"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.

Morgan Conservatory Workshops

Just a few photos from the workshops that I taught last month, at the Morgan Conservatory in Cleveland, OH. I had a great time at the Morgan, as usual.

First, I conducted a miniature bookbinding workshop with a dozen participants. Everyone made at least three different kinds of miniature books. We started with a pamphlet stitch, binding a little copy of A Visit from Saint Nicholas or A Model Millionaire. Then we all made a really tiny blank book, about 20mm tall. We finished by each binding a copy of Kipling's tale of How the Leopard got his Spots, as a miniature hardcover book. Certainly a very productive workshop for everyone.

The second workshop was making two different Crossed Structure Bindings. We made the first structure with a paper cover (using lovely Sainte-Armand handmade paper). The second structure was made with a leather cover. The students' previous experience ranged from some who had never made a book before, up to folks with years of experience. These are wonderful and versatile bindings so I hope they will all try these bindings again in the future!

Mini Books for your ears

Had some fun recently working on these tiny little books...

The Illustrated Accordion

During April, the Kalamazoo Book Arts Center is hosting an exhibit called "The Illustrated Accordion." They have also posted a virtual exhibit on Flickr so everyone can see the collection. For those of you in Michigan, maybe you can check it out in person at the KBAC Gallery. Included in "The Illustrated Accordion" is this little accordion book that I made last Fall. This is called "A Walk on the Beach" inspired by our family's trip to a beach that had an unexpected conclusion. The accordion is made with pockets to hold found objects: shell, feather, driftwood, etc. The first pocket includes a tiny book with a bit of text about the walk on the beach. Several months ago, I mentioned that I was participating in a miniature book exchange and this accordion book was initially designed for that purpose. For our exchange, we need to make an edition of 6 and we send one to each person. I was really happy with this book so I made an edition of 10; copies are available on Etsy.

More itty bitty books

I liked those little pink books so much, that I decided to make more...

Practicing Coptic Endbands

I've only tried this a few times so recently I decided to practice. I didn't photograph the first practice attempts! But I got a few books done with decent results. Although I'm not sure that I do it correctly, this is how it looks: And since I was in chain stitch mode, I made some itty bitty books too, but without the endbands:

Not quite so little

More little books; but, not quite so small as the earring books. Just some fun little leather books on keyrings to draw in the crowds at my upcoming craft fair.

So many little books

So, um, since the initial triad, the number of itty bitty books around here has just exploded.


I am preparing for a spring sale locally, at the end of April, so now I have a cute little display of teeny weeny books and a bunch of book-earrings all set to go. When I made the books for the earrings, I reinforced the spine on the inside of the cover, and punched a little hole to feed through a loop that could be attached to the ear wires. I got these great handmade sterling silver ear wires on Etsy (of course) from a shop called CanadianRockies.

Really Mini

So I made three books tonight.


A few months ago I was supposed to attend a workshop on making miniature books. The workshop was canceled, though. So I got mini book instructions from an Etsy seller called dingo and just finally got around to trying them tonight. They are so small that I lost one under my bone folder; couldn't find it anywhere and was beginning to think that I must have accidentally inhaled it...but then I found it. Phew. The instructions were great, very easy for me to follow so once I adjusted my thinking to accommodate for such tiny measurements and precise folding, this was quite fun.

Here DH agreed to model the books for me:

Album Problem

I have been contemplating the construction of an album for my postcards. I've been thinking about it for years, literally. Postcards present a couple of challenges: first, both sides should be visible and second, postcard size is not uniform. Jackie's challenge this week is exactly this - an album for postcards. I didn't come up with an album for postcards yet, but I did experiment a little bit.

So first, I made a Crown Book. When I first encountered the Blizzard Book a while ago, I thought it's structure might work for postcards. The Crown Book is a variation of the Blizzard Book. So that's the white and blue book shown here. This structure certainly does allow for viewing both sides and since the cards would be just slid into place with no sewing or adhesive, they could be removed and inserted anytime. This structure still expects each page/card to be the same size, though.

I also decided to try customizing the size of the book. So far when I've made this structure, I wasn't trying to produce any specific size; there is so much folding involved in the spine structure that the final size is quite different than the papers you start out with. So I decided to try making a Blizzard Book for MOO cards. I had a couple false starts, but did finally get the spine to be the correct size.



It's a fabulous structure, now I just need to figure out how to use it to accomodate pages/cards of different sizes then maybe I'll have the solution to my postcard album problem.

(That sultry lady peeking out of my MOO Card Album is a card from DangerousMezzo - a collage artist who has some fabulous work for sale on Etsy.)

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.

Little Books

I registered for a 2-day bookbinding workshop to make miniature books. Very miniature, small enough to use for ear rings. The workshop was scheduled for this weekend (Dec 1-2) but it was canceled. Bummer. So I made a couple little books anyway. These are not so miniature as the books we would have made in the workshop...these are about 8.5cm X 6.5cm (3¼" x 2½").

So here they are. One is hardcover with wood grain paper on it, the other is a limp leather cover. Both are sewn onto supports: the hardcover book is sewn onto some narrow ribbon; the leather book is sewn onto strips of leather.



The little hardcover book turned out quite well. The leather book, though, is crooked. I pasted the spine directly to the leather cover and tried to pull the leather tight over the supports to enhance the three bands on the spine but I distorted it mostly... I was able to trim the cover leather to make it look better. It functions well enough. I think I will use it myself, I need a new little book to carry in my bag.



Since the workshop didn't happen, I need to have a look at some of MissRuth's mini book photos to see how she making them.... they are VERY miniature. One of her books: