Heart-in-Hand Valentines

I participated in the CBBAG Valentine Card exchange this year and it was so much fun getting all those handmade valentine cards in my mailbox from all over Canada. Thank you to everyone involved!


For my cards, I decided to make Heart in Hand valentines. The heart-in-hand motif, symbolic of charity given from the heart, was a common image in art and crafts made by the Shakers in the late 1700s and throughout the 1800s. It appeared in illustrations, carvings, pottery, needlework, etc. If you're interested in reading more about the history of the motif, check out this article on the Streets Of Salem website. The Shakers also did a lot of weaving using textiles as well as some interesting paper weaving.

The "Heart in Hand" valentine combines the motif and the paper weaving. Here are some of the experiments I did with a variety of hands. I tried printed papers, plain papers, single hands, two hands, even a mitten!



In the end I decided to make the hands as if they were a lady's fancy glove with extra cut details. For the CBBAG exchange, I needed to make about 30 of these! For the hearts, I used some of my own original marbled papers and finished them with some gold lettering.


They are all very similar, but the details were cut individually so each glove is unique and the weaving varied a bit.



If you want to try the weaving technique, it is best to make the cuts evenly spaced and all at the same angle from the centre fold. Though, varying the spacing is also possible if you plan it carefully. I marked the back of the hearts to show where I needed to cut. The easiest way to make the cuts is to fold the heart and the hand together and then make the cuts in both pieces simultaneously to get a perfect match.


Once the cuts are made, flip the heart over and insert the points on the hand into the slots on the heart. Depending on how long the cuts are, you can then repeat the weaving again by pulling the layers out and over each other. Difficult to explain, but if you try it, it should make sense! Making the cuts longer and/or closer together will allow you to repeat the weaving pattern more times.



A little late for this year (or very early for next year), but Happy Valentine's Day anyway!

Happy Holidays!

Here are all the handmade books
that are hanging on my Christmas tree this year!
Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, and Happy New Year too.

Rubow Binding

I really like making books using the Rubow binding technique, which is one of the various types of millimeter binding that came out of Denmark in the mid-20th century. They were traditionally made with paste papers on the cover. I intended to use paste paper on this book, but as sometimes happens, when I first made the cover for this book the size wasn't quite right. So, I had to start over and make a new cover and didn't have any more paste paper that worked well with the purple leather and the purple edge painting that I did on the head and tail. So I used some of my marbled paper instead and it turned out quite nice anyway!

An edition of popup cards

Earlier this year, I made an edition of fifteen cards for a card exchange. Inspired by a line from Arthur Miller's play, Death of a Salesman, I made these popup cards featuring a nighttime cityscape.

The front of the card has the text, "Gotta break your neck to see a star in this yard," as spoken by the main character, Willy Loman. I used antique brass type to print it, black on black.

Inside, the cityscape is made from an original lino carving, hand printed onto some of my original marbled papers. The city and the background sky are then partially obscured by the foreground tangle of trees and weeds.

Anne of Green Gables

As I mentioned in June last year, I was fortunate to have two of my books accepted into the Kindred Spirits Exhibit, a juried bookbinding exhibit organized by CBBAG. The exhibit is in recognition of the life and work of L. M. Montgomery, to mark 150 years since her birth. The exhibit is travelling to various galleries in Canada and is currently at Western Univerisity. The project website has the full exhibition schedule.

One of my books for this exhibit is a full leather rebinding of Anne of Green Gables. This is a 1952 edition that belonged to my mother. She gave it to me a few years ago and suggested that I repair it, since it had some damage to the covers and part of the spine material was missing. So, when this exhibit was announced, I deicded it was time to do something with it. I also made a custom box for it. The marbled paper is my own and it is used as the book's endpapers and inside the box.


The second book is more of an artists' book, called "Summer." I used just a few lines from Anne of Green Gables as the content for this book.

Anne had the golden summer of her life, as far as freedom and frolic went. She walked, rowed, berried, and dreamed to her heart's content and when September came she was bright-eyed and alert, with a heart full of ambition and zest once more.

Each of the pages is hand-decorated with watercolour washes and ink drawings and I printed the text with some antique brass type. The book and box are covered with yellow bookcloth and have some of my own marbled paper inside. The book is a hardcover, 2-hole stab binding.


You can find more pictures of the books and order the catalog on the Kindred Spirits website.

Susan Mills exhibit "Field Books: birds, buoys, seeding, rain"

Currently at Hermes Gallery in Halifax, Nova Scotia is an exhibit of work by Susan Mills. Susan is a book artist, poet, and bookbinder from Nova Scotia and who also has lived and worked in Saskatchewan and New York. Her work is largely inspired by the space and materials around her and the contrasting environments where she works are evident in the exhibit. This exhibit is curated by Barbara Louder. This exhibit runs from Aug 10 to Sept 1, 2024 at Hermes Gallery in Halifax. Hours and location details are available on the gallery's website: www.hermeshfx.com.

Detail of Susan's piece, The Fourth Driest in 115 Years Field Notes at Hermes Gallery. See more on her Instagram account.

Kindred Spirits Exhibit

The Kindred Spirits book exhibition kicks off this week in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island. As it says on their website, "Kindred Spirits is a touring book arts exhibition that responds to the work and life of Lucy Maud Montgomery. The pieces were created by members of the Canadian Bookbinders and Book Artists Guild (CBBAG) as an acknowledgement of the enduring legacy of Lucy Maud Montgomery at the 150th anniversary of her birth."

Details about the exhibit locations, the jurors, and the exhibiting artists can be found on the Kindred Spirits website as well. I'm excited to have had two books accepted into this exhibit. One is a full leather rebound copy of a 1956 edition of Anne of Green Gables that my mother received on her tenth birthday. The second book is an artist's book that I made featuring a quote about Anne. Both have custom clamshell boxes. There are a couple of photos on the Kindred Spirits website now, but I will post more photos here when I get a chance.

Of course, the best way to see my books, and all the other amazing work, is to visit the exhibition in-person. I will be in Charlottetown for the opening reception on Friday and for the "make and take" pamplet binding workshop on Saturday! The Charlottetown exhibit will run from June 19 to August 23, 2024. After that, the exhibit will travel to different locations across the country right into 2026. Check the website for locations that have been confirmed and more locations may be added. I hope everyone gets a chance to see the exhibit. Happy Birthday, Maud!

"Book Club" group show at Hermes Gallery

Hermes Gallery in Halifax is currently exhibiting a collection of book and text-themed works in a group show called "Book Club." Works on show are by several members of the gallery as well as a couple of special guests, including the Nova Scotia Book Arts Group. The Book Arts Group has contributed a wide range of handbound books including blank journals, a sculpural artist's book, and even a medieval wooden board binding. There are photos of all the books posted on the NSBAG website.

There are two books in this exhibit that I bound. One is my copy of Lock's Bookbinding Materials and Techniques 1700-1920 which is bound using a split board library binding in quarter leather. It also features my original marbling on the covers, as well as matching marbling on the edges of the textblock.


The second book bound by me is the NSBAG community art journal that was created in October 2023 during Halifax's annual Nocturne art-at-night festival. The public was invited to create the pages for this book following the prompt, "What is your favorite thing?" As the pages were finished, they were bound together into this book so the content and structure of the book were created concurrently. This is a photo of the book as it was being sewn during the event and then the finished book.


The finished book is currently on display at Hermes Gallery and members of the public are free to flip through the pages and see the artwork that was created by members of the community or find the work that they contributed at the event! There is more info about this project on the NSBAG website.

In conjunction with this show and on behalf of NSBAG, I conducted a little bookbinding workshop at the gallery last weekend. In this workshop, everyone bound their own miniature copy of The Raven. I created the textblock specifically for this workshop, formatting the text and preparing the colophon beforehand, so everyone had a tiny textblock ready to go at the beginning of the session. At the end of the workshop, we had produced this little edition of tiny books!



There are a few more photos of these miniature books on the NSBAG website.

The "Book Club" show also features a fabulous collection of letterpress posters made by Amos Paul Kennedy. They look amazing all displayed together like this.



There are also many other items to see at this show including art books, sculptural works, text-themed photography, prints, tiny text, a tunnel book, and a variety of printed matter. Well worth a visit! The exhibit continues until April 21, 2023. More info available on the Hermes Gallery website.

Workshop Roundup

In between the ordinary day-to-day bookbinding projects, I have also been teaching workshops quite regularly although I haven't shared the results here for a long time!

New spring and summer workshops are happening soon. Registration is underway at the Centre for Craft in Halifax NS as well as Honeybee Folk School in Fredericton NB and Atelier d'estampe Imago in Moncton NB and the Chester Art Centre in Chester NS.

In the meantime, here's a recap of that last few workshops taught at the NS Centre for Craft.

Dec 2023 - Students made these personalized monthly agendas using a hardcover pamphlet binding technique.

Jan 2024 - My students made these wonderful case bound journals.

Feb 2024 - We had a workshop to make these amazing clamshell boxes.

Mar 2024 - The box making class concluded with everyone making a round box with a lid and a small trinket box.

Welcome 2024!

EDIT: Jan 7, 2024
Thanks to everyone who commented for a chance to win this handmade monthly planner! I made a list of all the names from the blog comments and the Instagram comments and then used a random number generator to pick the winner, which was #16, also known as Purple Butterfly Paper! Congrats! The book is in the mail!

ORIGINAL POST
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Happy new year, everybody! I'm going to kick off the year with a giveaway, as I've often done in the past, perfect for those of you who still like to write in real books. I have one handmade book to give away and it is a 2024 monthly planner, shown below.

It is a hardcover book with my own original marbled paper on the covers. The spine and corners are dark grey cloth. The book contains a printed monthly calendar for 2024. In addition to the calendar pages, there are also standard pages for personal information, lists, and some blank pages at the back. The various preprinted text is in both English and Chinese. There is a flyleaf of handmade paper, which happens to be a sheet of paper that I made myself. There is also a pocket inside the back cover for tucking in whatever loose things you need to save throughout the year. It is 15cm wide and 21cm tall (6" X 8.25").

To get your name included in the draw, leave a comment on this post before 11:59 PM (Atlantic Time) January 6, 2024 and include your email or a profile link that will allow me to contact you if you win. Also, tell me something interesting: maybe your new year's resolution, or perhaps a book recommendation for my reading list, or tell me some obscure fact that you happen to know! You can get a second entry if you also leave a comment on the associated Instagram post.

After the deadline, I will number all the entries and use a random number generator to select a winner. Then I'll contact you and let you know. I will ship the book, for free, anywhere in North America.

Wrapping up 2023 with little boxes

Merry Christmas, happy holidays, season's greetings, happy solstice, lovely day! Take your pick!

I tried one final little project for the end of the year, involving folding pretty paper to make little boxes. I tried a variety of origami box structures looking for one that might work for packing up some little books. I had two main requirements for the boxes. Firstly, the miniature books needed to fit in the box, and secondly, I wanted the box to have a lid.

Initially I thought it should be a rectangular box so I attempted several rectangular boxes but couldn't get the dimensions quite right. I also tried a little box with a window (seen at the top of the tower), which I really like, but I wanted more lid.

After quite a lot of trial and error, I settled on the standard origami Masu Box. I've seen a couple different ways to make a Masu Box. There's one method where you start by folding the paper into thirds. Then, there's another method (more common, probably) where you start by folding the paper in half diagonally like these simple instructions here. I used this version, since it was easier to tweak it and make a well-fitting lid. These are the final boxes that were the best sizes and had the best lids:


Only eleven posts on my blog this year, sheesh. As usual, I'll sign off 2023 by saying that I'll try to post more often in the new year!

NSBAG Book Swap

A few weeks ago, the Nova Scotia Book Arts Group hosted its first book swap. Anyone in the group who wanted to participate just had to make a blank book, bring it to the meeting in November, and then they got someone else's handmade book to take home. I've been participating in various book swaps for years. Christine Cox, of Volcano Arts, used to host book swaps which were done online and through the mail and those were the first swaps I did. Later I found several other occassions to participate in swaps and exchanges for blank books, marbled paper, and artist's books. Many of these have been documented here on my blog over the years if you want to scroll back and find some of my old posts.

For the recent NSBAG swap, I made this half leather binding with my own marbled paper on the covers. The structure is a traditional library style binding constructed with split boards and sewn headbands.


There were 17 participants in the swap so there was an impressive range of bookbinding techniques and materials represented. You can see all of the books on the NSBAG blog.

Mind Your Ps and Qs

Mind Your Ps and Qs was a recent exhibit held at NSCAD's Port Loggia and Treaty Space galleries in Halifax, NS. This exhibit was a celebration of the Dawson Printshop and Bindery and all the amazing work that has been created by folks who have studied and worked there over its many years as a focal point of book arts education in this city.


As a Dawson alumnus I was thrilled to have a couple of my own books included in the exhibit alongside the 15 other artists. The scope of work included traditional bookbinding, artist's books, letterpress printing, printmaking, and tool making. The photos above provide a glimpse of some of the other work in the show by (top L-R) Charles Salmon, Em Doucette, Joe Landry, Odyssean Press, (bottom L-R) Robin Wolfe, Katherine Victoria Taylor, Em Tremblay, and Nat:Shaw.

Congratulations to the Dawson Printshop and Bindery for its enduring influence on the local book arts community and to Odyssean Press and others who helped to make the exhibit a success. An extensive review of the exhibit has been posted on the Nova Scotia Book Arts Group blog.

Sustainability Through Craft

I'm happy to be part of the annual member exhibit at the Centre for Craft Nova Scotia. This year's exhibit is called Sustainability Through Craft. The exhibit runs from September 22 to November 5, 2023 at the Mary E. Black Gallery in Halifax.

Sustainability Through Craft is a thought-provoking, participatory exhibition. Through various craft practices and mediums, 21 members of Craft Nova Scotia explore four pillars of sustainability: social, cultural, economic, and environmental. Participating artists include: Melanie Barnett, Kate Brown Salt Sky Studio, Wilma Butts, Elise Campbell, Hannah W Craig, Kristi Farrier, Jessie Fraser, I-Chun Jenkins, Bee van Kats, Steph Kincade, Karen LeBlanc, Mary Jane Lundy, Rhonda Miller, Nancy E. Oakley, Dorothée Rosen, Ralph Simpson, Jessie Tesolin, Jackie Toner, Tyshan Wright, Andrea Puzskar, & Josephine Clarke.

This exhibition is comprised of works of fine craft on display at the Mary E. Black Gallery and two community engagement projects, taking place at different locations during the 6-week exhibition. This combination will be a radical stimulus for the interconnectivity of community, craft, and sustainability.

Tape Repairs

I see lots of books that have been previously given an unauthorized tape treatment, sigh. In fact, most of the time, tape will probably make the situation much worse then if it had been left alone. Also, although there are products out there called things like "book tape" and "repair tape" and even "archival book repair tape," none of them are actually good solutions.

Nonetheless, here are a couple before-and-after examples of books where I had to remove a lot of tape. It's tricky and tedious, but it can be done.