foxes, hares and rabbits were regarded with superstitious dread by the fishermen of the Claddagh.)

"May you be afflicted with the itch and have no nails to scratch with!"

"Confusion on the money!" (curse on a wealthy person)

"The anguished bankruptcy of the year to you!"

May he never have a day's luck!"

"No butter be on your milk, nor on your ducks a web; may your child not walk and your cow be flayed! And may the flame be bigger and wider, which will go through your soul, than the Connemara mountains if they were on fire!" (This extraordinary curse was pronounced by a blind man on a housewife when she had been less than generous with him!)

curses which concern illness or death (best for last)

"May you not see the cuckoo nor the corncrake!" (In other words, may you never see another spring!"

"My curse on you and ruin to you, you lying, thieving rascal! Let it not be long till you die, despite the son of God!"

"The fate of Ned's cock to you!" (This is a reference to a cock who was so vain that he stood admiring himself in the water of a well and fell in and got drowned. This is a curse on a vain person!

"May God weaken you!"

"Choking to you!"

"May a stitch or convulsion strike you!"

"May you be mangled!"

" A poisonous pain in you!"

"Death and smothering on you!"

"Dysentery on you!"

"A death without a priest to him in a town without a clergyman!"

"The death of the kittens to you!" (This, of course, means simply 'drowning', the fate of so many unwanted kittens in Ireland.)

from the bindery: odds and ends (emphasis on the odds)

2010-02-23T21:55:00.000-07:00

For six months i've been photographing some of the odd things i come across at work. for six months i've been meaning to post these photos. now that it's nearly march, how about i just get it over with.

here goes.

EXHIBIT A

this german beauty surfaced back in the early fall (biblio info soon to come)

noteworthy for it's interesting ribbon-thru-metal-loops style of binding

here's a closer look

and along the top, where the linen tie is broken.

EXHIBIT B

what i like to call the Green Cow book: a Danish-Norwegian dictionary (i think)

another view without the contrast of the flash. moo.

EXHIBIT C

a sneak peek at some binders' tricks. notice where the leather is torn, you can see the actual laced in thong, as opposed to the sorry-excuses-for-false-raised bands lining the spine

EXHIBIT D

after 15 years, this book has earned its way back to book repair.

amazingly, this is an adhesive binding repaired in 1995. even more amazing is that the actually adhesive binding is still totally in tact. it's just the case that's seen better days. here you can see the interior joint is still holding together.

and see how the pages are still holding strong? even without any sort of spine lining beside crash? somebody did their double-fan adhesive binding right.

EXHIBIT E

solomon's temple? an "exact replication"? love it.

this little beauty of an engraving comes from this book. i've enlarged it so you can get a nice look at this spectacularly victorian title page. this is a fantastic example of a printer's use of multiple type faces on a title page. this became less common as the 19th century went on because it wasn't conducive to production printing.

stay tuned...more to come

from the bindery: the devil's bindery, or, if you were a book cover, which would you be?

2009-11-19T22:15:00.018-07:00

as part of my quest to pay more attention to the 50-100 books that might pass through my hands per week, i've been keeping a list of bizarre and humorous book titles and setting bindings aside for scanning and photographing. below is an assortment of titles from the 1880s to the 1940s that came from a librarian for consideration to be commercially bound. this librarian is trying to aid me in my quest to keep my bindery prep students busy, but i looked at much of what he sent down and thought--what a loss to lose these original bindings. and all in the name of keeping me busy. i won't rebind most of the ones shown below because they are in too much disrepair to go to the commercial binder.

so. i love these covers and i love the titles. i wish you could see the tables of contents inside some of them or read these funny, mystifying stories. there is something charming and amusing and so odd about American and British culture at the turn of the last century and into those first decades. it is a quality that seems totally lacking in our world now. i don't know what it is. all i know is that i absorb a little bit of it each week at work as i dive back into the book culture of the time in search of sympathetic methods of repairing these little buddies. and in search of tidbits about book manufacturing of the time that fascinate me.

while the practical demands of my workplace cannot be met by approaching the zillions of books that come our way with a strict, conservation/restoration approach, it's a shame to me to lose these covers: these books in their whole, original form--and especially through their cover designs and materials--preserve and communicate so much about the world that created them.

so, take a look. thanks to the call number stickers, you can see the publication date on most these titles. any titles without a date in the call number are first editions. the last few titles come from the tale-end of the last awesome and ever-so-eclectic phase of the victorian publisher's binding-o-rama. i like these the best of the lot, but i'll wait to say which is my favorite until i hear from some of you which are your faves....

the following are identical editions but with very different covers.

from the lab: more than a ghost from my past

2009-11-03T21:29:00.008-07:00

Rebecca, by Daphne du Maurier. this, i thought, would be a fine read for october. mysterious, romantic, eerie and full of suspense. a book i had read only once before about 14 years ago.

so i pull up the Lee Library catalog, jot down the call number on a scrap of paper, and take myself down the hall and up a couple flights of stairs to the southwest section of the 5th floor.

there are several copies to choose from. i begin to pull each one down from its place on the top shelf and flip through its pages and wiggle its covers, checking for overall structural soundness, seeing if i like the feel of the pages, the look of the type, the thickness of the book. (yeah, my usual ritual. nice to have so many copies to choose from).

oh, but what do we have here? one of the copies has been re-bound by book repair. you can always tell book repair books by their solid-colored cotton and rayon cloth cases and new labels (done on indesign and printed on moriki paper--for those of you binders interested in these details).

hmm. i wonder who repaired this? i'll just flip to the back and check.

lo and behold! there my initials were, staring right back at me, with the date 10/2002 written to the side. seven years ago, to this very October month, i had disbound this book, stab sewn on new endsheets, recased it in this teal green cloth, and lightly signed my initials in pencil on the bottom lefthand corner of the back cover!

naturally, i became the 19th person in 7 years to check this copy out. this 1941-er has held up quite well over the years, despite needing a little more tlc.

a missing or uber-damaged page i had photocopied and replaced. it's still stuck in there nice and tight. (the textblock is stab sewn all the way through, ps.)

hmm. some taped pages (among many) i chose to ignore. the tape doesn't appear to have evolved much, which is good. the paper overall is quite fragile. reminds me of the way a well-loved and used baby blanket feels over the years: thinning as it begins to fade.

i finished reading this book Sunday, on my flight home from the Guild of Book Worker's conference. tho it has withstood yet one more reading, there are numerous tears along edges of many pages, and some graffiti here and there, along with evidence of pencil marks i had erased in my former life as a book repair employee who didn't want to be a bookbinder. while reading it, i enjoyed not only the mystery in the words of the story, but the tactile story of the book object, itself. i reflected on the importance for me of working on circulating books--books that are used, books we are keeping functional and usable. i loved being able to feel how this book had been used and held and read by others. likely i am the only person to have returned to this 1941 Sun Dial Press copy of Rebecca more than once. it's come back to me: a ghostly remnant of my 2002 self going through the motions of a job, earning money meeting my solid 2009 self, striding with purpose through each day as a bookbinder and repairer of books.

from the wilderness: life outside of bookbinding

2009-10-11T10:46:00.018-06:00

while i continue procrastinating my book-related posts, here's how i've been spending time the past few weeks.

september and october are some of the best times of year for wilderness excursions in utah. leaves are changing color, it's dry, and temperatures are cooler.

all summer, pear, sue, and i have completed a series of planned hikes. summitting mount baldy, on the face of Timpanogos, was our last for the season. the hike began in Pleasant Grove's Battle Creek Canyon where we discovered little paradises of waterfalls, meadows, and forests of firs.

even the top of Baldy was intriguing. we discovered that the north side is wetter and covered in firs, while the south side supports a much dryer climate, boasting only ankle-to-waste-high scrub oak. pear called it "mountain patterned baldness" or something like that.

while hiking across meadows on the face of Timpanogos and getting these views was my favorite part....

....the hike down became the hike from hell. thanks to some woefully misguided trail information, we ended up hiking/sliding/tumbling down the south face of baldy. it was by far the steepest descent i've ever done, and i spent a good deal of it crouched down and sliding on my feet. 2 hours of straight down left the three of us totally physically, mentally, and emotionally exhausted. we felt triumphant for making it, but i look up at baldy now and glare in its general direction.

Nebo Loop: views behind Mount Nebo.

since returning home from Boston, i've been trying to do things here I've never done my whole life growing up here. Driving the Nebo Loop and exploring Payson Canyon is one of those things. The terrain is much different than that behind Timpanogos along the Alpine Loop.

For one thing, the dirt is red! This is "The Devil's Kitchen". It's the Nebo Loop's own tiny Bryce Canyon.

The aspens were changing color right along with the maples. Mixed in with the evergreens they were amazing!!

back slope of Nebo.

Capitol Reef National Park

This was the perfect day to visit this park! Pear and i left provo at 7 am, and 2 hours and 45 minutes later we arrived at one of my favorite places on earth. Temperatures below seventy, dry, sunny, limited crowds. perfect.

View of the waterpocket fold geologic formation from our hike to the Golden Throne.

the Golden Throne. it was perfectly silent here. and along the way we found places that echoed so well off the slot canyon walls that you could hear your whole echo come back to you.

our second trail was the 3.5-mile loop around Chimney Rock.

nope. the camera isn't tilted. it's the natural slant caused thousands of years ago by a ripple and fold in the land.

just one example of the rainbow of colors at capital reef. the strata alternates from red to green to purple to white to yellow. a camera will never, ever do this justice, so just imagine it. or better yet. go there!

(so stay tuned. books will be back as soon as the outdoors is no longer available.)

seasonal chiasmus

2009-09-14T23:02:00.005-06:00

today life is in chiasmus...

rain and cooler weather,

sprouting greens--spinach, lettuce and arugula

new beginnings at a new semester on campus

a season of plants and shrubs growing tired,
giving off their last exhale in a building burst of color....

i drift back with my memories to september and october's seasonal opposites, march and april

a season of plants and shrubs waking up,
breathing their first fresh breaths in a building burst of floral color

graduation marking new beginnings at the end of a semester on campus

sprouting greens--spinach, lettuce, and kale

rain and warming weather

spring and fall. at once so alike, yet moving in opposite directions, preparing for different tasks. they, in their own extremes, temper the more exuberant extremes of winter and summer.

and for a moment the world rests in equilibrium at the equinox--balanced light and life--before swirling along its expansive, ever-changing way

From the bindery: welcome to book repair

2009-09-10T08:32:00.027-06:00

It occurred to me that part of The Q Lab should actually include the lab at work (or as we tend to call it--the shop). Not only does book repair zap most my bookbinding time, efforts, and energy, but i also come across some crazy, kooky stuff (stay tuned for scans from the 1968 bowling guide...), including fine examples of how NOT to repair a book.

so in commemoration of the pending fall (and therefore the end of the gardening season and the return of the bookbinding season)..........welcome to Book Repair.

this is the corridor of needy books that greets one at the entrance to book repair. (and yes, that blinding light at the end of the tunnel is heaven! we have the best light in the library, ps.) the books on the left are divided by floors and await subject selectors' decisions on which to repair and which to replace or withdraw. i spend a good chunk of time managing these shelves, keeping books stacked well, weeding out quick repairs (like a simple page tip-in), and chasing down librarians to get them to come review their books. while these are all books from the circulating collection rather than special collections, we still do a fair amount of 19th century books, which often tend to be either half-leather bindings sewn on cords with their front and back boards coming off, OR, dilapidated cloth-case bindings with the worse paper ever. love it.

once librarians make their decision, my boss and i check off what repairs the books need and put them on the repair shelves on the right, where students grab them. the 15 or so book repair students are all divided into floors and work with a team leader to get the work done. thanks to their hard work this summer, we cleared out the book repair backlog for the first time in years (maybe ever). i try to get students interested in and motivated to do big, odd projects (like giant atlases) but am not always successful. this summer, tho, everyone went on a split board kick, so we are getting some big books out of the way.

here's some of the equipment we have around the shop.

this is the corner o' machines. in the center you'll notice a nice, new guillotine, fully automated, including safety sensors that won't allow the blade to drop even if you are leaning in just a bit too far. Next to it on the right is a sander, and next to that the coolest , biggest stapler ever. on the left is a drill.

here's a closer look

this drill can hole punch an entire ream of paper if need be. the drill bit is lowered by foot pedal.

stapler up close. flip on the switch, press the foot pedal, KA-CHUNK! there's a little lever on the left that you use to set the staple length, so you can staple a ream of paper if you want to. there is also a saddle attachment so you can staple folds. we don't use this much, but it's fun when we do!

paper, leftover stock from stuff we don't do anymore, and binders board fill these shelves.

buckram leftover from days of yore. (for those unfamiliar, buckram is that thick, plastic-y cloth that library books are bound in) this is excellent old-school buckram some people might really like to get their hands on. we almost never use it since most the items that would be bound in buckram (like periodicals) get sent to the commercial bindery in SLC.

some rolls and pre-cut squares of starch-filled C-cloth and paper-backed cloth. flat files of japanese paper, silicon release paper, and some handmade papers.

more flat files (can't remember what's in them), plus scraps (looking a little messy). we're getting better at saving scraps that are actually useful, but every once in awhile, i find a scrap in the shelves that is a tiny sliver of cloth. same problems never go away....

paper-backed book cloth! would that we had had all these colors at school!

making new cases is one of the main things students do in book repair. we like to match the new cover to the old as much as possible......

......so having the full rainbow is helpful. and fun!

years ago, my sister pear made this guide on how to cut cloth economically. somehow it's ignored more than it's adhered to. whenever cloth is cut badly and wastefully, we say it's been murdered!

this is one of my favorite machines--the adhesive binder! in this photo, it's set for a flatback binding, but we have different shapes and sizes of curved attachements which allow you to put the round the book. much easier than jogging the book together by hand, putting in the round using a paper towel role, and then--pinching it with all your might so nothing moves--somehow dropping it into a standing press. the adhesive binder rounds and clamps all in one. (altho i'm glad i've done it the other way, too)

sinks and giant tupperwares for humidification chambers. we haven't had a flood for awhile, but when i was a student, we helped clean up over 1400 books after a flood.

fume hood, kwikprint, and some presses. the fume hood is almost exclusively used when we spray krylon on our new paper labels to seal the ink.

my bench.

view of the shop from my bench. there are 14 benches, and right now we have 15 or 16 employees (not counting three who are on study abroad). students hale from all over the U.S. and from Slovakia, Russia, Kenya, Mauritius, Uruguay, and Columbia. it's been an interesting experience teaching and training people who are not interested in becoming bookbinders. i've loved teaching students more about why we do things the way we do, and encouraging them to keep asking questions, questions, questions. some days i'm so harried and wish i had an office to just step out and away from it (i feel bad now, for the times i bugged mark in his office at school..:)); other days are calm and quiet, and i can catch a moment here or there to continue experimenting on some new variation on a repair.

some of our standing presses. the one on the right is the oldest. we have four total.

check out our awesome rack. about 15 years ago (or more), a book repair student designed these press inserts for a class project so that students could back their books and then move them to the rack to dry overnight. this frees up the presses so more people can back their books, and the workflow doesn't get stalled. ingenious!

here's a close-up of the inserts in action. just tighten the wing nuts, loosen the press, and carry your book-in-insert to the rack.

the last work station in the shop includes the label-making and bindery prep computer stations. students use the mac at the end to make paper labels for new cases. we use Indesign and match the original labels' fonts and looks as much as possible. you can see how the newly cased books on the shelf are color-coordinated so that the student can fit as many labels as possible on the matching piece of moriki paper.

the 2 bindery prep students work for me, specifically (officially i'm the Book Repair Assistant and Bindery Prep Supervisor). they are responsible for processing and prepping monographs and periodicals to go to the commercial binder. we send a shipment twice a month. it's a pain. in the old days they sent a shipment of 800 items every week! but with so much electronic access for periodicals, we only send about 500 items a month.

the boss's office. this is where we eat and have shop parties. we cook paste in the microwave. yes, the microwave. it works fine. (don't all faint at once)

board sheer.

giant board sheer and chewbacca (the black board sheer on the left. it needs to be oiled. if you lift the blade just slowly enough, it sounds just like Chewbacca.)

thus ends the virtual tour. come fall i will begin coming to work on saturdays where i can have the place and equipment all to myself for my own work. i also can borrow anything i need from the conservation lab across the hall (including finishing tools!!!!). it's a sweet setup i really haven't taken enough advantage of. but don't worry, i'm ready.

from the garden: mid-summer magic

2009-07-22T21:59:00.015-06:00

it's amazing what days in a row of 90+ degree weather does for those heat-lovin' veggies.

for instance, two saturdays ago the beans were in blossom. beautiful white and purple blossoms. just one week later there were slender, ripening, six-inch beans already dangling from the bunches of bush beanness.

for another instance, last monday i surveyed the state of the zucchini plant: plenty of blossoms, some moderately sized squash coming along quite nicely. two-and-a-half days later, or possibly three--BOOM! gigantic zucchini of death is born! i turn my back for a second and the plant goes wild! (as a preemptive strike, mom has plucked all squash from the vine, including those that are just barely big enough to eat.) for anyone who has not grown zucchini in the intermountain west, it is a test not only of one's constant diligence in guarding the plant (and your front porch) but also a test of your creativity in preparing a variety of zucchini dishes and desserts that go beyond the limp, steamed option.

peppers have magically appeared on plants that double in size in a week, and--my favorite of all--tiny purple jewel-like eggplants are peeking out from beneath the hoods of their shriveled purple blooms.

all of these mid-summer, heat-loving little buddies were planted memorial day weekend--nearly 50 days ago. (take a look a few blog entries back to remember their puny, tidiness) here is what a gorgeous, wet June and a perfectly hot July have wrought:

tomatoes and basil. one more month and the tomatoes will be ready to eat.

remains of the spring garden: lettuce row partially demolished and kale

baby jalapenos!

beans. yeah, so the rows are a little tight...

one-week old beans!

baby eggplant. my fave. no one is excited about this entity in the garden.
just wait until crystals eggplant curry...

octopus of a zucchini plant. find the squash, and you win!

the sweetest cukes in all the world. they're supposed to grow on a trellis. ah, well.

rhubarb chard. the leaves have suffered a bit, but still. brilliant. i swear i heard this thing whisper, "feed me, seymour!" as i walked by.

my least favorite squash looking the most gorgeous on a sunday afternoon.

since May we've been enjoying loads of delicious garden lettuce of three varieties in salad after salad....

and so far we've employed zucchini in zucchini chocolate chip cookies and as a simple side sauteed in butter and canola oil with fresh ground pepper, salt, a little seasoning, and freshly grated Parmesan cheese.

coming up next: the once-a-year gooseberry pie, black currant jelly, and pesto-o-rama brought to you by the magnificent 9 basil plants.

from the bindery: binding books with God

2009-07-16T22:42:00.018-06:00

It’s possible God is a Bookbinder.

Which I conclude because I have found that everything about the process of learning to bind books has everything to do with the pursuit of truth and faith.

Here’s the beef.

So, at the North Bennet Street School, where I attended the 2-year bookbinding program (not “boobbinding,” as I’m fond of typo-ing), the tasks and skills to master were daunting. I remember the first day of school when our instructor took time to go over the whole 2-year syllabus: non-adhesive bindings, flatbacks, case bindings, onset boards, split boards, half-leather cases, clamshell boxes, rebacks, plaquettes, fine binding, research projects, etc. etc. Not surprisingly, it left me reeling with anxiety, self-doubt, and dwindling self-confidence.

(here are a few examples of curriculum bindings)

(non-adhesive coptic binding, 9.06)

(rounded and backed case binding, 9-10.06)

(half-leather case binding, 5.07)

(model of 9th century Carolingian binding bound in oak boards and full calf, 11.07--i think)

(full leather design binding model, 4.08)

Even so, it was critical to see the end goals we were working towards. Whenever we took on a new project at school, our instructor followed a similar pattern by beginning the discussion and demo by showing a completed model of the book and explaining its place in the curriculum and in the context of book structures and history. This provided important visual reference and context.

Despite the initial deluge of information and newness, the minute we got to work and focused on one thing at a time, the minute I began to feel that all was possible. We began with simple projects and skills and built on them, with each new project building upon the last, teaching something a little more complicated.

(Us getting to work!)

(Yumiko working on a repair)

(Tim marbling paper)

(Wendy sanding a board)

(Monica paring leather with a spokeshave)

(Elizabeth lining the spine of her book)

Early on, with so little experience, it was difficult to see the full importance of performing and perfecting a tiny skill. It was easy to feel discouraged when you kept drilling that hole in the wrong spot, or kept forgetting to trim your turn-ins, or dinged the recently polished edge of your French paring knife, or could only lift the cloth from the board clumsily and with painstaking slowness. Nevertheless, we kept working.

With so little experience in the beginning, I had to take my instructor’s word for it. Sometimes I’d fudge and forget something important. Only as i worked on more books and learned increasingly complex skills and structures did I begin developing enough hindsight to see how the processes that occur early on affect the binding. For instance, if one doesn’t tighten the thread consistently while sewing a textblock, the entire stability of the book may be compromised, but you can’t really see until the book is finished or when looking over an older damaged book with failed sewing. Some of the littlest things—something as little as tugging a bit on a length of linen thread, or tying a knot correctly, or applying one more paper lining—could make or break a binding. Literally.

Furthermore—and most importantly—I began to see the order of the curriculum and how certain skills were necessary to develop before it was even possible to attempt something more advanced. It you weren't proficient in handling a scalpel and straight edge, or able to distinguish grain in board, paper or cloth, or unfamiliar with the properties of the various adhesives, there was no way you would have the capacity or ability to move on to the greater complexities of leather binding or repair work. Those are very simple, basic examples, but they make the point.

As the months passed I began to see my experience at school as this phenomenal, incredibly tangible process of learning. Over the course of months I could hold my learning and progress in my hands in the form of model size books. I could hold two books—one made in September and one in December—side-by-side, and look at what I had learned. I had proof that I was learning and gaining perspective and knowledge. Even thinking of this right now it amazes me. It is a jewel of vision that I can analogize to every aspect of learning in my life right now. After so many repetitions I could actually see what our instructor had meant in direction he’d given. My fingers began to know and my eyes began to see.

I had clarity.

(here i am at school, covering my first full leather binding...with little clarity.)

But in the midst of that bit of clarity, I continued to uncover many, many more questions. And thus the cycle continues.

To learn anything, you begin with many unknowns and unfamiliarities. We always start small and simple (literally small, even, as babies.) and build bit by bit. But if you are Christina Q. Thomas, you especially want to grasp and master a task or an idea all at once. And if you don’t, you pout in frustration for a bit. This bit-by-bit concept means nothing to your impatience and impetuosity.

Until you became a bookbinder.

Bookbinding school and my continuing work has increased my comfort level with unknowns and granted me insight into this bit-by-bit learning process and the tremendous role my own creativity and willingness to delve into trial-and-error play in the process. I am learning even now the importance of taking a basic principle or rule in the trade and experimenting with it, seeing how it works for myself. Also, and Miraculously! I have become a little more patient and a little less impetuous (which is probably another huge reason why i half steered myself and was half steered into this profession).

So what does this have to do with God?

It’s like this.

So, I am a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Some of my beliefs describe with quite a bit of order and clarity the reasons for life and being here on this Earth. The big picture. The syllabus at the beginning of a course, if you will. The big picture I fit into—and that everyone on this Earth fits into—is the simple storyline of the Plan of Salvation, or Plan of Happiness.

Knowing the big picture, however, we are left still with real life lived at a more micro kind of level. Just as at school, in life I progress bit by bit (or bid by bid...), experience by experience, developing a certain skill and then another built upon that.

When contemplating all that is required to build oneself into a truly Christlike person, it is easy to feel those same feelings I felt at the beginning of school. My weaknesses seem expansive and insurmountable. It is difficult to see progress. And on top of that, amidst the light, there is darkness and uncertainty. The gospel I live by is to me at once incredibly simple, straightforward and complex and nuanced. For all its answers, there are just as many if not more unknowns—unknowns that for some barely cause ripples in the water, and for others wreak havoc. I, for one, do not always see the importance of obedience to certain principles; I do not always know how to respond to an institutional religion; I at times long for answers to many questions revolving around the Church’s history and future.

Just as at school, there is at once anxiety and peace in the big picture. I look at it, I get a sense of direction—a goal—and I get to work.

starting small.

working steadily.

building to greater things

…….AND greater understanding and wisdom.

Understanding and clarity that come only with time, experience, faith, and hard work.

I get it.

I have felt the range of emotions towards the unknowns and the unanswerables: discouragement, frustration, anger, disillusionment, as well as delight, curiosity, and total peace in faith. For me now, the unknowns build patience in process, patience in the design of God’s teaching method—which method is, at least according to my experience, that understanding, clarity, and light come as the necessary “skills” are acquired.

Does this make sense? Have I said the same thing repeatedly in enough different ways that you know what I mean? Will you believe me now that God might just possibly be a bookbinder? Well, we know judging by this Earth, that He is a remarkably skilled craftsman of all sorts.

As usual, God sums all this up much more concisely than I in scripture. In The Book of Mormon, in 2 Nephi, Chapter 28, verse 30, God gently reminds us:

“For behold….I will give unto the children of men line upon line, precept upon precept, here a little and there a little; and blessed are those who hearken unto my precepts, and lend an ear unto my counsel, for they shall learn wisdom; for unto him that receiveth I will give more; and from them that shall say, We have enough, from them shall be taken away even that which they have.”

Becoming a bookbinder has magnified this principle in my life, and I cling to it fiercely.

I trust God more despite doubts and times of cognitive dissonance. I understand what line upon line, precept upon precept means. I don’t see God as someone keeping us in the dark just because he can. We seem to be in the dark, because that is how learning is and that is what we chose. Because we are responsible for searching and seeking, not merely being shown. Just as at school as we were shown and then told to go and do, so it is with God. This process is the point, and perhaps it is the most important point I will ever learn as a bookbinder and a child of God.

2009-07-05T12:36:00.003-06:00

sometimes it just feels good to not have the best of everything. to be comfortable and living within your means. less encumbered by things. to not have everything at once.

from the poet: walking backwards into the future

2009-06-26T14:50:00.004-06:00

"In the Chinese language, " says the poet Li-Young Lee, "when we say, qian, 'ten,' that’s the day before yesterday. The word, qian means “in front of, or before.” So yesterday lies in front of us.

"When you say hotian, that is the day after tomorrow; ho means behind us. So the future is behind us. To the Chinese mind, the future is behind us, the past is in front of us. We are backing up, blind, into the future. Which is true.

"Now, to the Western mind, the future is all before, so you leave the past behind. I think that’s backward, because what you’re looking at is in front of your eyes, is actually, literally, the past. All of this . . . the tape . . . everything . . . is going into the past, as we speak. Three billion cells a minute, as we speak, at that rate. So all of this is going away, and we’re just falling into the dark.

" . . . . So even when we look up at the sky at night, we’re looking at a picture of the past. So when we look down and look around us, we’re looking at a picture of the more immediate past, but it’s the past. We we’re constantly staring at the past."

Li-Young Lee is a favorite of mine. He is a serious, obsessive, and brilliant poet with a certain clarity of perspective on life and aesthetic living that i love and relate to! what i love about this thought expressed above is how it describes a gospel perspective on life. we rely on what we know and have learned of the past to direct us ahead. knowledge of past illuminates the future. for example, my knowledge of pre-earth life, my relationship to God, and that i can become like him helps me walk boldly forward into the unknown. in a sense, while walking ahead, i am in fact walking back to God, back to my past. but when i return, i will hopefully have the knowledge and experience to support God's vision of who i am and what i can become.

my path, then, is circular, not linear.

we do walk ahead, but facing backwards. carrying an inheritance and responsibility from God and ancestors that have helped determine who and what we are today.

the future is behind us.

qian.

garden of memories

2009-05-25T19:57:00.010-06:00

on april 7th i dragged the tiller out of grandpa's garden shed and got to work turning up the soil for the first time since the fall. it's always a triumph getting gramps' tiller to start--pulling the choke, then the cord and shifting the throttle forward quickly enough that the little devil doesn't stall on you. once i got him going, i stuffed my ears with tissue and walked alongside it for an hour or so while it crawled along at a snail's pace, digging away at the sleepy, crusty ground. despite the noise and the worm casualties, tilling is relaxing and meditative. i've also inherited a superb bit of soil from grandpa rasmussen. he's worked hard over the years to perfect its consistency and keep it full of enough organic material to fight back its natural, super clay-o-rama tendency. after tilling the turff about five times over, sinking the blades deeper with each round, i made the rows, using twine and stakes to keep me straight, and planted all our leafy greens. i was determined to get them in at the earliest possible moment, and now, six weeks later, i have achieved some small successes. except for the pea seeds eaten by quail and the lettuce sprouts also ravaged by quail and some spinach gone AWOL, things are coming along nicely.

the best thing was going to france for 10 days when my radish sprouts were about 3 inches tall, and the lettuces and peas were but babes in arms (or little sproutlings in soil). because when i got back, there were radishes ready to harvest and lettuce to thin!

radishes are indeed a magical vegetable. ready to eat a mere 30 days after planting. i've never liked them, but i feel obliged to try again with ones picked fresh from the garden. i sliced one onto a tuna sandwich on saturday while planting the summer garden, and i liked the spiciness. the pinks are much spicier than the whites. i chalk up learning to grow and also enjoy the radish as a triumph of this year's garden.

apart from some irregular watering, which i'm now correcting, the spring garden is coming along fine. i planted the next installment of beets and lettuce, and thinned everyone else.

and cursed the quail.

so. this memorial day weekend was slated from the beginning of time to be summer garden planting weekend. it's past may 15th, now the safe zone with next to no threat of frost. i can't count the times i just stopped and stared in thought at the garden, figuring space and what to plant and where, observing the sun and what sprinklers were doing what damage where. on friday, mom and i went to Cook's to buy the plants--tomatoes of several varieties, red peppers and a couple hot peppers, cucumber, a couple eggplant, yellow squash and zucchini, and winter squash. with all the prep work done and a little overthinking, i pulled the tiller out once more, filled it with gas, and got it to start on the third try. huzzah! good thing i tilled six weeks ago. made for much better time of it on saturday.

i should mention that the night before i spent a couple hours weeding out a bunch of junk. those plus 8 hours saturday equal. . . . . . .

squash (i skimped a little on space for their sprawling vines, but we'll manage)

eggplant and cucumber (the transplants in the left row), three rows of bush beans (green and yellow), and peppers. i'm proud to say i did these rows by eye instead of using the twine. they're not perfect, but they're close.

tomatoes!!! and . . . . yes. . . .9 basil plants. **nervous grin** my pesto ambitions are indeed great. i know the potential of the basil, and i will be prepared. the heirloom tomatoes at the nursery weren't the healthiest of plants, so i planted only one. also a cherry tomato, pear tomato, 2 romas, and four largish tomatoes.

so. we're ready to go. fresh lettuce, spinach, kale, chard and beet greens will be next to join us at the table. i can't wait to try new recipes and to share our leafy fruits. what a perfect wet, temperate spring to get things going. the best part has been having grandpa by my side, "snoopervising" as he says. it's because of him that i'm doing this, and i'm glad he can be a part of it still in his 94th year, even if it's just observing from the garden house, telling me stories of rhubarb from his childhood.

easter dioramas

2009-04-26T15:36:00.001-06:00

please visit celeste's blog for photos of our easter dioramas!

birth of venus, by Celeste

and

mary peepins, by bid and pear

some scattered springy snowy thoughts

2009-04-16T00:08:00.005-06:00

the last gigantic spring snow is as thrilling as the first gigantic autumn snow.
because one is the first, and the other the last.
big snow makes us move slow,
it brings the world's nuance into high relief.
white noise vanquished by white,
robins' songs bounce about in triumph.
pink plum perfume wafts
alongside this cool
spring
snow
breath
the river rises to a roar
the snow persists
dropping upon our brow
a big wet farewell kiss

from the bindery: thoughts on teaching

2009-04-14T21:18:00.005-06:00

it is difficult for me to explain to someone that i can't show them how to bind books because i don't have the time or energy. because i'm saving what time and energy i do have for my own work, which i'm only now just finally getting started on nearly one year after graduation.

it is difficult for me to explain that if i were to give some instruction beyond simple consultation on something or a couple hours of this or that, that i would need to be compensated for my time. (after all, i did spend thousands of dollars and hours myself to learn and will continue to do so over the years.)

it is difficult for people to understand that a few hours is not enough to learn and remember something very useful and that an intense interest in bookbinding is not enough either.

this is all difficult because i care deeply about responding to others' interest in this craft and in learning. i don't want to turn people away or discourage them. i want to be like the mentors i've had who are actively encouraging and responsive. it's difficult, also, to be approached as an expert when you're not. certainly i have years more experience than many who approach me, but still i'm a baby in the field. i need to continue broadening my own experience to better answer the questions and needs of those i teach. i know this will build bit by bit over time, but in the mean time it feels disingenuous to be asked to play the part.

with these thoughts in mind, it struck me the other day that i now understand the craftsman in stories, who, when approached by a motivated, energetic youth eager to learn, turns them away and says he cannot or will not teach them. in these stories, the youth must somehow demonstrate that she has the will, the drive, the energy, and the work ethic, and the ability to pay close attention to detail to make teaching her worthwhile. one wants to be sure that the time and energy that goes into teaching will be well spent--not taken for granted or thrown by the wayside.

i have been that youth and have proven myself, i think, through persistence. i would like to be that teacher. i think.

but not yet.

i recently helped a student in a bookbinding class repair a book for his father. he had very minimal binding experience and who knows if he'll remember much of what i taught him (rebacking a book was confusing to me when i first started learning it, i can only imagine what it would seem like to one with no book repair experience whatsoever). tho it was on my own time and with no monetary compensation, it was so rewarding taking those few hours to help him out. to see his enthusiasm and delight as the repair progressed, and the satisfaction with the finished product. i feel similarly as i help students in book repair. as i work with them, i draw heavily on my own experience with instructors and realize that not only did these instructors give me good instruction regarding the binding of books, but they taught me a lot about teaching. i would like to focus more on this aspect of my job and apply more of these teaching techniques.

and so i gather these experiences one by one. i acquire a skill here and a skill there. i sharpen what i already have at a much slower pace than i used to when in school (still getting used to this). and eventually, i hope, i will be able to make the time and energy to invite people in and not turn them away--to be the craftsman who welcomes instead of rejects and can offer expertise and instruction of a greater depth.

H

2009-04-09T23:55:00.007-06:00

march 2006

march 2009

from the bindery: an homage to life

2009-04-07T01:03:00.003-06:00

This is Joseph Cornell.
A fascinating and eccentric 20th-century artist, sculptor, and avant-garde filmmaker. He is best known as a pioneer of collage and assemblage art--art which most famously took the form of diorama-like boxes. his art was heavily influenced by his Christian Science faith, mid-20th-century surrealists, the cosmos, Emily Dickinson, and other actors and dancers of his time. Below are a few examples of his boxes

Throughout his life, Cornell struggled to find ways of capturing and reconciling his myriad interests and experiences. To poet Marianne Moore, Cornell confided his frustration. He wrote: “There seems to be such a complexity, a sort of endless ‘cross-indexing’ of detail (intoxicatingly rich) in connection with what and how I feel that I never seem to come to the point of doing anything about it.”* What he did end up doing about it was channeling that inertia into collage and assemblage art. This form of art allowed Cornell to draw those connections between the disparate elements of his life.

I was introduced to Cornell only about 18 months ago. Our final fine binding project at the North Bennet Street School was to design and execute a binding for Dickran Tashjian's Joseph Cornell: Gifts of Desire.

As I began to read the book and research more about Cornell, I exclaimed multiple times both inwardly and outwardly, "Why haven't i known about this guy sooner?!" I related to his art, ideas, philosophies, questions, and curiosities. I especially connected his drive and desire to pursue and connect them all. He was another trying to bridge gaps between a multitude experiences and interests partially through art and spirituality.

Feeling this connection to Cornell made designing a book cover based on his work incredibly fun. I designed my cover as if it were one of Cornell's boxes with compartments filled with an eclectic collection of objects representing many of my central interests and the recurring motifs in my life. These included family and ancestors, memory, land and environment, entropy and order, creation, the physical laws governing space, and ultimately spirituality, light, and God. I was pleased to discover as I read more about Cornell and looked at more of his art that many of these dovetail with motifs in his art and thoughts, particularly themes revolving around spirituality and the physical universe. While I'm not sure I possess what Donald Windham considered Cornell's "genius for sensing the connection between seemingly remote ideas, emotions and objects," the possibility of at least trying to reconcile and connect some of the "seemingly remote," elements of me was a compelling and overall delightful challenge.*

So here is what I came up with.

While part of me clamored for a more minimalist design, another part of me rejoiced in the clutter and the possibilities of being able to unite these elements through the binding craft.

As for these elements, here is a quick breakdown of each "object" in each "compartment" beginning with the back cover:

1. Thomas C. Thomas, my dark-eyed, mustachioed Welsh great-grandfather with the same name twice: Writer of poetry, weaver, inventor, miner, fruit farmer. He planted my family, at least in part, in Utah, and one of his wild roses planted in the orchards still lives in a corner of our yard today. It seemed fitting that such a multi-faceted man, whose genes I seem to have inherited, take part in this piece.

2. A tiny collage of an apple branch using linen thread, book cloth, and leaves cut out from a Sargent painting in an art book. Apple trees are a family symbol. These trees along with many other fruit trees in our yard dominated my childhood. They represent not only work of the harvest but also many an adventure for lost orphaned girls and cops and robbers. Fruit trees are also a potent symbol of life, learning, and spiritual change, which is significant in my life.

3. A collage of excerpts from four separate journal entries. Journal keeping has been a central endeavor in my life. I've written nearly every day since 19 January 1995.

4. The Spiral Jetty. A continuing obsession of mine. It is one of the first earthworks art pieces created by Robert Smithson in 1970 in the northern part of the Great Salt Lake. The ideas behind the Spiral Jetty are tied to environment, entropy, chaos, and reclaiming industrial waste through art.

5. Sailing is one of my favorite things to do. Cornell also featured sailboats, ships, and other nautical objects prominently in his work. The sailboat is a collage of linen thread, muslin, book cloth, and a tiny clipping of water from an ocean in a Winslow Homer painting in the art book that I cut up.

On the front cover:
1. The balloon is a recurring motif in my life. I was enchanted by hot air balloons as a child and included them often in drawings and even a yarn punch picture I did in 4th grade. This particular rendition is inspired by Kari Jorgensen's hot air balloons, which appear frequently in her art. In the larger narrative of this design, the hot air balloon is me.

2. The compass is a more concrete representation of the heartbrain, which is a term I use when talking about learning and finding truth through the spirit/heart AND the mind. This is something I think about all the time. The heartbrain had to make it into the box! In one of the LDS books of scripture, the Doctrine and Convenants, Section 88:118 talks about seeking knowledge by study and by faith. Section 8 verse 2 also says how God will speak to us through the Holy Ghost to our minds and our hearts. The actual image of the heartbrain is rather like a blob--unsightly and too abstract for this book cover. So I chose the compass because it connotes clarity of direction (which one will have if one seeks truth from God through the heart and the mind). It symbolizes the whole of truth as well. I, as the hot air balloon, am in flight--ever dynamic (hopefully), never static as i progress through life, gaining more light and understanding....Which brings me to the last panel.

3. The cosmos. The cosmos motif continues onto the edge decoration of this book and the endsheets.

I share Cornell's interest in the physical and spiritual laws governing creation and the universe and all the elements in it. This cosmic compartment of my "box" represents some fairly abstract but awesome doctrinal points in Mormonism having to do with light and man's ability to become like God. The closer we draw to God, the more light (both in a literal and figurative sense) and understanding we attain, the more we become like Him.

I have mused upon the greater theme of gifts within this text while mulling over these objects. They represent experiences, ideas, and interests whose variety I sometimes feel burdened by but which are really gifts from God--gifts of curiosity and a thirst for knowledge and whole truth that draw me closer to Him and to others. Along with the bookbinding craft which I used to piece them together, they are all pieces of a much broader existence. "Just be glad, " Dad says, "that you are interested in and find satisfaction in so many things."

There's a lot more depth here, but I think I've already gone a little further than necessary. I've hesitated to flesh this out here in so much detail, wondering if it's better to just let the book speak for itself. But the fact that i was able, through bookbinding, to create a fairly satisfying, compelling representation of myself in a work of art that is also an homage to another artist who created so much of his work in homage to others is something that makes me a joyful bookbinder and not a reluctant one.

(*excerpts and ideas from pp.22-23 in Tashjian's book)

a new golden age?

2009-03-31T19:25:00.002-06:00

the late 1920s to the late 1940s marks a golden age for film, cartoon, and comic art that has yet to be repeated in my non-expert mind. i wonder if there will ever be another golden age. with so much in the film/animation/comic art world going digital, i'm not sure it will. (not to demean the skill and artistry that goes into digital art, but i'll admit, i'm totally and maybe irrationally biased against it.) i wonder what it was about a post/pre-war/depression culture that infused the arts with so much vigor and vitality. all i know is that when i am anxious, overly stressed, or depressed, working with my hands and creating is nearly always an activity that brings relief. perhaps that has something to do with it.

germination anxiety

2009-03-30T18:12:00.001-06:00

i can't plant my seeds in this blasted weather!!!

a house of order......almost

2009-03-09T19:55:00.016-06:00

so here's my house.

and here's who i have to thank:

green curtains: john and mary
tv stand and tv: dad and mom
orange chair: bec and bryce

floor lamp: angie from taiwan

blue sofa bed: angie from taiwan
pillows: mom and dad

dresser: mom and dad

(these are my seeds getting their morning sun bath. in the afternoon i move them to the west window for a second soaking of sun)

ottoman: a nice couple in provo
turtle on the fridge: blair and dottie

pot hanger: dad for hanging it!
kitchen cart thing: dave and karin
microwave: angie from taiwan

weirdest oven in all the world. the dials for the burners were blank, so after turning them on to experiment with which direction was "HIGH" and which was "LOW," i wrote in the rest of the temperature labels.

the Victory Sponge (my apron, for those who don't know) looks at home hung up on my circuit breaker switches, don't you think?

the other half of my bedroom (see below for the half with my table). it was like christmas de-boxing all my books that i hadn't seen in years and years. next to the bookcase are two more little IKEA tables with some scrap board resting on them to form a low table for my indoor seed plantings. they get loads of afternoon sun from my bedroom window. last week i put in eggplant, leeks, and some basil. this weekend it'll be peppers, more peppers, some other herbs, and nasturtiums.

bed of loveliness: mom and dad

lamp: mary and john

the bathroom. now mold free!

from the cinema: slumdog and oil

2009-02-26T00:13:00.002-07:00

Slumdog Millionaire is the kind of movie that is a whole, complete work of art. it has mastered storytelling in every way available to the medium--thru photography, music, story, acting, editing, and design. i left that movie affected, yes, by the extremely harsh realities of the boys' lives but even moreso by the artistry, sincerity, and morality of it--the freshness, resilience and real lifeness.

i felt similarly when i watched There Will Be Blood. it's a similarly harsh movie in many aspects, but to me, more dominated again by impeccable storytelling and remarkable, sometimes breathtaking artistry.

these movies' natural style underscores everyday beauty and brings it into high relief as it is set against cruelties, disappointments, and injustices. like real life.

these belong to the category of movies that leave me inspired to create.....to keep creating with meaning and energy and complete artistry. to think things through and leave nothing done halfway. to find inspiration in everything around me and to use art to recast life.

from the bindery: bench in my bedroom!

2009-02-21T17:21:00.004-07:00

still in progress.

but at last.

work.

may.

come.

to pass.

from the bindery: !

2009-02-21T17:15:00.001-07:00

people have been using link stitch to sew books for almost 2,000 years

from springs long past: windy words

2009-02-11T23:21:00.004-07:00

so i'm stalling. i have somewhat to say concerning bookbinding and the unknowns in life. but i'd like to write it up properly and really think it through even more carefully.....which means i haven't been thinking much on it at all.

so in its stead, i dug this out of the closet of diaryland. another poem-like tangle of words assembled about 2 and a half years ago. it is really meant for march and april, but since we are all dreaming of spring anyway, why not now?

it doesn't have a name, hasn't got much form or polish. i'd still consider it a work in progress. i might do some more tweaking. although, like nearly everything i write, it was snatched out of a moment and meant for nothing else but that moment and a burst of creative notions.

----------

This wind. It blows. everything. Blows the broom over. Blows dust round and round and round in a swirl. Blows old dead leaves. Blows me. me. meeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!

Up in a gust.

Round in a spiral.

Lifting me higher.

Up, up, and over, beyond the tallest limbs of the tallest tree.

I look out over the world. From the wind’s eye view, I see the world curve. I curve with it! I AM the world’s curve!! I look out over the world as I curve. I see where I have gone. I see where I could go.

I rush into empty pockets, vast voids, new spaces. equalizing. Balancing.

I throw my arms around the wind, exclaiming, “You are mine! I am yours! I will soar along your current that is also mine!” I also push over brooms, sweep streets into the air, fling dust and dead leaves. I reorder the air, replacing heat molecules with cool. I breathe the cool breath of the breeze.

I will cool you.

Cool your mind, your spirit, your skin, your heart.

I will steady you, little molecules, I will slow your agitated dance.

Steady your mind. Steady your spirit. Steady your skin. Steady your heart.

We curve in coolness.

10:33 p.m. - 06.06.06

one world's end

2009-01-27T23:10:00.004-07:00

revere.

remember

how once i could

jump on the subway

and jump off the subway

at the end of the world

in just half an hour?

remember

a crescent of sand

filling with crescents of waves

and crescents of winds

and crescents of dogs

and buoys dressed like dogs?

from the corner of university and 8th: the crack house

2009-01-18T13:20:00.003-07:00

i discovered today while attending my new ward for the first time, that my house is called The Yellow House and/or The Crack House.

i'm honored.

truly.

let it be known, tho, that the true crack house is somewhere in south provo on 300 east or so.

my house isn't really the crack house. it's just a house full of different and delightful people. the neigbors downstairs are a hispanic couple with two children; the other couple is a young couple whom i've barely met--stay tuned; the basement couple just moved in and have been married about two weeks. the two couples across the hall smoke outside by the roadside at least three times a day, if not more. there's also a fair amount of pot smoking going on across the hall, but not as much as i thought when i first started moving in. (it hasn't tainted my closet and clothes as i had initially feared.

apparently and unfortunately their smoking is their defining characteristic. those at church whom i talked with always asked by way of clarification if this was "the house where the people are always smoking out front). "yes," i would say, adding, "They are very friendly and neighborly" (which they are) to steer the conversation away from criticism and concern that seems inevitably to arise when people find out where i live. i guess this is satisfying to me, since it seems i'm always consciously and subconsciously out to break down my own and others' false and superficial assumptions and conclusions about people and life.

strangely, a member of the RS presidency told me that if the apartment didn't work out, there were several women in the ward needing to sell their contracts. i semi-politely interrupted to say that this new apartment is kind of a dream and that i was really happy here. (for heaven's sake, i've only slept her 4 nights!) it's funny how people are either envious or concerned that i'm living alone, and living along in the Crack House!

this apartment is superior in so many ways to my boston apartment, which i feel lucky to find in provo. i love being on this busy corner where i can look out the window in any room and find interesting things to look at. it's comforting watching and listening to the traffic rushing by and looking at all the pedestrians. it's like my own little big-city-ish side of provo and makes me feel a little like i'm back in boston. but only a little.

i am definitely in a different stage of life than many people i will be associating with here. i'm sure nearly all of my ward are undergraduate students, and the average age of the student employees in book repair is probably 20 or 21. i'm surrounded by good people, and good environments tho. perhaps now this is my time of life to be more or a mentor instead of a "mentee" (as we called it as NBSS). we shall see.

i realized today that it has been clear back since living in Indiana that i've really felt like a full out contributing, invested member of a ward. four-and-half years ago! i'm trying hard to make that my goal in this new ward. to not let newness or difference or shyness or the familiarity of place and independent living keep me from working towards that goal. it is especially difficult with friends and family around, which provide support and friendship outside of the ward. this is something that made the bloomington experience unique. i depended so much more on the ward.

i'm curious how long i will be here. at the moment moving anywhere in the next year sounds like an abomination. but i think about two years down the road when my closest friends will move, and i feel a little anxious. while i'm ridiculously grateful for my new job and house, i don't plan on working at BYU for the rest of my life now. so even while i'm just getting settled for the first time in nearly eight months, i automatically wonder how long it will last.

the anxiety is slight, tho, compared to all the good things spread before me. i see the things i need to learn here and now. not all of them are exciting to me, but i can tell they're important. in boston i learned to work harder than i've ever worked before. i see now as i'm in a position where my success and happiness and progress in my work depends so heavily on my own self-motivation and initiative how learning to work that way is one of the most valuable skills i brought back with me.

so new house, new job, new neighbors, new ward, new friendships with old friends, let the new year begin!

collecting

2008-12-26T16:07:00.003-07:00

collecting and collections are things i have become ambivalent about in the last few years. as a child and well into my teenage years i was an avid collector of many things including:

-rocks and minerals
-foreign money, mostly coins
-shells
-fairy tale and victorian paper dolls
-dolls
-stamps (sort of)
-porcelain figurines (mostly disney)
-books (ongoing, especially children's chapter and picture books)
-pennies
-embroidered vegetables (ongoing)
-vintage dresses (possibly ongoing)
-stickers
-voices/sounds (on pause, but ongoing)
-pez dispensers
-beads
-marbles
-fall leaves
-old bottles
-old keys (never succeeded. just really wanted to)
-christmas tree ends (the part you slice off before putting the tree in water. smells so good!)
-maps/inserts from national geographic
-3-D puzzles (not as much, but i'd still like the Eiffel tower and the tower bridge)

for awhile, especially between the ages of about 11 and maybe 16, or through the end of high school, i was an enthusiastic thrifter and a lover of all things old. when amanda and i went to england at the ages of 15 and 13 respectively, going to antique stores to look for old keys was high on my list of priorities (along with riding on a train, which we did plenty of). i'm pretty sure that this inclination towards old culture and old fashions stemmed partly from my insecurity with fitting in to the mainstream, popular trends my peers enjoyed. there was safety (and also nerdiness) in being knowledgeable about and aware of something nobody else was. deliberately not fitting in was easier.

but it went deeper than that, as i am still a lover of many things old. it's interesting to see how that bent has played out in my life today (studied history, now work in archives repairing old books, love of old movies and old popular culture). but somewhere in there i stopped collecting. strangely (and happily), i didn't become the aimless, lifetime packrat i was well on my way to becoming. i became more interested and secure in bringing myself up to date and being more aware of the present. i also became interested in simplifying life and my surroundings. i have by and large stopped accumulating things, even books, but i still constantly battle with myself about what's important to own or not.

eight years ago i began working in libraries and also pursued museum work for awhile through classes and volunteering. my personal ambivalence about collecting transferred over to these institutions and their collections and collection development policies. right away i caught on to the conflict between missions to preserve and too much collecting; this conflict fueled my own ambivalence. i began to see how collecting could get so out of control and so aimless that things could not longer be preserved and stored properly.

having recently returned to thrift and antique stores as well as the library book sales, i feel i have run into my past self. and yes, for those of you who have met her before, it is largely my 8th-grade self. i don't know if it's because i've stopped being a ridiculously poor and insanely busy bookbinding student or because i've renewed friendships with collectors and others who love old things or because as a bookbinder i can find tools in antique stores now. don't know.

what i do know is that my love-hate relationship with the stuff that makes up our collective and individual pasts persists and intensifies. i also know that collections with clear focus and the intent to teach and shed light on past and present people, ideas, and cultures are the most relevant and ones i want to support and even build for myself.

i'm not sure what the fate of my old collections will be. i wonder if a time will come when i just want to throw it all out. the "love" and nostalgia kind of hope not--it's always fun to dig through those boxes, and it would be fun to show my kids. the "hate" and desire for simplicity hope otherwise.

we shall see....

Oz

2008-12-16T22:08:00.002-07:00

The Land of Oz, the second in the voluminous Oz series, has a great, great twist in the end. this book was so imaginative, comical, and delightful to read. unique and unexpected characters. and, like i said, a fantastic twist that leads the book so easily into the next sequel. i can't wait to get started. Ozma of Oz here I come.

from the diaryland: fam and food

2008-12-13T23:38:00.002-07:00

last re-post, i promise. too good to pass up. plus, it's appropriate because part of the reason i'm a reluctant bookbinder is because i would like to have more time and energy to spend on food--growing it, cooking it, baking it. (not books. you can't do any of those things to books)

but anyway, here's some old thoughts in hyperbole from december 2005.

food, 12.18.05

every single child and in-law in my family is truly obsessed with making, talking about, and eating food. our family gatherings are built around food, and not one goes by without some lengthy but fascinating discussion and analysis of delicious food eaten out or delicious food prepared at home. even today when only john and mom and i were sitting at the dining room table, we were still discussing food--fondu, sushi, and some swiss cheese thing! and just a little while later, mand called specifically to discuss the best way to melt baker's chocolate for moosewood brownies (in the microwave) and whether or not she should add the cinnamon. i then told her about a delicious pumpkin curry soup and about the greatest breakthrough in christmas-cookie frosting ever made that was happening right then and there in our kitchen! our entire conversation consisted only of food! and then we hung up. food is one of the flam's biggest connecting points. our best and most memorable times together are always around the table, in the midst of delicious concoctions and surrounded by each other's good company.

from the diaryland: an old dream brought back to life

2008-12-13T22:58:00.003-07:00

tonight i have been reading diaryland entries from this time of year three years ago. i love reading old journal entries, especially my online ones, which tend to be more interesting (likely the effect of knowing there's the immediate audience of friends). i love seeing what's changed and what's the same.

anyway, this made me laugh so hard, that i thought i'd repost it here (especially since no one has access to "thebid" anymore).

dream, 12.13.05

umm. in my dream this morning i seem to remember crystal and kari and i were entering I-15 southbound from I-80 westbound in a canoe. yes, a canoe. for some reason the canoe was tipped up almost vertical and kari tumbled from the front (the top) all the way to the back, almost tumbling all the way out.

how she tumbled past crystal or me without taking us with her, i'll never know.

why the canoe was tipped upright while entering a highway full of speeding cars, i'll never know.

where the canoe came from in the first place is a huge mystery.

where crystal and kari came from....even huger!

A Birthday Story For Biddy, Love, Ellis

2008-12-11T20:16:00.001-07:00

(for those of you who don't know, Ellis is my three-and-a-half-year old niece. she lives and writes in China)

Now, this story is about my bears. And the mice come over, and they make pies and books, and they celebrate winter.

Now, Melissa Bear was looking for somebody. She lived all alone.

"Squeak!"

"Oh, bother," thought Melissa, when she heard the noise. She had bumped her elbow when the noise surprised her.

"Knock, knock. Ding, Dong!" It was Angelina. She was standing outside on the front porch. She had bumped her elbow, too, and that's why she squeaked.

Now do you know what? Melissa Bear opened the door. It was not just Angelina. It was Norman, too. He's Angelina's friend. Then all the other mice came. Mickey and Minnie, Dame Mouserink and Mousekin.

Meanwhile Teddy, Zero-unheart Bear, Honeydew, Bearymore and Heart Bear came down the stairs. It so happened for them that they were celebrating wintertime. Of course Melissa's birthday is in wintertime, on Christmas. Melissa Bear was excited to open presents even though it wasn't her birthday yet. It was only the middle of December. Some presents were wrapped, but she didn't know which present was for her. But Bearymore knew. He had wrapped all the presents up and tied them with a ribbon. And then he hid them under the Christmas tree. Now, meanwhile, Melissa dreamed about her birthday—that after they had had cake and ice cream and birthday soup, they would open the presents. In her dream, Melissa knew which one was for her.

All the mice and bears wanted to go outside to celebrate wintertime. So they went outside. But they accidentally got lost. It was a little bit cold. The only flowers they found were pansies. Princess Biddy finally found them, and when she found them she said,

"What are you guys doing out on a night like this?" So they got all in a row with Biddy at the end. "Hold my hand guys," she said. Two of them, mice, held her hands. Soon they came to a bright red door in a white fence. So they knocked and ding-donged. They wondered who lived there. Suddenly they heard a noise upstairs. They crept up the stairs and tip-toed quietly. Melissa Bear was quite scared. But actually they realized it was just Mowgli the rat. This was his house and it was just in the middle of the forest. Princess Biddy had shown them where he lived. Princess Biddy was a friend to rats.

Everyone ran back downstairs. Mowgli knew it was Princess Biddy's birthday. He was in the middle of making cheddar cheese pies. He showed them how to sprinkle apples over. Melissa started to bake a cake. She put the candle sticks on and lit the candles, because she was making a birthday cake. It was Princess Biddy's birthday! The animals sang happy birthday. The song was a little bit pretty.

Melissa Bear started making books, because of course Biddy had taught her how a couple weeks before. Now she was making a special one. First she chose some colors—blue and pink. She made the cover pink and inside the pages were blue, and the picture was blue also. It was a fairy tale book for Biddy because it was her birthday. Biddy was very surprised.

"Thanks guys," she said.

Everyone got to stay the night.

That was the end of the story.

from the lab: the springback lives!

2008-12-03T21:59:00.018-07:00

the moment we've all been waiting for, the culmination of the last 8 or 10 weeks obsession with the springback binding. my interest began because there are zillions of springback account books in the church archives. i've been examining them and wanted to learn how to make them (also in hopes that i would learn how they might be repaired).

so the springback binding came into being around 1799. it's a binding style developed for account and ledger books. the book literally springs open and lies flat. as you can imagine, it's imperative that an account book stay open, and if it doesn't open flat, the accountant can't write all those important little numbers way into the gutter, wasting as little paper as possible.

the most prevalent styles (if not the only) are, as usual, German and English. i have now made models of both and am now just realizing that i've forgotten photos of the lousy excuse for a german springback binding i made a month ago. anyway, see below for some illustrations of the process, and check out the link in the "favorite book structure" section on this blog.

1. construct endsheets. these are cool new endsheets i've never made. they consist of made fly leaves (i.e decorative paper laminated--or glued--to one of the endsheet leaves) with a cloth fold (the red)........

and a strip of cotton along the back of the fold for extra strength.

2. After cutting, folding, pressing, and trimming sections, and sewing them on four linen tapes (those googly strips of cloth dangling from the book's spine), i squared up the book and glued up the back with gelatin. gelatin is animal glue. you heat it in a double boiler. it's delicious. joke. it's just a fact of bookbinding.

3. Once glue is set but not totally dry, chop the head, tail, and foredge of the book so it has clean edges. in fine binding and most other binding i've done, this trimming has been accomplished by ploughing (shaving off the uneven edge with this blade set in a contraption) or trimming beforehand. with this binding--which would have been produced en masse in a trade bindery--i wanted to keep things authentic and do what they would have done. so to the guillotine we went, and in three swift cuts, the deed was done. i love the guilltoine. this particular one is from palmyra, ps.

4. I forgot to take photos, but the next step would be to hammer some round into the book while the gelatin is still relatively flexible. The springback is unique in that it is only rounded and not backed. You'll notice later on that the folds have not been knocked over. an astute bookbinder's eye will also notice that i did not leave enough swell in the the sewing for a good round. Springbacks were typically overrounded. not mine.

5. So here pictured is the first part of the "spring" of the springback. it's that buff-colored piece of cardstock glued there. it acts as the lever for the spring.

6. i forgot. i did also paint the edges after chopping them and rounding the book. seeing as i was in trade binder mode, i did a half-baked job (which i'm not supposed to do) and didn't sand properly. more typically the edges were painted green.

7. the sewing tapes are glued to the cardstock "lever", the waste sheet that the "lever" was glued to is folded back over the cardstock and glued there, and a leather lining is glued to the spine of the book. the leather lining is a wonderful thing. it is one of the few compressible spine lining materials. but i'll spare you the mechanics of the spine. i'm obsessed with it, but i'm pretty sure those of you reading this aren't.

another view of lever and linings......and lack of round. you'll also notice that the edges aren't painted yet. they should have been, but i did them later, which was very difficult with this thick flap. but that's another story.

8. the tragedy. see those notches that are cut out? i wasn't supposed to cut them all the way off. oh well. i guess "the tragedy" should not be a step in the process. one shoudn't plan on tragedies in bookbinding. actually......maybe it's more realistic if you do.

9. the spring! i loved this part! i mean, when will you ever get to use a broom for bookbinding?! the spring in the springback is layers of paper glued together and then wrapped around a round dowel about the same as the spine and let to dry so it will keep the shape. historically, the spring was sometimes metal. in the german style, they build the spring onto the back. it's kind of like a cast. so the spring is under the ace bandage, waiting to emerge.

the spring born at last. the cotton lining is what i used to attach the spring to the book. this is the inside of the spring, just so you know.

10. ten steps later, the spring has been attached, followed by the boards. the boards consist of a thick board and a thinner cardstock. that big flap gets glued between them. for those of you who know, it's the same as a split board. the pencil lines mark where the leather will go. i also glued false raised bands on the spine to create that classic look. everyone loves those bumps on the back of a book. well, it's also what the trade binder would have done and did do.

here's a close up of the spring and the edge. the edge of the spring is supposed to form headcaps, but it was thick and uncooperative. you an also see the second, thinner cardstock board.

11. paste on the leather spine and corners. then i filled the cover in with cardstock the same thickness as the leather. the leather is only edge-pared for maximum strength. again, it's an account book. it's gotta survive super heavy use.

12. after letting the leather dry overnight, i covered the rest of the book with cloth, let it dry, and then glued down the decorative endsheets and let them dry. then it was time for tooling. a straight line gets tooled along all the edges where leather meets cloth. oh boy, did it feel good to have that finishing tool in hand again after five months!

the book in the finishing press, awaiting tooling along the false raised bands

.......uhhhhhhh..........ridiculously, i have realized, i have neglected to produce "finished" photos. so stay tuned for the final installment of Springback: A Story of Obsession

at least i'll say this has been a fantastic project. it's so rewarding to work on an historical binding structure but with actual examples close at hand to aid in making things accurate and authentic. it's also an enormous challenge to teach oneself a binding from written directions only. takes a lot of patience and reading and re-reading and frustration. nevertheless, i definitely plan on making more of these soon.

sleepover

2008-11-28T13:32:00.001-07:00

otto: there! pear! i'm going to a sleepover!

pear: where?

otto (with uber-enthusiasm and sparkly eyes): I DON'T KNOW! *sparkle* *sparkle*

Thanksgiving Radio

2008-11-27T13:12:00.003-07:00

i just experienced a supreme moment i thought only possible in my dreams: my entire family gathered in the kitchen surrounded by thanksgiving meal prep, listening to David Sedaris do a Billie Holiday impression on This American Life.

the listening to radio stories together is the dream part.

but thanksgiving food is a pretty nice dream, too.

book thoughts: "the fourth political option"

2008-11-13T17:20:00.006-07:00

In 2004, after a fantastically disappointing presidential campaign and election, the Reverend Jim Wallis--an evangelical christian, political activist, and editor of Sojourner's magazine--wrote a book which he titled God's Politics: Why the Right Gets It Wrong and the Left Doesn't Get It.

Not only do Br. Wallis and I see eye-to-eye on several key points, he has also managed to pinpoint for me at least part of the source of my political disgruntlement. With my populist, environmentalist, part-liberal, part-conservative, part-progressive, part-anarchist, part anti-capitalist, part anti-nationalist leanings and a extreme aversion to political labels (even tho i just threw out a zillion regarding myself), parties, and idealogues, it's no wonder I've had difficulty finding anything close to resembling a niche.

I know many people like me who don't subscribe to our current political options and ideologies. Many of them are also Mormons who don't fit in with the traditional christian conservative niche. For those of you who may put yourself in this category (but not necessarily all my part-this, anti-that categories) or for anyone else, you may find this excerpt from Wallis' book compelling.

(for a smoother read, please ignore the plethora of parentheticals)

There are now three major political options in our public life. The first political option in America today is conservative on everything--from cultural, moral, and family concerns to economic, environmental, and foreign policy issues. Differences emerge between aggressive nationalists and cautious isolationists, corporate apologists and principled fiscal conservatives, but this is the political option clearly on the ascendancy in America [remember, this is 4 years ago], with most of the dominant ideas in the public square coming from the political right.

The second political option in contemporary America is liberal on everything--both family/sexual/cultural questions and economic, environmental, and foreign policy matters. There are certainly differences among the liberals (from pragmatic centrists to green leftists), but the intellectual and ideological roots come from the Left side of the cultural and political spectrum--and today most from the liberal/Left find themselves on the defensive [not anymore, for those of you who heard the story on NPR today about how the Religious Right is back on the defensive and excited about it. !]

The third option in American politics is libertarian, meaning liberal on cultural/moral issues and conservative on fiscal/economic and foreign policy issues. The "just leave me alone and don't spend my money option" is growing quickly in American life.

I believe there is a "fourth option" for American politics, which follows from the prophetic religious tradition we have described. It is traditional or conservative on issues of family values, sexual integrity and personal responsibility, while being very progressive, populist, or even radical on issues like poverty [yes!] and racial justice [yes again!]. It affirms good stewardship of the earth and its resources, supports gender equality, and is more internationally minded than nationalist--looking first to peacemaking and conflict resolution when it comes to foreign policy questions [huzzah!!!!] The people it appeals to (many religious, but others not) are very strong on issues like marriage, raising kids, and individual ethics, but without being right-wing, reactionary, or mean-spirited or scapegoating against any group of people, such as homosexuals [yes!!]. They can be pro-life, pro-family, and pro-feminist, all at the same time. They think issues of "moral character" are very important, both in a politician's personal life and in his or her policy choices. Yet they are decidedly pro-poor [definitely me. possibly the most important work i've done to this point in my life is with low-income and homeless families who have shown me just what a blight poverty and homelessness really are], for racial reconciliations, critical of purely military solutions [oh man. so so so critical. check out Taxi to the Dark Side for the darkest side of military solutions], and defenders of the environment.

At the heart of the fourth option is the integral link between personal ethics and social justice. And it appeals to people who refuse to make the choice between the two.

from the vault: church welfare in the 40s....

2008-11-11T21:11:00.002-07:00

..........didn't look too great

From the Good Book: Election Day Thoughts on how the Book of Mormon blasts American Exceptionalism

2008-11-04T19:19:00.010-07:00

american exceptionalism.

(you can read all about it in sarah vowell's new book)
(and in every US History text book)
(and in every reading assignment i had in college)

i don't like it.

(And in these last eight years the bush administration has taken this exceptionalism to new, alarming, and oh, so destructive heights.)

Nor do i like it when scripture--specifically the Book of Mormon--is invoked to justify and/or bolster american exceptionalism, nationalism, and ethnocentrism. Now don't get me wrong. this is an amazing country in many ways i don't need to write about here. but we're not perfect, and a capitalist republic is not the model for the kingdom of God (just like the 3-hour sunday meeting block probably isn't either).

In Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling, Richard Bushman forms compelling analysis of the Book of Mormon's content with regards to America and Israel (i.e. God's Kingdom). While I'd strongly recommend beginning on page 101 to get the entire context and insight, for the sake of keeping anyone awake who is reading this, I won't quote it all......

"The story of Israel [in the Book of Mormon] overshadowed the history of American liberty. Literal Israel stood at the center of history, not the United States. The book sacralized the land but condemned the people. The Indians were the chosen ones, not the European interlopers. The Book of Mormon was the seminal text, not the Constitution or the Declaration of Independence. The gathering of lost Israel, not the establishment of liberty, was the great work. In the Book of Mormon, the biblical overwhelms the national.

Taken as a whole, the Book of Mormon can be read as a 'document of profound social protest' against the dominant culture of Joseph Smith's time. That may not have been most readers' first impression. Many converts said it confirmed their old beliefs. The book read like the Bible to them; its gospel was standard Christianity. The book patriotically honored America by giving it a biblical history. And yet on closer reading, the Book of Mormon contests the amalgam of Enlightenment, republican, Protestant, capitalist and nationlist values that constituted American culture. The combination is not working, the book says. America is too Gentile, too worldly, too hard-hearted. The Gentiles 'put down the power and miracles of God, and preach up unto themselves, their own wisdom, and their own learning, that they may get gain, and grind upon the faces of the poor.' The nation must remember God and restore Israel--or be blasted.

The Book of Mormon proposes a new purpose for America: becoming a realm of righteousness rather than an empire of liberty. Against increasing wealth and inequality, the Book of Mormon advocates the cause of the poor. Against the subjection of the Indians, it promises the continent to the native people. Against republican government, it proposes righteous rule by judges and kings under God's law. Against a closed-canon Bible and nonmiraculous religion, the Book of Mormon stands for ongoing revelation, miracles, and revelation to all nations. Against skepticism, it promotes belief; against nationalism, a universal Israel. It foresees disaster for the nation if the love of riches, resistance to revelation, and Gentile civilization prevail over righteousness, revelation, and Israel. Herman Melville said of Nathaniel Hawthorne, 'He says NO! in thunder.' A NO can be heard in the Book of Mormon's condemnation of an America without righteousness."

104-5.

It frustrates me when our scripture is wrongly used to uphold and justify certain aspects of our nation and culture as it exists now. What we are now is certainly not the paradigm or standard of all righteousness. Just a step along the way.

And when at times the Church feels so, so frustratingly westerncentric it is encouraging to me to remember these perspectives Bushman underscores that lie in the heart of the gospel's center of doctrine--the Book of Mormon. A paradigm shift is occurring, however. I have seen this very clearly as I've been working for the Church History Department these last four-and-a-half months. The shift is happening. Tho it may be slow (to be expected with a 13 million member organization), I am encouraged, hopeful, and excited.

Mr. Popsicle Stick's Halloween Extravaganza

2008-11-03T21:06:00.002-07:00

from the garden: pesto brain

2008-10-29T21:35:00.004-06:00

after a slow, unmotivated day in the lab, i came home itchy to actually be productive with my hands. which meant it was time to finally whip the remnants of my summer basil plants into long overdue pesto. the basil had been sitting in ziploc bags in the fridge for about one week too long, and it came out looking almost unusable......but smelling ok. but just so you can imagine it, it basically looked like spinach in its last leg.

nevertheless!

a miracle happened, and delicious bright pesto was born. beautiful greens! the darker basil is a combination of purple basil and the usual sweet basil. the other is lighter green, with smaller leaves and tastes more like tarragon. together they become the ultimate basil pesto brain. and thrown together with pasta, sun-dried tomatoes, shredded parmesan, and pine nuts--a delicious pesto brain pasta-o-rama!

actually.......i recently had surgery and this goo was where my brain was supposed to be.
pesto brain bid!

from the "vault": vlad pearcula

2008-10-27T22:55:00.001-06:00

little orphan paula OR mom in living poetry

2008-10-26T09:14:00.005-06:00

a few weeks ago mom and dad and i ventured into the great metropolis of Delta, Utah in search of remnants of ghost towns and to explore what's left of Topaz, a Japanese internment camp from the 40s. mom discovered some old bed springs underneath an old piece of broken fence and proceeded to spend about five minutes bouncing around on it, reciting the old "Little Orphan Annie" jump rope rhyme from her childhood.

so, i said to mom later on, life is like a chiasmus,* and you and your little orphan annie-ing are living proof.

*the literary technique used sometimes in scriptures that presents a set of words or ideas in a certain order and then retraces them in the opposite order.

book thoughts: from Madeleine L'Engle

2008-10-19T10:14:00.003-06:00

Madeleine L'Engle is one of the wisest people I know, and as it is sunday and I'm getting ready to go to yet another church conference of sorts (ward conference--blah), here is one of her beautiful thoughts on the subject of religion and the millenium-o-rama:

"The Second Coming. The Coming of the Kingdom.

What does that mean?

My son-in-law Alan was asked once by a pious woman if our feet would be wafted from the earth, at the time of the Second Coming, before Jesus’s feet touched ground. Ouch. That kind of literalism is not what it’s about.

For the simple fact is that we are not capable of knowing what it’s about. The Coming of the Kingdom is creation coming to be what it was meant to be, the joy and glory of all creation working together with the Creator. In literal language none of it makes much sense, and I can only go once again to my adolescent analogy of the planet on which all sentient life was sightless. If nobody could see, other sense would take over, and everybody would get along perfectly well. But if you tried to explain the joy of sight to anybody on that planet you couldn’t do it. Nobody could understand something so glorious and so totally out of an eyeless frame of reference. Multiply that gap between a blind planet and a seeing one a billion times and we’ll still be far from understanding the difference between creation, now, and creation in the fullness of the kingdom. But I am slowly learning that it is something to be awaited with joy and not terror. "

The Irrational Season, p. 3-4

(ps. some more thoughts on faith...)

log cabin, hard cider!

2008-10-06T23:14:00.003-06:00

i was walking around a ghost town today when johnny appleseed came up to me and offered me a delicious mug of hot cider.

arboreal patriarchs' last gasps

2008-10-04T14:59:00.003-06:00

what were once over thirty bushels of the most flavorful old fashioned red delicious from three grand old trees has shrunk to just these five little buddies from two .

from the kitchen: some fall pastries

2008-10-04T14:41:00.006-06:00

all of my favorite fruits and veggies are available fresh and in season right now, which means when i'm not in the lab i can't stay out of the kitchen and all is well in the world!

this pears and cream tart is made with pears from the ground of the Jones's orchard (home of Magic the horse who also likes pears). Magic Pears and Cream Tart: crumbly butter crust with a touch of sugar filled with a light, creamy custard and fresh pears with peels!

cherry-rhubarb pie with sour cherries grown out back, grandma's rhubarb, and a new kind of crust. i can't take credit for inventing the layered-crust-circles look, but i like it. it's a great alternative for too-dry crust that's difficult to roll out. this pie was pretty delicious except for the unthickened juices that made everything soggy. piemaker's horror.

a family fave and a delicacy passed down through the ages--the danish pastry [puff] done Biddy style. traditionally this pastry is yellow, thanks to butter and eggs. i prefer pink and green.

from the lab: a triumphant rescue

2008-10-01T20:16:00.007-06:00

BEFORE: the saddest rebinding attempt in all the world.

AFTER: all better

anxious

2008-09-28T23:09:00.002-06:00

Feeling insecure in my profession—again. I was reading this bookbinder’s blog, and he is a true craftsman—a true professional. He has so much experience, and he writes well about it. I feel the full weight of my inadequacy and inexperience, and part of that weight is a feeling that it will never dissipate, that I lack the ambition to work in this field with the kind of dedication, ambition, and integrity that seems necessary and that I admire in so many of these craftsmen. I want what they have . . . and I don’t. And so I’m left without knowing where to direct my passions.

from the lab: recent work

2008-09-12T21:33:00.022-06:00

here are some of the projects i have been working on in the lab this week (and from the last weeks). i find myself frequently yelling out, "this is so fun!" or at other times something sounding more like "blast!" or "curses!" all in all, tho, i've found work to be so satisfying.

and what could be more satisfying than throwing a print (possible lithograph) that looks like this (notice gross stains) and that's mounted with some nasty adhesive plastic-paper-something-or-other into a couple baths for a day and a half and find the stains actually do wash out!

this photo represents a few baths. first isopropyl alcohol. alcohol released the heat activated backing tissue on the print. once submerged in the alcohol, it was just a few minutes before the print had nearly lifted off from the adhesive backing by itself. like magic. second was an overnight soaking in a plain, deionized water bath. in the morning i replaced the water with hot water. it looks a bit fuzzy in the pic because it's sandwiched between two layers of spun polyester called reemay. this fabric makes it possible to handle the wet paper without it disintegrating in your fingertips.

after the final bath with a little calcium hydroxide added for deacidification, the print comes out to air dry and then pressed flat. thanks to the before pictures bid of little faith could see that the stains had really faded. huzzah!

much of the reference material i work on comes to the lab like this--spines flapping, a cover or two hanging on by a thread or completely detached. these books are mostly informational and simply need to be made functional again, which gives me a chance to try new techniques (and not get bored!)

this is a first edition book of mormon made important not by its first editionness, but by joseph smith's writing on the front fly leaf and by the fact that it belonged to a stalwart woman named Vienna Jacques. clearly, the book needs to be resewn, but it can't be until the spine folds (the backs of the sections) are "guarded" or reinforced with thin japanese paper and wheat starch paste. without doing this, the thread has nothing to hold on to. it's tedious and incredibly time consuming.........

............but, doesn't it look so much better! i love guarding spine folds. i love the way this looks.

this is a pull-out page from the 9th edition of Fox's Book of Martyrs. it's been pulled out one too many times and is now in 3 pieces. (this page, btw, illustrates various torture methods, so don't look too close. gruesome.)

the paper is incredibly weak, so i lined the back of the whole sheet with japanese paper. i learned a new technique for doing this that involved pasting dacron--a polyester fabric--to a piece of plexiglas, pasting japanese paper to the dacron, and pasting the pages to the japanese paper. sticking everything to plexi insures the object will dry flat and with consistent tension.

once dry, the dacron peels easily from the plexi, and the japanese paper peels fairly easily from the dacron. with everything so wet and full of paste it's easy to move the pieces exactly into position without them drying too fast.

once dry and trimmed, the page is reinserted into the book and folded back along its original folds which are now super strong (thanks to the long fibers of the japanese paper)....

...and ready to withstand the zillions more handlings. the great part is that this is all reversible and can be done again if need be.

finally, fun project of the week.
this is an 1840 Book of Mormon in a pitiable state with some previous half-hearted attempts at mending these first pages. the book is missing the front cover, which partly accounts for its ragged filthiness.

i copied missing title pages from another identical 1840 edition

mended the pages

replaced the front cover

and recovered the book with japanese paper and replaced the remaining pieces of the original spine. (not a leather cover since they already have a decent 1840 edition with a lovely, in tact, leather binding)

bookmobile

2008-09-11T22:19:00.003-06:00

i am beginning some ideas for a book exhibition i'd like to do based on the idea of a bookmobile.

and book mobiles.

the possibilities are endless and exciting!

parks!

2008-09-11T21:58:00.002-06:00

i love the big parks so much. i walked round and round and under and over and through liberty park today after work. the longer i was there, the more people came. joggers, bikers, skaters, rollerbladers, walkers, tennis players....

the multiple personalities of a city emerge in its parks, and this is where i thrive.

it's fascinating that at the end of a day we burst with energy from our workplaces and immerse ourselves in the wild, fresh, unpredictable outside--the antithesis of our indoor workdays (especially at the COB).

i need these people in the parks and on the streets and in the markets. we are sustained by each other on the energy of our diversity and as we engage with the world around us.

of books and lovers of....

2008-09-06T23:32:00.003-06:00

Books Fall Open
by David McCord

Books fall open,
you fall in,
delighted where
you've never been;
hear voices not once
heard before,
reach world on world
through door on door;
find unexpected
keys to things
locked up beyond
imaginings.
What might you be,
perhaps become
because one book
is somewhere? Some
wise delver into
wisdom, wit,
and wherewithal
has written it.
True books will venture,
dare you out,
whisper secrets,
maybe shout
across the gloom
to you in need,
who hanker for
a book to read.

ode to classmates

2008-09-03T23:22:00.005-06:00

a grand day for double flexible binding!

missing these little buddies. we are now spread across the country, from coast to coast, spreading finely handcrafted, well-bound books to all the world!!!

notes from the lab: sublime cyclododecane

2008-09-03T21:32:00.011-06:00

i met a new chemical marvel at work about a month ago:

!CYCLODODECANE!

(here, it's easier to read this way: cyclo do decane)

since various web sites and published papers have already explained about this little buddy in all its complexity (just google it and check out the JAIC and consdist list pages), i'll keep it simple.

Cyclododecane is an alicyclic hydrocarbon.....uh...that is, it's a neutral substance. that is a wax-like solid at room temperature. it's non-toxic. and insoluble in water. which is the key, because we used it to keep some inks from getting wet and bleeding during aqueous treatments. a.k.a as a fixative for water sensitive stuff.

it's most thrilling property--it sublimes. which means, it volatilizes from a solid directly to a gas in normal room temperature. so you can use it as a consolidant and fixative, and in a few weeks time it's gone all by itself, damaging nothing.

so here's what we did. there was a sticker on a paper that we needed to remove. in water. but this sticker had a suspect ink we wanted to keep from bleeding onto the document. so. we melted the cyclododcane (melts at 35-65 degrees C) and dripped it over the problem ink. we dunked it all in a bath, removed the sticker, and hung it all to dry.

i took the sticker with the remaining gob of cyclododecane (more of a glob than was necessary, btw) and this is what it looked like on August 4.

on August 7th

August 12th

August 15th

August 21st

and finally, September 2nd......

after one month, the subliming is complete!

cyclododecane's usefulness reaches beyond this, as does the complexity of the chemistry beyond it, but mostly i found it very satisfying to work with such a sublime substance that helps without damage and takes care of itself.

This Old Book: The Great Omar

2008-08-16T17:42:00.006-06:00

[Preface: I certainly don't know enough about this story to be posting authoritatively about it. Which i'm not. Just a note of interest with mild to horrific inaccuracies. take caution.]

In 1901 Francis Sangorsky and George Sutcliffe opened their bindery in Bloomsbury. Sangorsky was best known for and most talented in forwarding (the process of assembling/binding a book); Sutcliffe excelled as a finisher (the process of decorating the cover). The two had both trained at Camberwell Colllege of Art, studying with Douglas Cockerell, and later worked in Cockerell's bindery before starting their own firm.

Sangorsky & Sutcliffe produced some of its most creative and innovative work during these earliest years, including this lavish binding of The Ruba'iyat of Omar Kayyam.

After over two years of continuous work, and over one thousand jewels and leather onlays later, The Great Omar was completed in 1911. However, in 1912, both Sangorsky and the firm's astonishing masterpiece sunk tragically with the Titanic.

But The Great Omar would not be snuffed out so easily. Now if my details are right, I believe it was the nephew of George Sutcliffe--Stanley Bray--who took upon himself the task of recreating the Great Omar, which he finished--or at least was well into it. . . . just in time for it to be burned during the Bombing of Britain. I believe Bray began a third replica and worked on it well into his 70s. This is the version, I believe that is now kept in the British Library. (when i know for sure, i will let you know!)

The story of The Great Omar is a long, complicated, and mysterious one--one of the most intriguing i have come across in my studies. It is thought by some to be one of the most ambitious bindings ever made. As for me, I also tend to think it must be one of the most cursed.

from the vault: the true provenance of mother goose

2008-08-16T17:31:00.005-06:00

this is a copy of the title page of an 1833 volume of a mother goose publication that my boss at the Boston Public Library brought to my attention. take a close look. . . and then have a good chuckle.

thank you, Max Ernst

2008-08-15T23:09:00.005-06:00

my favorite painting at the UMFA exhibition.

Ernst's inspiration....

dream interpretation, please!

2008-08-15T23:03:00.003-06:00

three nights in a row i have had strange and unusual dreams. this phenomenon in and of itself is odd, seeing as i rarely remember anything that remotely smacks of a dream.

it's not worth attempting to describe any of these recent dream scenarios, but seriously, why was i scanning a heel of bread at a self-checkout in a grocery store this morning??!

lab notes: moldy monster

2008-08-14T21:47:00.010-06:00

ever wonder what might happen to your wet book if you don't treat it properly or quickly?

exhibit amold concentrated along the spine where the pages dry more slowly.

exhibit b

i like this mirror effect. looks like a pelvis.
which leads me to believe that the mold is slowly transforming the book into an entirely different creature all together. with a pelvis. IT'S ALIVE!!!

exhibit c

after guillotining the ever-so-hazardously-moldy spine (this volume was only oversewn loose leaves, so no worry about chopping existing spine folds), we get a good look at the "strata of mold." gross.

definitely glove and mask worthy. first things first, i took a vacuum to this monster in embryo. a special mold vacuum with a special filter and special tiny attachments. the hope is that the vacuuming will pick up not only loose dirt, but whatever spores might be lurking. after disbinding and spine-chopping, the book goes into a bath, which will hopefully neutralize the mold somewhat and strengthen the mold-weakened paper. then the volume will be digitized, rebound, and returned to its owner. the safest option, tho, would be to digitize it and then trash this blossoming bio-harzard.

dinner cleanup, OR jokes at home

2008-08-14T21:37:00.005-06:00

i hope mom appreciates pear's and my hard work in selecting the perfect tupperware for tonight's leftovers...

french fries

2008-08-03T21:53:00.003-06:00

we're at Stans.

Celia is proudly comparing her golden-brown, tanned arm with my wax-like one and pear's golden-but-not-quite-brown arm.

"okay, let's see," she says, "you're a mcdonald's fry, i'm a Stan's fry, and pear's . . . . a burger king fry."

notes from a reluctant commuter: only in utah

2008-08-01T18:22:00.001-06:00

i couldn't help but notice flocks of cheerful, energetic looking women migrating toward the convention center downtown. unsual for a friday morning at 7:45. very unusual. as i certainly was neither perky nor destined for the salt palace, i blearily resigned myself to never knowing from whence or for what this strange species had descended upon us.

i had forgotten all over the course of a non-busy, busy day involving further entrenchment in the local bookbinding and conservation world and making pretense of hinging on a few loose fly leaves. that was until i was comfortably seated on the express bus headed home. very near the scene of the morning's mystery, a man talking on a cell phone embarked. i couldn't help overhearing him say with an unmistakable smile in his voice, ". . . bunch of ladies stamping up stuff."

of course. utah is the perfect place for a scrapbooking convention. how could i be so blind?

near the end of my ride home, as commuters were whipping out cell phones, calling for rides, i overheard another man in conversation: ". . .Do you mind if we stop and give someone a blessing on the way home? [pause] Do you have oil? [pause] Well, we'll get things taken care of and consecrate some if we need to. . . . "

ah utah. i love thee.

giantess roams neighborhood

2008-07-30T23:11:00.000-06:00

since returning once more to my childhood neighborhood and walking old paths through old haunts i feel as tho everything has shrunk--or maybe Alice has slipped me a bit of mushroom in my spaghetti sauce and i've grown twice as big!

it makes me wonder--

does my home look smaller because i have seen and lived in more of the world and have something more to compare it to?

or have i just grown bigger and braver?

or both?

music to my ears

2008-07-30T23:10:00.000-06:00

soft footfalls on sun-soaked pavement

false prophecy

2008-07-27T21:16:00.000-06:00

last january i was skimming through some of my five thousand adolescent and early young adult journals when i came across an entry from August 2000 that, when read today, is filled with more amusing irony than i ever would have thought at the time i wrote it.

in the entry, i reflected on Russell M. Nelson's description of the way he approached each morning with optimism and enthusiasm. i complained to myself that, unlike him, as long as i was working at book repair every day all summer long i would never be able to greet the day with such buoyancy. i could never embrace the joy of temp binding periodicals several hours a day, every day, all summer long. the idea of working full time repairing books was unimaginable! an abomination!

"ah well," i sighed, settling into a final, comforting thought: "at least i won't be doing this for the rest of my life."

heh. chuckles on the house! chuckles for those who knew me then or have come to know me since.

eight years later i find myself, at last, cheerfully and enthusiastically not only binding and repairing, but eating, drinking, sleeping, and dreaming books more than forty hours a week. it only took four years of reluctant, mediocre repair work, eighteen months of total abandonment, six months relenting, and two years at a full time bench bookbinding school and working in internships.

and so, despite my hopeful self-prophecy and fierce reluctance to dedicate so much energy to one thing, i am going to do this for the rest of my life. i am willingly and rather miraculously subjecting myself to what one of the twentieth century's most influential bookbinders Edgar Mansfield called "the most demanding craft there is" and "the most unforgiving craft on the face of this bloody earth!"

ah, well, i sigh, settling on this last comforting thought: at least for the rest of my life i will be a craftsman, an artist, a teacher; and i will get chance after chance to transcend the book's demands, defy my innate impatience and impetuousness, and hold tangible progress in my hands!