"Page Design - It's an Open Book" at PBI

With the help of many guest bloggers, I've been able to share a bit about each of the classes that were offered at PBI in May. There is only one class left to discuss, and I can tell you about this one myself. The class was called "Page Design - It's an Open Book" and it was taught by Paula Jull.

So, when someone applies to attend PBI, one has to rank the classes in order of preference and if you are accepted, they try to get you into your top choices. Of course, all the classes are great so ranking them can be very hard. I tend to rank the bookbinding classes first, then slot in the other areas like letterpress and papermaking etc, because they are outside my comfort zone. Also, there is usually some kind of artsy concept class that I try to stay away from, since those are WAY outside my comfort zone. I have been very lucky and usually I get the classes that I rank highest. This year, however, I found myself in Paula Jull's class, which was one of those artsy concept classes...oh dear.

Of course, it was a good class and I learned a lot from Paula. This just reinforced my belief that there are no bad classes and it is actually very useful to be outside one's comfort zone from time to time.

Everything we did in this class was related to a book's content. Since I spend so much time making blank books, it is hard to switch gears and think about the page with content. But I did. We discussed and experimented with classic page layout options, the golden rectangle, and the Villard de Honnecourt diagrams, as well as some layout options that were less common. We considered different book formats and structures and how that related to content. We explored patterning and repetition, borders, titles, and consideration of the spread. We worked with type and lettering as critical page elements. We made rubbings and worked with found compositions, and talked about using randomly selected words to inspire new ideas.

No comfort zone there.

The objectives of this class did not necessarily include any finished book art objects. I did, though, put together a couple small books using some of the things we were discussing.

Trees

Trees is an accordion book and the page size was determined by a musical interval (diminished 5th). The position of the text box was determined by the application of Villard de Honnecourt's diagram across each spread. The first letter of each text area are found images, and the other text is all handwritten. It is a list of the trees of Michigan (since I was in Michigan at the time), using their latin names. The trees are hand-drawn, branching out from the valley folds.

I also made a small pamphlet where I focused on the use of text and found compositions, Empty Spaces Created Through White Spaces & Black Places. I started by selecting some images from books. I took those images and put them on a window with another paper over them, and then I traced the most dominant lines that came through. Those dominant lines were my found compositions. I put the found compositions together with the original images in this pamphlet and added a bit of text to each of my line drawings. It was an interesting experiment although the end result is an odd mixture of things, I certainly felt that some of the exercises might be further developed in future projects.

Title Page

Empty Spaces

We also made these cool folders to contain all the bits of work we produced in this class; it all came together very nicely in the end. So, thank you, Paula, for introducing me to these things. It was all very new to me, and even though it was outside of the zone, I was happy to be there and pleased with the work I produced!

Guest Blogger Ashley Ivey, on Big Ass Paper at PBI

Ashley Ivey is my guest blogger today. She is a designer and maker living in Tallahassee, Florida. She spent the past year working at Florida State University's Facility for Arts Research and Small Craft Advisory Press (Scap.art.fsu.edu). Ashley and I met at PBI, and spent some time chasing wet paper around the grounds of OxBow, in the middle of the night, as a thunderstorm was rolling in around us. But that is not what she is writing about. Ashley has very kindly written a post for us about her class with Julie McLaughlan, where she made some REALLY big paper.

Big Ass Paper with Julie McLaughlan was incredibly fun, rewarding, and truly hard work! Julie began the workshop by showing us examples of finished papers. Julie's fantastic, corset-inspired sculptural art pairs handmade Kozo paper with steel armature. She often dyes the soft, tissue thin sheets with Indigo or Kakishibu.

Julie McLaughlan

Julie and Andrea Peterson had worked the fiber to the final stages by the time our workshop began, but they explained the whole process from growing the Kozo plant (commonly known as paper mulberry in the US) to harvesting it, stripping off the bark, drying, boiling with soda ash, rinsing, and finally beating the fiber to pulp. We all took turns hand beating many pounds of rinsed Kozo. Each pound was beaten with wooden mallets until it reached the consistency of mashed banana and dispersed easily in water. This was seriously hard work, but really fun to do with cheerful classmates overlooking the positively lovely lagoon at Oxbow.

Ashly (far right) & classmates beating kozo.

While part of the class began beating pulp, others began assembling the huge portable screens Julie brought for forming our Big Ass sheets. The 8.5' x 7' (2.6m x 2m) frames are made from 1" (2.5cm) aluminum tubing and are designed to break down easily for storage and travel. A system of threaded rods, bolts and washers connects and tightens the frame after each side is run through the corresponding pocket in the screen.

Our class worked with several screen designs and as the workshop progressed, we found that we liked a new version of Julie's screens that had sleeves covering the majority of the metal frame sides. The 5" (12.5cm) wide pockets held strong against the weight of the water, pulp, and formation aid and were easier to grip than older versions that attached to the frames using tabs. Julie has experimented with several screen materials and recommends sunshade screen or heavy mosquito netting.

The pool (please forgive me for this breach in proper terminology! I detest the word v-a-t and in this case it was so large that 'pool' seems a more proper description anyway!) was made from 8' and 10' lengths of 2"x12" boards (2.4m and 3m lengths of 2.5cm x 30cm boards). The frame was placed over a heavy blue tarp and then thick plastic sheeting was layered over the frame to hold the water. Julie warned us not to use cheap tarps as the fiberglass they contain can make it into your feet!

Eight people pulling a sheet of paper.

The "pool" was filled about 3/4 full with water and then the beaten Kozo and a healthy dose of PEO formation aid. To keep the pulp as clean as possible, pairs of us took half-day shifts in the pool dispersing fiber and guiding in screens. Pulling each sheet required 6-8 people: 2 in the pool to carefully drag the screen across the bottom; 2 on the end to guide the screen in and hold it down; and 2 - 3 on each side to help lift the screen slowly and evenly out of the water. Each frame was then carried out into the sun to dry.

Big Ass sheets of paper drying in the sun.

When the sheets were dry, we rubbed the backs of the screens to loosen the fibers and then carefully ran our hands between the screens and the paper. The cracking sound of pulling large well-formed sheets off was ecstasy, however we also had many spiderweb thin sheets that took great patience to remove.

Carefully removing paper from the screen.

Stacks of beautiful handmade paper.

In addition to the mass production of giant paper, Julie demonstrated Kakishibu and Indigo dying and we all made tons of smaller sheets of paper (with and without inclusions). It was an amazing class and we all left with tons of paper. Three cheers for Big Ass Paper!

- Ashley Ivey

Link stitch, Long stitch, and Limp bindings at PBI

After having so many guest bloggers this summer, it is my turn now, to write about another one of the PBI classes. I absolutely loved this class taught by Adam Larsson. Partly because these book structures have been a particular interest of mine for several years and as such, I have actually made a lot of books like this and have tried to incorporate the techniques into a lot of my work. More importantly though, this would be the first time that I ever had instruction from an expert in this area, from someone who is working with actual historical examples of these books, from the 13th or 14th centuries that he has examined and studied first-hand.

My previous experience with this type of binding, was all based on tidbits of information here and there, scattered around the internet and overviews in a couple of books (Szirmai and Langwe). I have had to extrapolate a lot of the details about how the books were made, how the sewing was started, how the covers were folded, how the buttons and straps were attached, etc. I would often just try to replicate what I could see in photographs (example) without any detailed instructions.

The instructor for this class, Adam Larsson, has worked with these bindings enough that he was able to give me some insights about how these things were typically done. Adam works in the conservation lab at Uppsala University Library in Uppsala, Sweden, home to one of the most important collections of historic bindings in Scandinavia.

The class was called "The Three Ls: Limp - Link - Long" and that's exactly what it was. We learned three different methods of stitching a limp vellum binding, using just link stitch, using just long stitch, and using a combination of both.

The first book we did, was sewn with only link stitches. I think most people in the class found this one to be the most difficult of the structures that we covered. It is tricky to do this one, and I had only attempted it a couple times in the past. Having now seen how Adam does it, I may be willing to use this more in the future. Admittedly though, I haven't tried it again since the class. During the class, however, I did two books with this structure. The first was four rows of link stitches. The second was three rows of link stitches (which was harder than four!). The stitched circles are just decorative and were done on the spine before the book was bound.

After the link stitch book, we did the combination of link stitch and long stitch. This structure was most familiar to me, and I did three of this style during the class. The first one, I added the extra weaving on the long stitches. The second one, I added the decorative holes punched in the spine piece, and the third was made with soft leather (rather than vellum) and has the buttons on the spine rather than on the front of the book.

Adam demonstrated a third structure, which was a long stitch done without a link stitch. I don't think everyone tried this one, but I was a real keener, and surged ahead and made two of these. In fact, I really liked this structure. I had tried this technique only once before and I did it very differently that time. The way Adam explained it, it suddenly became far more attractive as an option for future work! These are the two that I made in the class, both with two spine pieces, one for each set of stitches.

Although we did most of our books without turn-ins, I did one with turn-ins and consequently made my first parchment tacket. I've made tackets with linen thread before, but making them from strips of vellum is much cooler. Starting with a long skinny strip of vellum, it has to be really wet, then twisted and stretched until it is dry. Then it is dampened again to make it pliable to create the tacket. As the tacket dries in place, it becomes a super solid attachment. This was certainly one of the highlights of my week!

Although I had a lot of questions for Adam about the details of these bindings, the main thing that I learned, was that these historic bindings are greatly varied. The sewing techniques vary from one binder to the next; and, the use of spine plates and buttons and straps and decorative elements also vary from one binder to another and from one region to another, etc. So, there isn't one single correct way to construct these types of books and it is possible to be very creative with them. Other members of the class proved that over and over again. As I surged ahead trying to memorize the stitching techniques, other people in the class were creating masterpieces with decorative elements that I did not even attempt. Here are a few photographs taken at the end of the session where everyone's books were on display. The variations seen here are only a small sampling; the possibilities are truly endless.

Guest Blogger Fran Kovac, tells us about her PBI class with Pam Spitzmueller

Fran Kovac is a bookbinder in Columbus, Ohio, and teaches basic bookbinding techniques at the Morgan Conservatory in Cleveland, Ohio. Apparently she is still camera-shy, so rather than having a headshot of her here, I am using this picture of her fingers sewing a link-stitch endband, again. At PBI this year, Fran was one of the lucky students in Pam Spitzmueller's class. Of course, Pam's expertise in historic bookbinding techniques is exceptional and this class produced exceptional work! The class was called "An Historical, Personal Almanac with a nod to Individual Calendar Books & Wood Leaf Books" where each participant created a replica of an incredible little book.

In this class, we made a model of a lovely little 1581 Elizabethan pocket almanac that includes erasable writing pages with a brass stylus tucked into the back board. The book was fully leather bound, on thin wood boards. There are two fore-edge brass clasps and blind stamping of a Renaissance flourished design of a central diamond shaped panel and corner pieces.

William Shakespeare was only 17 years old when the book we recreated in this class was printed and bound in 1581 A.D.. It was, for businessmen in the 16th century, a Blackberry of sorts...a combination of an almanac, a diary, a calendar and notepad. While it didn't send or receive messages, it served as a personal organizer for the merchants of the times, and was printed and reprinted in different formats for several decades.

This is a photograph of a photocopied picture (!) of the
original book that the class would be replicating.

It is a small book, measuring only 3 1/8" x 4 3/8" (7.9 x 11.3 cm) (spine dimension given first). It consists of four signatures (sections) of paper, and five bi-folios of the erasable pages. In the original, the erasable pages were made of animal parchment, and coated with a gesso-like mixture that would take an impression, then wipe away. The nine signatures were arranged with one paper signature in front, five bifolios of erasable pages, and three signatures in back. There are two single endsheets, with the stubs next to, but not pasted down on, the boards. With the thin [1/8" (3 mm)] basswood boards, the spine is 3/4” ( 1.8 cm) thick.

In the original, the first signature consisted of the title page, rules for the changes of the moon, a 24 year almanac and calendar, and a monthly calendar. There was a blank page after the five erasable pages (we used cardstock, although I made one bifolio from parchment), and then followed "A prayer for the forgiveness of our sins," a section on weights and measures, a history of England, several pages of descriptions of the various coins of the realm, and other helpful information for the business traveler of the times.

Fran's finished replica.

After arranging the signatures, the book was sewn on three thin cords; that is, three sewing stations and 2 kettle stations. We started with 8 ply cord, but removed three strands to be left with a five ply cord. It is slightly recessed into the signatures, and the sewing is straightforward, around the cords in the paper signatures, but not looped around, merely over the cords in the parchment signatures. The spine was then pasted up with PVA, rounded, and lined with Mohawk Superfine paper.

The boards were shaped with a slight round on the outside spine edge, and beveled on the inside fore-edge, head and tail, to accommodate the leather turn ins. The boards were aligned on the textblock, and the cords frayed and pasted down on the boards. We were using a beautiful calf leather prepared by Pergamena, which required only modest edge paring and some paring at the spine head and tail. The first step was dampening the spine and using PVA to glue up the spine, boning down around the cords. Then, using wheat paste, we pasted out the leather and finished the covering of the book. Pam had designed a large die to create the debossed diamond effect on both front and back covers. This was accomplished by dampening the leather, placing the die, and pressing in a nipping press for at least 6 minutes. The lines surrounding the stamp are cold tooled with a bone folder. The brass stylus, which was formed from 1/16" brass rod, fits into a groove in the back board, and protrudes slightly at the fore edge.

Close-up of the clasps that Fran made for her book.

The final step was creating the brass clasps which hold the book closed. The clasps grasp on the back board, in the English style. We used shears and nibblers to rough out the clasps, files to shape and smooth them, and riveted or pinned them onto the covers using brass escutcheon pins. Although two clasps might not seem necessary on such a small book, the parchment leaves, being hygroscopic, would tend to curl with changes in the humidity. It was a wonderful class, and many thanks to Pam Spitzmueller!

- Fran Kovac

Guest Blogger Debra Eck, Lessons from PBI and Islamic Bookbinding

Debra Eck is an internationally exhibited book and installation artist who works primarily with paper, text and thread and much of her work explores the space in which women work, and how work intersects with the domestic and the ideas of home. She attended PBI for the first time this year, to which she was drawn after reading about it here on my blog in previous years! It was a great pleasure to work with Deb, and I have to say, I didn't realize she was such a groupie until I read this guest post! Deb's work is exceptional and it was inspiring to see her work her own magic on the books she made at PBI this year. You can read more about her and see some of her work at dryadart.wordpress.com.

Ever since I found out I was attending PBI this year my mood vacillated between excitement and fear. It took about 8 hours to drive from my home in Western NY to Oxbow for PBI, as I got closer anxiety began to win out. Some really INCREDIBLE people attend PBI, people whose work I follow, whose blogs I read. I was experiencing a really common fear for me – "waiting for the other shoe to drop." I was afraid when I started to work alongside these amazing book artists, conservators and binders they would realize I totally didn't belong! After an 8 hour solitary drive my monkey mind had whipped me up into quite a state. Additionally – like many creative people, I don't always have the best social skills, I didn't know anyone and I was feeling anxious about that too.

One of the things I was really anxious about was the vast sea of things I don't know. I don't have a lot of tools in my studio – I didn't have some of the things we were supposed to bring (for example a Japanese drill – I didn't want to invest in something I wouldn't use again), I have only taken one book class in my whole life – the rest I have been making up and figuring out on my own for the last ten years. I know the point of going was to learn, but what if I said something dumb – or couldn't do the work, or didn't have the right things. Yeah – I was quite a mess!! Fortunately – none of these things happened. Like most creative communities, everyone was willing to share what they knew and no-one laughed at me (to my face anyways!!). One of the highlights for me was getting to meet Rhonda. I have been reading her blog for some time, and she really inspires me, she has an amazing work ethic and makes such great books. It was through her blog that I first found out about PBI. It took a few days for me to finally figure out that the Rhonda in Adam Larsson's class with me was the Rhonda whose blog I read! So I just want to say how cool it is that my first ever guest post on a blog is here on Rhonda's blog! So, I am going to share my experience taking Yasmeen Kahn's Islamic Binding class.

By the second week I was beginning to feel less anxious, but I knew Yasmeen's class would involve working with leather (something I had never done) and that a lot of really great binders were taking the class with me. Yasmeen is a Sr. Rare Book Conservator at Library of Congress, a true professional and one of those I was anxious about working with, but it turned out that we shared a frame in Bernie's papermaking class and she is super nice! She also shared that there were lots of possibilities for decoration in the upcoming class – so I was pretty excited by the time the first morning rolled around.

The night before class started a group of us met up in the studio to fold and cut the paper for the text blocks for the first binding, many hands made quick work and I was able to learn a great trick for measuring multiple sheets my marking the dimensions on the table, and I have used that many times since I got back. The text blocks were pressed in a nipping press to make them very smooth and flat, as we would learn later, smooth paper is an important part of the Islamic tradition. For me the most interesting thing was the idea that the binding in the Islamic tradition is really secondary to the paper and its contents, that and the fact that Islamic books don't stand up in a bookcase – so the spines are less important than in the Western tradition (Instead they lay down on the shelf – much more sensible really). Unlike my other binding class, this text block required almost no sewing, and this was the first time I had ever made a block where the sewn spine would be covered. Once the blocks were sewn we added a layer of muslin pasted over the block, and sewed in the primary headbands.

Deb's Islamic endband.

We clamped the block to do this – another first for me, I don't use any frames or clamps when I sew my books; I just lay them on the bench or hold them. I found it really tricky to do it the right way! But the trickiness had only begun. Then we learned to sew a headband, first on a practice card (which I found easy) and then on the actual book block – which I found frustratingly difficult. I LOVE to sew, I had been confident I would be able to do it – trust me when I say – I need MUCH more practice!

The leather covers were created using beautiful, thin, supple leather which was easy for a beginner like me to work with. The first book we created had a traditional turn-in to protect the block which folded under the front cover.

The first book made in this class, in full leather
with embossed almond-shaped design and gold leaf details.

We created a template for the whole book as a single piece and glued in the covers before adding the text block. Then we added the doublures – decorative end papers glued to the cover and the first page of the text block. The final step was to add gold leaf to the cover – another first for me. I was pleased with my book – as my family said when I got home – it looks like a "real" book – the kind you might buy in a store.

Inside the first book, paste paper endsheets.

For the second book we were able to pick and choose amongst a variety of different traditional techniques. As I was a painting major during my undergrad years I opted to make a lacquered cover. I didn't make a traditional Islamic design, but instead drew on my own Celtic roots. The first layer of paint was a solid wash of colour – in my case red; add a layer of shellac, and then gold leaf or gold paint sprayed across this solid color, followed by more shellac. After that I began to develop my design, adding layers of shellac and paint, ending with shellac. The cover has only tiny strips of leather covering the edges of the board, and spine, but the finished result is really opulent. Others choose to make book cloth (another new skill for me) and insert that in place of the shellacked paper.

Front cover of Deb's second book.

Back cover of Deb's second book.

I am a lover of the decorative – I never met an ornament or flourish I didn't covet and love. This class really opened my eyes to even more possibilities for decoration in my binding – oh and did I mention – I got to work at the same table as Rhonda!!

-Debra Eck

Guest Blogger Bonnie Loukus, and Pressure Printing at PBI

Bonnie Loukus works as Assistant Director at the Copper Country Community Arts Center, a non-profit organization, in Hancock, Michigan. She is currently working towards establishing a letterpress and book arts studio within the center. At PBI in May, Bonnie had the great fortune of taking letterpress class with Sarah Bryant. Thank you, Bonnie, for telling us about the class.

As I have become more involved with letterpress and bookbinding the past couple of years, I saw this class as a perfect opportunity to combine my old love (painting) and my new love (book arts). This was my first time at PBI and I wasn't sure what to expect. Knowing absolutely no one, being pretty new to the whole book arts scene, and prone to bouts of stifling shyness, I wasn't sure what was going to happen. I'm happy to say, it was incredible. Topnotch instructors and intense studio time in a gorgeous environment with kind and interesting people. I learned so much and made book arts buddies from all over the place. Who wants to go back home? Ever?

Yet we did have to go home and luckily a nice thing about technology is that it helps keep these new connections with people going through e-mail conversations, collaborations, and knowledge sharing. Like this blog! So, the instructor for Pressure Printing: A Painterly Approach to the Press was Sarah Bryant of Big Jump Press (www.bigjumppress.com). Sarah is a combination of letterpress ninja, energetic motivational presenter, comic relief...and of course, an amazing printer/artist/lady. If you have ever been fortunate enough to attend PBI you know the first week is broken into two sessions with about twelve students in the morning, twelve in the afternoon. With that said, there was exactly one Vandercook to use for 24 students. Sarah was able to keep us all on task and bestowed her magic-juju-catchphrase "Cross your fingers, turn around three times, and spit!" to help our prints turn out their best. It must have worked because everyone's pieces were so varied and beautiful.

Sarah (far right) and students showing their work

Pressure printing is a form of relief printing and differs from traditional printing in the way that image/text you print is behind your paper on the feed board of the Vandercook, instead of on the bed itself. You create a "plate" that is placed behind your paper. The plate can be paper or mylar with your created image(s) cut and pasted on with spray adhesive or glue stick.

One of Bonnie's pressure printing plates
created from newsprint and the result

The impression is adjusted by placing packing (sheets of paper) behind your plate before you print, in order to get the desired amount of ink for your image. Too little packing, and your image will not show up, too much and it could be obliterated when the paper and plate meets your inked surface. An exact science it is not....and of course the majority of letterpress printing is pretty exact. This way of printing lends itself to all kinds of experimentation. I chose to keep it simple, but many students planned and printed multiple images and textures within one piece.

Bonnie, printing

The type high block on the press bed acts as your inked surface. It can be inked by the press rollers or with a brayer. You can also get fancy and carve into the block or cut images to place on top of this block. Others more well versed in printing, like my Vandercook buddy Suzanne Sawyer, experimented with creating both a plate and an inked surface with a relief image. Suzanne is a very talented artist who incorporates images of plant cells within her work and she chose to do so in this class as well. I think she really achieved a beautiful aesthetic while showing what one can do with pressure printing.

Suzanne Sawyer's prints

I loved the subtle wash of color from pressure printing, not having to use any kind of measuring device, and the ability to just cut paper to create images. If there had been more time, I certainly would have enjoyed experimenting with the interaction of colors and the inks, carving a block, and monkeying around with the amount of packing. I think the best approach for me with PBI classes was to try and really treat them as a learning experience; to focus on the process and learn from it, rather than trying to make an amazing work of art at the first go. This was a hard thing to do at times with all the book arts rockstars about, but it kept me from stressing too much about the end product. Like when teaching children, I had to remind myself it's not about being done first, but to check myself to see if I understand what I'm doing, not be timid about asking questions, and assess if I am putting forth my best effort. This was truly an inspirational and timely class as I continue my adventure into the world of book arts.

Guest blogger Ann Poe, on paring leather with Jeff Altepeter

Ann Poe is a retired editor who happily continues to explore book and paper arts. This was her fourth time attending PBI and she very kindly offered to do a review of one of her classes for my blog. She had the great fortune of taking a leather class with Jeff Altepeter (I really wanted to be in this class; however, they won't let me take them all!). Thank you for sharing your thoughts, Ann!

This was primarily a technique class about working with leather. We learned the differences among animal skins, how the skins are affected by finishing processes and dyes, why one skin can have different properties, and more. Jeff provided a wide variety of leathers for students to use for practice. Some skins were thin, moist, smooth, and easy to use; others were dense, dry, stretchy, wrinkly, and considerably more challenging to use.

We pared leather with the Schärf-Fix – a must-have tool for every bookbinder. Jeff demonstrated many tips and tricks as we learned to pare a large piece entirely, edge pare German style, back pare, pare onlays, determine thickness with a micrometer, and more.

Jeff and the Schärf-Fix

And then we moved on to paring with knives. He showed us the most useful blade shapes, how to use each one to pare and bevel, and again we were able to practice on a variety of leathers. For those who were interested, Jeff gave an invaluable demo on sharpening knives.

Some of the plaquettes made in this class

We made leather-covered plaquettes. These were excellent models for practicing new techniques with glue and paste, including how to apply paste, how to adhere leather to bookboard, and of course, how to cover corners. We also practiced onlays, including how to make a raised, tooled edge onlay, and how to get a colored, tooled, curved line onto leather.

So that students could concentrate on leather covering techniques, Jeff provided a textblock for each student. (Thirty textblocks later, surely he deserves a medal!)

One of the 30 textblocks,
with covers and leather spine

We added covers, using leather to cover the spine and form a proper headcap over the headband.

I really enjoyed this class. It's always exciting to discover a new lode of information – and this class was a gold mine!

- Ann Poe

Guest Blogger Alison Kurke on Tim Ely's class at PBI

Alison Kurke is today's guest blogger. She is a maker of gorgeous books and fabulous collages; she lives in Italy and is always on the lookout for good red wine. She has very kindly shared her thoughts here about Tim Ely's PBI class (Tim's website www.timothyely.com).
Alison also has a blog, which you can visit at kurberry.typepad.com/eccleccticca and you can view some of Alison's work on Flickr. Check out her book making projects and her collages. Thank you, Alison.

I signed up for Tim Ely's class at PBI 2013 (Ideas and Actions in Context and Construction) for all the wrong reasons, believing it to be the course I'd missed last summer, taught by someone else entirely. Enormous brain fart, but also a stroke of luck, since it seems to have been the hot-ticket class that everyone wanted to take. The title and description were enigmatic. So enigmatic that I had no idea what would be covered. I knew only that I was stuck in a rut churning out blank, and "almost-blank" books to delight other people, and spending most of my time fabricating collages or assemblages for their covers. Those were the elements that interested me most, rather than the sea of blank pages.

A selection of books made in this class

The materials list was vague, but curiously extensive, especially for someone not in the habit of drawing ("Bring your existing sketchbook"…"What do you seek to understand more deeply?" Where to begin?). After hearing Tim deliver a lecture the first evening about his work I was actively worried. This was a man, a rather unusual man, it appeared, who invented languages, sciences, and entire solar systems in beautifully made books. Self-contained, obsessed, clearly highly intelligent, productive, ingenious. His natural curiosity and endless capacity to invent and record was manifest in his books. He reassured me that I'd be fine despite my anxieties about being found wanting and incapable. And I was fine, despite enduring the ridicule of fellow PBIers for lugging my too voluminous (and mostly unnecessary) supplies to and from class in a conspicuous, wheelie carry-on bag.

I am so satisfied with what I learned from Tim. Not only a new book form or two, but books that open flat - a revelation for someone like me who is allergic to coptic bindings. Who knew how adaptable drumming on could be? Who even knew what it was before Tim's class? Perhaps everyone present but me.

Tim Ely inspecting hollow-back spine construction

Who knew that perfect mitered corners were possible, reproducible and sort of easy to attain? Who knew that fabric, mine an 1830s cotton print acquired 100 years ago in the UK, could be turned into amazing and versatile book cloth though the application of a wheat paste made from Swan's Down Cake Flour? That this very paste could be mixed with some medium and some acrylic to make actual paste paper? Now I know. A new world has opened up before me.

Perfectly mitered corners, in progress

He unselfishly shared with us his wisdom acquired over decades - tools, tips, tweaks. Although Tim's intention had been to teach us and help us model three variations of this hollow-backed/drum-leaf binding, we managed only two, but almost all of us with variations and quirks of our own. Tim's well-advised system of starting a sketchbook involved adding some decoration or drawing to the folios before binding them delayed us, but everyone in the class enjoyed the time dedicated to making some marks and the results were varied and interesting.

Alison's first hollow-back book made in this class

His books are "sketchbookthinkingvehicles" - diaries, idea books, repositories of concepts both fully-formed and stimulative. His books are precisely measured, expertly trimmed, lovingly planned. Mine, are perhaps none of those things, but I love them all. They can be commemorations, springboards, friends, to be added to and referred to forever. They are the histories of ourselves that we leave as monuments to our creativity. Taking the class has challenged me to try to put my best self there. I am hoping to rise to that challenge.

- Alison Kurke

Guest Blogger Victoria Cowan, on Finesse Papermaking at PBI

Victoria Cowan is my guest blogger for today. She is an award-winning artist and a gifted instructor. Both experimental and productive, she shows new work regularly in a number of venues, and is much in demand as a workshop leader. Because her preference is to explore an idea in depth, Victoria usually makes a series to follow the branches of an original inspiration. Perception, cognition and memory are her particular areas of interest. For more about Victoria, visit her website at www.victoriacowan.ca. Victoria attended her first PBI this year and started her first day making paper in Bernie Vinzani's class. Thank you for sharing your experience here on my blog and I am looking forward to seeing what you do with your papers in the future!

First class of first day and, typical of me, it only took me a few minutes to put my foot down my throat, not wanting to share a screen. And who did I 'reject'? Why none other than the instructor of my class in the next session. Some days one just does it all off kilter! My reason was clear enough to me (hoping to use the paper I made in an artists' book and thinking that it would lend itself to a good layout if the watermark only took up one side of the sheet), but perhaps I could have done it differently? So I am very appreciative of her not holding it against me.

As an experienced instructor myself, I was impressed by Bernie's exhaustive hand-outs on paper-making. He is also a deeply thoughtful person—he brought an historic document from a paper-making company in Scotland to show to me, because their name was the same as mine.

Bernie Vinzani

Watermarks attached to the screens

Bernie showed us how to apply our watermarks to our screens. Since mine was quite simple, I was ready to make a sheet quite quickly. And luck was with me; the very first one had no clumps, bumps or tears. Bernie publicly announced it; I was no longer a paper virgin.

Everyone was very helpful and there was much interpersonal questioning and showing of methods.

Tom Balbo

Tom let me try his beautifully made small mould & deckle. Annie responded generously when, looking over her shoulder at her mixing different colours of pulp and flinging tears at the screen with abandon, I asked, "Er . . .what are you doing?" The sheets I made as a result are among my favourites because they are so painterly and could become a rich ground for a series of prints.

Two-colour papers

We used different kinds of pulp—including an abaca and hemp mixture, and cotton. Comparing them with what I'd seen when people experiment with using a hand drill for beating pulp in a pail was an immediate and powerful lesson in the importance of a good beater and well-made pulp. Thanks, Andrea!

Samples of class work on display

Now that I have such luscious sheets, each unique, each both delicate and strong, I'm almost afraid to use them. You know . . .it's that old artist thing about not ruining one's canvas, whatever that canvas happens to be. But I'll get over it, and hope I may guest blog again at that time and show you all what I did.

Because the first two days were wintry and the concrete floor very cold and wet, I was wearing thick-soled winter boots made with a waterproof fabric. Shudda known better! I'm pretty sure they are now transformed forever, a souvenir of my first days at PBI that will always make me grin.

- Victoria Cowan