Books by PrairiePeasant

Laura, known online as PrairiePeasant, is a bookbinder in Winnipeg, Manitoba. We have met through our memberships in both the Etsy Bookbinding Team as well as the Trans Canada Etsy Team. Much of Laura's work involves using eco-friendly materials to produce eco-friendly journals. Laura told me, "I love the challenge of finding usable materials at thrift shops and garage sales and I love using old maps and unloved books in my work." This unique journal is part of her Anatomy Series: The covers are reclaimed book board and the images on the covers are pages from a vintage medical textbook. From her Rebound series, using the covers and some pages of a discarded reader, she transforms an unloved book into new, cheery, and colourful journal: Laura also has a second Etsy shop called PrairieThreads where she has her eco-friendly fibre arts, like these awesome little knitted stockings, made using 100% salvaged yarns, recycled from previous projects and treasures found in thrift shops. You can check out more of Laura's work by visiting her Etsy shops (just click on the images above and there's still time for Christmas shopping, espcially if you're ordering within Canada!). I also highly recommned Laura's blog at PrairiePeasant.blogspot.com. She documents so many of her creative projects, including bookbinding, calligraphy, quilting, knitting, and many other things she is doing!

Asymmetrical Favorites

I just spent much of my evening looking at Deckled Edge Bindery's books on Etsy and Flickr so I decided to share a few of my favorites.


These are all gorgeous. And I did have the opportunity to see one of Jen's books up close and in my hands, although just temporarily, and it certainly was fabulous, so pretty, and just wonderfully made! I already have enough trouble with 90 degree angles, attempting some of these styles would send me spinning! Check out her stuff at Decklededgebindery.Etsy.com

Online Galleries

Sometimes I find myself just clicking around the Internet looking at pictures of handmade books...for hours. That's what I was doing this evening, and here are some of the websites that I was visiting...looking at pictures, gazing in wonderment, and browsing for ideas and inspiration.

• Ball Peen Bindery Photo Gallery
• Canadian Bookbinders and Book Artist's Guild Online Gallery
• Designer Bookbinders FLOW 2006 Exhibit
• Cai Lun Photo Gallery
• Volcano Arts - The Muse
• Society of Bookbinders Gallery
• Mel Jefferson Bookbinding
• Old English Bindery Gallery
• Guild of Book Workers Online Catalog for the 2002 Members Exhibit
• Guild of Book Workers 100th Anniversary Exhibition 2007
• Guild of Book Workers 1998 ABCDarium Exhibition

Recipes for Motherhood by Stephanie Dean-Moore
CBBAG

Crossed Structure Binding by Mel Jefferson

Blizzard Book

I recently got a little Blizzard Book kit from Green Chair Press. This book structure involves no sewing and no adhesive. All folding. The spine is folded to create little pockets. Then the pages are single sheets which simply slide into the pockets. This Blizzard Book structure was invented by Hedi Kyle - apparently during a blizzard, hence the name.

The kit from Green Chair Press included the materials to make one book, about 4cm x 4cm.

At one point I thought I might not get through it, the folding of the spine was not going well at all. But I survived and produced this little book shown here. I like it.

Bookbinding as a Trade

I don't think this happens very much anymore - where somebody learns bookbinding as an apprentice to a bookbinder, learns everything there is to know about the trade, then eventually takes over the business and continues working as a master bookbinder for the rest of his life... The New York Times just published this article about Mr. Schnerb, a real old fashion tradesman making a living as a bookbinder. This has to be rare. It seems to me that for most bookbinders today who are trying to make a living, that a career as a bookbinder is more like a career as an "artist" rather than a tradesperson. Mr. Schnerb is not being presented as a book artist or as anything else with a similarly vague title - and there are no artistic pretensions to bother about...he is a bookbinder! Plain an simple. Which, in my opinion, is absolutely fabulous! A real, honest-to-goodness bookbinder. Ah, nostalgia. Why don't we still do this apprentice and master process for the trade of bookbinding anymore? Maybe it happens somewhere...but certainly not anywhere that is accessible to me. Too bad.

Snowy Owl for me

So for the book swap, I sent the leafy book to Uwe, and Cathryn sent this fabulous Snowy Owl to me.




Cathryn Miller is a fellow Canadian, located in Saskatchewan. On the CBBAG website, her artist statement appears thus:

I have had a lifelong fascination with paper. I enjoy not only making it, but 'playing' with it to create unusual 3-dimensional structures. I consider it to be not just a support material for other processes, but an interesting thing in itself. The sculptural possibilities appear to be limitless.

More examples of her work.

Art vs. Craft

Bookbinding used to be a trade. I convinced myself at one time, that if it used to be a trade, then it is a craft. If it has always been art, then it is art. Thus the distinction might also be made that a craft results in an object that has some functional purpose (a journal to write in, a rug to wipe your feet on, etc.) whereas art is art is art is art…to behold rather than use.

So bookbinding, weaving, woodworking, ceramics, etc would be craft. Whereas fine arts such as painting, drawing, sculpture, etc are art. But of course, you can paint on your ceramics, and use bookbinding techniques to creature sculpture…so the distinction becomes all blurry again.

Red Stripes Leather Journal by
Rhonda Miller, bookbinder
So now I have been thinking that maybe it depends on the creator of the piece. If the creator calls himself an artist, then his work is art. Obviously, someone who considers himself to be an artist is intentionally creating stuff that should be called artwork; however, if the creator does not call himself an artist, then he probably doesn’t think of his work as artwork. I, for example, call myself a bookbinder and consider my creations to be “books…” not artwork. So I suppose, for me, bookbinding is a craft. Melissa Jay Craig, on the other hand, calls herself a book artist and her books are certainly not just books, they are definitely works of art.

(S)edition Prototypes by
Melissa Jay Craig, book artist
Whenever I think that I'm getting a little closer to an understanding, something else always comes along to change my mind. But I'll go with this for now.

This post was submitted to Blog Carnival over at the Trans Canada Etsy Team blog.

Crossed Structure Binding

I included the Crossed Structure Binding on my list of historical bindings to do; however, I am not sure that it really qualifies as an historical structure. I actually make a lot of these books, using the Crossed Structure Binding Basic (CSB Basic) technique as described by Carmencho Arregui on her website. This structure works really well with a leather cover so it has become one of the styles I use often when making journals (see first pic).

Based on the information on Arregui's website, the CSB is her own invention, the idea for which came to her when she was doing her restoration work with historical longstitch bindings. So, the CSB isn't really an historical binding; rather, it is inspired by some historical bindings. Good enough.

I will have to explore some of the other techniques she has outlined on her website. The only other technique that I have done is the CSB Solo structure, which works well with a paper cover (see second pic) but not with a leather cover. Arregui suggests that leather could be used if it were pared very thin and also laminated with Japanese paper. But I haven't tried that.

Arregui also has details on her website for the CSB Protective, Linked, Expander, Marcopolo, and Hidden models and I have tried none of those.

My list of historical bindings to do, has only one more item and that is the girlde book. I have two started and hope to get them finished soon but they are taking longer than a lot of these other bindings. Then I'll have to start on a new list of bookbindings I haven't tried yet, and do some of these other CSBs.

Blog Roll

Blogs about bookbinding, or blogs by bookbinders, or blogs that feature books, etc...

• CaiLun.info
• shackled in bookspace
• Rag & Bone Blog
• Lasqueti Press
• Painting Speech
• TJ Bookarts
• Riverlark
• BookGirl
• Comfortable Shoes Studio
• Pistoles Press
• Bookbinding Etsy Street Team
• Making Books With Children
• Ekthesis
• Tulibri: Handgemachte Bucher und mehr
• Paperiaarre
• MatchBoxBook
• Green Chair Press
• Jeff Peachey's Book Conservation Blog
• Barnacle Goose Paperworks
• Sue Bleiweiss
• Anagram for Ink

A Workshop on 3rd Century codices

I just spent the weekend at a bookbinding workshop with Susan Mills, offered through the continuing education program at NSCAD (Nova Scotia College of Art and Design). This is quite exciting for two reasons: first, because there are very few bookbinding-related activities in this area so any chance to do stuff with other bookbinders is great; and second, because it was about a fabulous historical binding that I'd never seen or heard of before.

So we learned how to make Coptic Single-Quire bindings. There were 13 of these books discovered in 1945, buried in a jar in Egypt, dating back to the 3rd or 4th Century - often referred to as the Nag Hammadi codices. These would have been account books or other stationery books, where the textblock could be easily replaced whenever necessary. They were all papyrus and most were single quires.


That is the best part. These books have just one stack of pages, all folded together, up to 40 sheets. The text block needs to be pressed for a long time to get it to fold happily. The leather covers were lined with papyrus to make them stiffer. And they have ties at the top and bottom and a wrap-around strap or tie on the fore edge. The original books were quite large so they probably needed all these ties to keep the books closed properly.


I was able to finish three of these books, one is leather and the others have paper covers. They are each made a bit differently. The brown paper book was done entirely non-adhesive. The leather book is the only one with papyrus in the covers. I also added the pretty paper flyleaf to these books. And the dark red paper cover is the only one with pasted endpapers, but no flyleaf.

The binding itself consists of tackets through the quire and cover. I have tried to make tackets before and was never successful, but I mastered it today. All of the books have several tiny tackets in the corners for reinforcement so I got lots of practice.

Packages from Etsy

Today was a good day because I got three packages with items I'd bought on Etsy. Most of the stuff that comes through the mail slot is either a bill or it is spam. So when I get something in the mail that I actually want, then it is a pretty good day.

First of all, I got two ATCs from willowcatstudio. Such unique artwork, and these cityscapes that I got are really quite intriguing - I think I could look at them for a long time and not get bored!

Next package I opened was a shirt from LovePeaceAndDye. This shirt was offered as a PIF and I decided to grab it (PIF means 'pay it forward' and it's basically a feebie on Etsy, the buyer doesn't have to pay, but they should offer another PIF in return or do something nice for someone). I have offered a PIF from my own store before, but this was the first time that I got one for myself. And it is fabulous!

The last package was a book from greenchairpress. A small letterpress, handbound book called 'Winter' to add to my little collection of handmade books and artist's books. And it is a great addition to the collection and the first letterpress item that I've got. Some day maybe I'll even have a good way to display all these books that I've been collecting. Same with the ATCs... I have several now and they are all in a little wooden box, but I'd like to do something better with them.

Oh, and I finished preparing all the paper for the custom journal that I've been working on and started binding it. The resizing of all the pages produced enough strips of paper for me to make 15 of those little pamphlet-stitch notebooks!

Blank Book Swap

I've been participating in a Blank Book Swap for handmade books and it was a lot of fun. Basically, bookbinders from all over the place would send handbound blank books to the swap hostess and then the hostess mixed them up and sent them back out to the participants so everyone gets a great new book. Sooo much fun.

I got some really awesome books from the swap. If you want to check them out, there are photos from all the swaps on the Volcano Arts website. I was involved for just a short time, but the swap had been ongoing for about five years so there are lots of photos there. Great place to get ideas for bookmaking.

I even have a book ready for next swap:

My new blog

I'm Rhonda, and I'm a bookbinder and book artist. I started making books several years ago when I took my first bookbinding course and I haven't been able to stop.Lately, I have been focusing on historic book structures from the Medieval and Renaissance eras and I try to be as accurate as possible with certain elements of the binding process, while still modernizing other elements thus producing a durable, functional, and beautiful book. Feel free to contact me if you have any questions (or suggestions!) about my books and their bindings. I am a member of the Canadian Bookbinders and Books Artists Guild (www.cbbag.ca) and The Guild of Bookworkers (guildofbookworkers.org).