Saturday, October 17, 2015

Book_Arts-L and Book Arts Web Demographics and Usage

Every once in a while I wonder how many postings and members Book_Arts-L has, and love to look at Book Arts Web usage in Google Analytics. It's a sick habit, but someone needs to have it and do it.

Book_Arts-L was founded in June of 1994 and quickly grew in subscribers and posting activity. The Book Arts Web started about a year later and was also the list "homepage" with links to the archive and the FAQ. With VERY few exceptions the archive(s) hold all postings since 1994, and they continue to be a valued resource. Unfortunately, there are no usage statistics for those.

So, the past few nights (rather than working on my Ernst Collin bibliography) I downloaded the basic metadata (A word with eight letters) from the Archives (1994-2009) and (2009-present). These included message subject, poster, date, lines/message (since 2009). Total number of subscribers shot over 1000 quickly, and then grew to the 2400+ we have now with dips and spikes along the way.

Below some (messy) graphics... As always click to enlarge.

Since 2010, an overall decline in number of postings to list...

Posting activity varies greatly from month to months with summers and New Years low(er) points...

Here a different way to view same data, very similar patterns month by month, year by year.

And here the data for both of the above...

We tend to post more messages Monday-Tuesday & Thursday-Friday than on Wednesday and weekends...

Wednesdays in March seem busiest, Mondays in December quietest...
 
The list "hall of fame" (or shame) of top-15 posters. Ignore Peter D. Verheyen, he's the listowner.
Reviewing all subscribers by postings was like a walk down memory lane. Some are still very active, others no longer subscribed (or posting).

Names, years active, and total postings. We hit 200 total postings in the list with subscribers #43, 100 with #108, 50 with #268, and 10 with #1270... There are 74521 postings total in the archives.

Here some Book_Arts-L demographics from 2004, showing where the 1789 subscribers came from. Important to note in the below charts, a Gmail user in Germany, Australia, ... will show up as being in the US due to the .com...



And, here from 2006... with 1922 of us.


And here from today (10/17/15), 2451 subscribers from 22 countries.


So, we have less posting from an increasing number of subscribers... Postings are often substantive though, certainly more so than on Web 2.0 "social media," we're still Web 1.0 here.

Google Analytics captures usage of the Book Arts Web since 2007.

I started using Google Analytics in December 2006. Just as the number of overall number of listserv postings is declining, so is the amount of traffic to the website...


A little spikier than the graph above where Book_Arts-L postings are overlaid as I am also showing monthly data...


Here the demographics by top 10 countries for the Book Arts Web.

(2007 - 10/1/2015)
Click to enlarge


Below, some statistics for the Book Arts Web. Though no longer in publication, The Bonefolder (2004-2012) continues to be downloaded at a very high rate with regular citations of articles in other publications whether print, blogs, email postings, twitter, tumblr, ...

Top 25 pages overall (2007 - 10/1/2015)
Click to enlarge

Top 25 social media referrals (2007 - 10/1/2015)
Click to enlarge

And finally some pictures of the tech people use to access the Book Arts Web, and presumably our Book_Arts-L subscribers as well.

Operating system (2007 - 10/1/2015)
Click to enlarge

Browser (2007 - 10/1/2015)
Click to enlarge

So, despite what we may think about the artsy crowd being largely Mac users, ahem... Also interesting the low number of mobile users. The site does work on a mobile...

What does all this tell me (us)? That there are more subscribers but less postings to the list, esp since about 2008 when Google Analytics became available. These declines seem also to affect usage of other platforms such as Bookbinding (formerly an active list on Yahoo, now a forum), the Book Arts Forum, various other similar sites. The Guild of Book Workers listserv I started in 1997-8 is also very low volume. I also like to participate on some German sites, and have seen similar declines, an example being Bücher Binden, a list started by Peter Baumgartner who was active here as well, and is the author of several books on binding. Since then we have however also seen an "explosion" of other media such as Facebook, Tumblr, Pinterest, Twitter. So we have more choices in where we find our information.

Some time in the future, I'll rework my Getting us out / Bringing us together: How listservs and the Web have changed the way in which book artists work and communicate. I presented this at "Hot Type in a Cold World," a symposium celebrating the 25th anniversary of the Silver Buckle Press at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. November 20, 1998. That was 4 years after the Book_Arts-L started, and 3 after the University of Idaho Bookarts, Richard Minsky, and I/the Book Arts Web went online (more here).

The Book Arts Web at the Wayback Machine of the Internet Archive.
Regardless, what we have here is an incredibly robust community that has been sustained over 20 years, having also been very stable in terms of web presence as well. Some URLS have changed, but not as many as one might think.

Thank you!

ps: I'd love to find some way to determine a list of subjects discussed based on volume of responses... Anyone?

Tuesday, August 18, 2015

The Bindings of Trevor Jones

Jones, Trevor, Angela James and Colin Hamilton (editors). The Bindings of Trevor Jones. Foss: Duval & Hamilton, 2015. 9.5 x 11 inches. ISBN 9780950135519. 160 pages. Hardcover, dust jacket, $75.00. For orders outside of the Americas, cost is £45+ postage outside of UK. Please contact the publisher, duvalandhamilton@gmail.com to order.

Reviewed by Amy Borezo

“I consistently design beyond what I know I am capable of doing, and have to discover or invent the means as I go along.” – Trevor Jones (1931-2012)

The Bindings of Trevor Jones catalogs over 140 works by this eclectic bookbinder who sought experimentation with materials and a connection with fine art in his designs. In this impressive collection spanning nearly fifty years, his legacy in the history of bookbinding is made more than apparent. As one of the founding members of Designer Bookbinders, he and his colleagues helped revive the art and craft of bookbinding in Britain during the second half of the 20th century. The images in the catalog are supplemented by detailed sketches and notes from the binder, as well as articles he wrote in the 1980s and 90s that are as informative and enlightening today as they undoubtedly were then.

Cat 49, Ivor Bannet, The Amazons

The full color images of the bindings are arranged in chronological order, from Jones' first experiments as a student to the fully formed, complex and expertly executed designs of later years. His early work was influenced by his first binding instructor, Arthur Johnson, who displayed a modern design aesthetic that echoed the fine art of the middle of the 20th century. Jones' early bindings, in their asymmetrical compositions, amorphous color onlays and fluid black tooled lines, call to mind the bindings of Johnson and Edgar Mansfield, as well as painters like Miro and Picasso. At that time and in the years to come, Jones was inspired by the work of his peers and teachers rather than the purely decorative or overly restrained bindings of the past.

This forward looking approach to binding led to a great sense of experimentation. The catalog contains an informative essay on the use of spirit dyes, which is one of the many inventive techniques Jones utilized in his work. The freedom which the use of these dyes gave him was essential to his artistic development and allowed him to incorporate his training as an illustrator into his bindings. Jones often used the cover of a book as a painter would a canvas, filling it completely with pictorial, painterly representations, frequently of the human form. In his design of James Joyce's Pomes Penyeach, the binder made an innovative structural decision based on the need to have a long horizontal surface on which to depict a reclining nude. He doubled the amount of board surface by hinging another board to both the front and back covers. These inner covers are hidden when the book is fully closed, revealing only a portion of the female nude figure on the exterior. He used this cover structure many times throughout his work to increase the surface area on which to construct a design while simultaneously creating a cinematic effect of a long horizontal image fully revealed only through manipulation by a reader/viewer.

Cat 64, James Joyce, Pomes Penyeach

During the 1970s, many binders responded to new movements in visual art and architecture that exposed the function of an object and incorporated it into its design. During the same time period, the massive flooding of libraries in Italy brought to light many examples of historical binding structures which complimented the new functionalist art movements. Jones took note of these developments and made use of the sewing support as a design element in several of his best bindings. Dark cords and lacings snake across covers showing themselves in unexpected places. In the description for his binding of Edgar Mansfield's 11.2.80 On Creation he reveals that he used a method of chance to determine the composition of the cover, lifting the long cords up and letting them drop repeatedly, tracing the results. This method of discovery and openness to process is indicative of much of his work. The design for this same binding continues on the inside of the covers where the laces from the exterior appear again, embedded in the doublures of grey goatskin, having emerged through eyelet holes or wrapped around edges.

Cat. 80, Edgar Mansfield, 11.2.80 On Creation

One of Jones' most ambitious projects is his first binding of George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four. The structure of the book and its casing is artfully complex and captures the ominous mood of the text. The binder uses old leather gloves to create onlays in dark browns and reds, cutting and spreading single gloves out to construct seemingly monstrous hands that appear to be reaching, flailing, or grasping. Three sewing tapes are exposed on the spine and ten dark leather thongs trail across the front and back covers, gathering at each corner and spilling over the covers as loose ties. The closed book sits in the chest area of a large straight-jacketed, simplified human form sewn from canvas in muted colors. The human form wraps around the book, snapping closed, revealing the roughly stenciled title of the book. The whole is contained in a hinged, wooden box. Every detail of this work, including the custom paste paper flyleaves, evokes a powerful and haunting image of the human soul, psychologically bound and oppressed.

Cat. 75, George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four

Cat. 75, George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four

In Nineteen Eighty-Four and other work, Jones incorporated found materials in his designs, such as leather gloves, scraps of clothing, fur, handbags, wallets, and lacings. The found materials seem to share a connection to the human body, with the marks of time and use celebrated and highlighted by the binder. Jones also integrated into his designs the raw edges of the animal skins he worked with and would reinforce the grain of the leather and purposefully pucker and manipulate the skins, creating texture and dimension.

Cat.118, Arthur Miller, Death of a Salesman

Cat.118, Arthur Miller, Death of a Salesman

Jones had a deep connection with much of the work he chose to bind. He states in one of the catalog's essays that “[E]ven when I am binding a book for someone else I am at the time making it for myself.” The texts he worked with have a distinctly modern character, including those by James Joyce (of which there are many examples), George Mackay Brown, George Orwell, Arthur Miller, and David Jones. For the binding of Arthur Miller's, Death of a Salesman, Jones used onlays, inlays, cracquelle work, and stenciled spirit dyes to create two gripping, large scale self-portraits on front and back covers. The perspective and scale of the faces allow the viewer to connect with the deeply flawed everyman at the center of Miller's story. The tone and color of the portraits is dark and beautiful, ranging from a warm honeyed brown, like an aged photograph, where the cracks and fissures of the cracquelle work are most apparent, to the deep complimentary blue and purple-blacks. These are not just book covers, they are compelling paintings as well.

Trevor Jones created deeply personal work, unique in the history of bookbinding. The craftsmanship and art-making on display in this collection is informative and inspiring for anyone interested in the art of design binding, while the essays and historical context for the work advance and enrich the field of bookbinding on an international scale.

An excerpt from the introduction can be read on Oak Knoll Books' site.



Amy Borezo Amy is an artist, bookbinder, and the proprietor of Shelter Bookworks, a bookbinding studio in Western Massachusetts.

Saturday, August 8, 2015

BLOOKS: Bind-O-Rama 2015 Entry Form Now Online


Deadline Passed
Online Exhibit Coming Soon


The 2015 Bind-O-Rama is devoted to the subject of BLOOKS, objects made in the emulation of books. This is an opportunity for blook artists of ALL creeds (binders, printer, papermakers, decorated paper makers, …) to apply your creative energy and bookbinding talents to making a book object that examines and expresses your relationship with the book. Around the world, for hundreds of years, people have been making book-objects that reflect their devotion and respect for books and for each other. There are countless examples; they include bars, cameras, radios, banks, toys, memorials, food tins, desk accessories, book safes and boxes, vases, musical instruments, magic tricks, furniture, jewelry and artworks. Blooks embody the same characteristics as books and many take the form of specific titles and book formats. They signify knowledge, education, taste, power, wealth and more. They have been treasured and passed down through the generations, and many thousands reside in private homes, public and private businesses and in museums and libraries around the world. Blooks have been used to celebrate and memorialize important occasions and personal losses and successes. They serve as reminders of memorable visits to important places, as receptacles to hold valuable and practical objects and are the source of great amusement. Start making your heirloom now and let your imagination run wild!

If you are interested in participating in the Bind-o-rama but need some inspiration or challenge for an idea, or want to base your design on an historical object, contact Mindell Dubansky  or see her blog About Blooks

The exhibition Blooks: The Art of Books That Aren't  (book objects from the collection of Mindell Dubansky) will be on view at the Grolier Club in New York City from January 28-March 12, 2016. A full-color, 9 x 11 inches, 96 page, paperback catalog will be available. For a limited time, Mindell is taking orders for unbound copies for hand binders. The price is $45 plus shipping, pre-payment is required for books in sheets. If you are interested the exhibition, it's programs, reserving an unbound copy or pre-ordering a bound copy, contact Mindell and visit the Grolier Club website later this year.

Tuesday, July 28, 2015

Tricks of the Trade, Confessions of a Bookbinder

Jamie Kamph. Tricks of the Trade: Confessions of a Bookbinder. New Castle, DE: Oak Knoll Press, 2015. 6 x 9 inches. ISBN 9781584563341. 144 pages. Hardcover $39.95, softcover $24.95.

Reviewed by Karen Hanmer*

Cherish each step along the way and perform it as completely and gracefully as possible.

Jamie Kamph’s Tricks of the Trade: Confessions of a Bookbinder is part memoir, part how-to, and part a collection of essays on the engineering aspects of binding, all gleaned from this design binder/conservator’s forty years of experience.

Kamph clearly and generously shares her process, though this is not intended to be a step-by-step manual, and the book is written with the experienced practitioner in mind. Binding, repair, design, and finishing are all addressed. Well-illustrated with diagrams and in-process photos, plus images of forty of her completed design bindings, the book also serves as a catalog of Kamph’s work.

An introduction provides Kamph’s philosophy of binding. Her process is one of both prudence and decisiveness: “At each step of a binding or rebinding I evaluate my work and decide if it is good enough to continue.” Throughout the book she echoes a sensible rule-of-thumb to bind by and to live by: “Don’t do anything you can’t undo.” She ends with a reading list of her go-to sources for binding history and technique.

M.F.K. Fischer, Deux Cuisines en Provence

The book proceeds with Kamph’s career transition from publishing to bookbinding after writing an article on hand bookbinding in New York City. Kamph had an ulterior motive in accepting the assignment: a book collector since her college days, she hoped to find a local source for repair of her own collection. Interviews with numerous binders led to an invitation to a one-evening “try-out” class with Deborah Evetts to determine if she had potential as a binder, then weekly lessons with Hope Weil, and finally establishment of her own Stonehouse Bindery.

Kamph continued her study independently, offering to examine every binding in nearby Princeton University’s rare book collections, and to report to the curator on bindings of note. The objective of her survey was twofold: research not only historical finishing design but also how various binding methods had withstood centuries of use. Kamph was seeking a structure that would support the designs that have become her trademark: elaborate tooling and onlays on the spine extending across the joints and onto the boards. A tight back spine might not be smooth enough to take gold tooling well, and the flexing from opening could cause the gold to flake off. The opening of a hollow back can exert enough pressure on the joints to cause the boards to detach over time. She found the engineering solution she was seeking in a 16th century Swiss binding: a tight back with a leather spine lining. With further refinements, this is the structure she still uses today.

Giorgio Vasari, Lives of the Most Eminent Painters, vol. 1

Kamph next address her signature design style, illustrated by photographs of her completed bindings, sometimes shown alongside the period works she used for reference or inspiration. Her broad design vocabulary draws on a variety of mediums: visual and decorative arts, maps, architecture, and garden and textile design. Typography and decorative elements from the text often inspire a pattern which might be repeated, rotated, reversed, exploded. She also draws on historical book decoration, fragmenting or exaggerating elements to provide a more contemporary, often playful feel.

Thornton Wilder, The Bridge of San Luis Rey

She gives us a window into her design process, whether searching for just the right antiquarian image of an angel, finding an astrological map for the night Captain Ahab’s ship left Nantucket, or borrowing watercolor techniques to capture the play of light on a tableau of fruit.

This introduction to Kamph and her work is followed by twenty-some brief chapters, arranged roughly in the order a book is bound or by complexity of repair, followed by finishing techniques and tips on developing a design. Though Tricks of the Trade is not a step-by-step manual, much how-to information is provided in the narrative. Each chapter is a stand-alone essay on one step in the binding process, peppered with tips and anecdotes. The feel is that of the conversations binders have following a lecture or demonstration: colleagues swapping their personal techniques and the tribulations that got them there.

Topics covered include humidity in the studio, useful bindery items borrowed from the medicine cabinet and toolbox, adhesives, paper repair, board attachment, zig-zag endsheets, backing, spine lining, the inseparable actions of sharpening and paring, headbanding, headcaps, and corners. Later chapters address repair: inner and outer joints, cloth cases, rebacking. A chapter is devoted to the repair of a set of three nineteenth century novels in their original but very damaged paper bindings. Before and after photos show new bindings that retain the spirit of the modestly elegant originals.

Throughout, Kamph shares her preferred materials and suppliers, and describes equipment of her own design: a brass-edged recasing press, her tool-polishing set-up, a holder for rolls of gold leaf. I found numerous tips I may or may not have ever arrived at on my own: using tweezers when I might have reached for a thin folder, substituting thin Reemay where I would have used Japanese tissue, using book cloth matching the case for a hollow where I would have used paper, application of glair with a refillable water brush when I would have used a brush or the much more difficult to maintain technical pan, silicone release paper when I would have used Mylar.

 She offers a multitude of possibilities for altering new plain or decorated paper to match old. She addresses making endband cores and reveals a clever method for anchoring the core to the text block to ease the awkward initial wraps before the first tie-downs.

Particularly welcome are chapters addressing the dual nemesis of many fine binders: headcaps and corners. She notes that a well-formed headcap is in fact the convergence of numerous steps properly executed: not just covering but also spine lining, leather paring, headbanding, and attention to the appropriate historical style for that particular book. Kamph provides three options for forming corners, all illustrated with step-by-step diagrams. The most interesting, borrowed from Swiss binder Gerard Charrière, oddly resembles the historical tongue corner but with a shorter tongue pared very thin and folded beneath the two side flaps, which meet seamlessly above it.

A chapter on repair of the brawny, brittle family bible acknowledges this quotidian mission that binders love to hate. Kamph describes her method of washing and drying the text pages in “clumps,” repairing pages, and resewing to control swell, followed by backing to fit the old boards, or if new boards must be selected, the luxury of selecting a thicker pair to comfortably fit a generous shoulder.

Another chapter is devoted to a case study of Kamph’s treatment of a dilapidated first edition of Samuel Johnson’s Dictionary of the English Language. The two volumes bought at auction by a long-time client came with detached boards, some missing pages, and no leather remaining on the spines. However, the sewing was mostly intact, and rubbings of the spine reveled that the old glue still held impressions of the original tooling. Scans of the missing pages were acquired, printed onto paper toned to match the text and sewn on, new cords were attached to the old and the boards reattached, the books were rebacked. Using the spine rubbings as her guide, Kamph drew a design for a decorative tool to be made to match the original and purchased the 24-point Times Roman Condensed that was a reasonable match for the original titling font.

First edition of Samuel Johnson’s Dictionary of the English Language, before treatment

First edition of Samuel Johnson’s Dictionary of the English Language, after treatment

The greatest strength of Tricks of the Trade may lie in the final chapters on finishing techniques and generating design ideas. First Kamph describes the process of transferring the design of onlays, gold lines and titling to the binding by tooling through a pattern on translucent graph paper. This process is illustrated with photographs of a full pattern, a close-up of the pattern showing the numerous line segments marked to designate each tools that makes up each segment of the design, and the completed binding. Further instructions are given for cutting onlays to the precise size and shape required and setting them in place.

In just fourteen, highly-efficient pages, Kamph presents design possibilities, tools, and techniques for gold tooling. She discusses the optimal binding structure and choice of leather to lay the foundation for tooling, how to form an intricate design using just a few tools, how to modify tools to build the desired pattern, and when blind tooling might be a better design choice than gold. She outlines each step of the process: blinding-in, applying glair, polishing the tool, applying the gold, cleaning the impression, applying additional gold as needed and troubleshooting. Kamph uses ribbon gold, a roll of gold wound on a spool, interleaved with thin tissue. Ribbon gold is not applied directly to the book like leaf; instead it is picked up with a greased, heated tool which is then applied to the blind impression. The chapter concludes with a very useful matrix laying out methods for managing the interactions of leather, gold, glair, heat and pressure, tools, patterns, humidity and boards when conditions are “bad,” better,” or “best.”

H.G. Wells, The Time Machine

In “How to Cheat at Gold Tooling,” Kamph offers suggestions for replacing missing tooling or refreshing damaged tooling on the fragile leather of antiquarian bindings, or adding tooling to a reback that will be a reasonable match to that on the remnants of the original spine.

The final chapter addresses generating design ideas. First, look to the book itself: read the text, look at the images. What is it about, where and when does it take place, what are the larger themes, and what items might be associated with any of this? A quick Web search will yield numerous possibilities, which can spur many additional ideas.

Kamph presents multiple techniques for onlays, some unconventional. She often repeats an onlay shape as a frieze extending across the spine from foredge to foredge. Instead of using these leather shapes themselves as onlays, she sometimes applies the strip of thinned leather they were cut from to the book, with the negative space making shapes appear in the leather the book is bound in. Kamph ends with a reminder to include the title in the design process. Freedom from traditional placement and content can reinforce themes in the text while enhancing the design.

Walt Whitman, The Half-Breed and Other Stories

A photograph of Kamph’s Stonehouse Bindery wraps from the back to front cover of Tricks of the Trade. Her New Jersey farm is visible through bench-to-ceiling windows on two sides of the studio. This scene completes the profile of the binder, her methods, and her work.

* Karen Hanmer was an early reader of this book.




Karen Hanmer’s artist-made books are physical manifestations of personal essays intertwining history, culture, politics, technology and arid wit. Her work is included in collections ranging from The Getty Museum and the Library of Congress to Yale University and Graceland. She is winner of the Jury Prize for Binding in the 2009 Helen Warren DeGolyer American Bookbinding Competition and is one of only eight graduates of the American Academy of Bookbinding’s Fine Binding program. Hanmer is a leader in the book arts community, having served on the editorial board of The Bonefolder, as Exhibitions Chair for the Guild of Book Workers, and as frequent exhibition curator and juror. She offers workshops and private instruction focusing on a solid foundation in basic binding skills. www.karenhanmer.com

Saturday, June 27, 2015

Upcoming Posts and Other Musings

It's summer and things have been rather slow. While we wait for some excellent reviews of The Bindings of Trevor Jones, Tricks of the Trade by Jamie Kamph, and the catalog to Hello Hedi at 23 Sandy Gallery I offer this diversion.








It's summer, and what can be more seasonal than enjoying an excellent fermented beverage, in this case beer, especially when the label is designed by a well known graphic artist whose work some of us have had the honor to bind.


The beer, Bell's Two Hearted Ale, a nice play on the short story be Hemingway... The artist...? Ladislav Hanka, a friend of Jan Sobota and many others. His books Corn, County Survey, Scripta Naturae, and Opus Salvelinus were all bound for the 50 x 25 exhibit held at Southern Methodist University's Bridwell Library. Most recently Hanka published a memorial book, Remembering Jan Bohuslav Sobota, about his friend Jan Sobota that was bound by many of the same binders as in 50 x 25. You can see some of the bindings here. Hanka's archive is housed at Western Michigan University, also home to half of the 50 bindings in 50 x 25 - each binder bound two of the same title, with one going back to the artist...

Fishing is a large part of Hanka's life, often featured in his prints, and beautifully bound. So, open a Bell's Two Hearted Ale (if available in your area), crank up À la Poupée & the Chine-Collé's music, and take a look at this man's etchings.

Saturday, April 18, 2015

Bookmaking of a different kind



Hey, we made The New Yorker this week... 

“Vinnie, we gotta talk about what ‘bookmaking’ means.”

From this week's issue of The New Yorker.

You have no idea how many bookies are out there wanting to learn about making books, at least based on my my referring URLs...  This opens possibilities for further workshop venues - metaphor as material anyone?

Monday, February 2, 2015

The Spirit Books of Susan K. Gaylord

Susan Kapuscinski Gaylord. The Spirit Books. Newburyport, MA: Self-published, 2014. Available at Etsy for $20.

Reviewed by Velma Bolyard

The rich world of artists’ books encompasses so much work, from peculiar and fascinating ‘zines to amazing unique books, and all sorts of work in between. Each book made has purpose, each book is read in some way, each maker presents something to experience. As a maker and reader, I revel in the current variety and am always curious about seeing work that is new to me. Last April at the University of Southern Maine, Portland’s Book Arts Bazaar I had the pleasure of meeting Susan Kapuscinski Gaylord and spending a tiny bit of time looking a Spirit Book that she was showing. What I saw was stunning and made me want to spend more time with these pieces. Nothing had prepared me for the impact of “meeting” a Spirit Book. And this is why her new book The Spirit Books about this series is so generous, it gets you very close to these books the way you need to actually experience them. She’s added text that explains more about the making of each piece.

The Spirit Books begins with a sensitive and reflective introduction by Rosemary Noon. Noon writes, “The series claims mastery of a whole realm of knowledge outside language.” This rings true to me. Gaylord, a calligrapher, seems at ease with making wordless books, or rather books without words to frame experience while “reading” the piece. Marks on the pages are etched or sewn in a variety of ways, still missing are words. But the presence of many sorts of markings evokes meaning, feeling, contemplation, examination. The Spirit Books give the reader an insight into Gaylord’s thinking and process answering some questions while stimulating more.

Spirit Book #13: Hope Offering

In a brief and cogent artists statement about the body of work Gaylord writes: “Each page is a meditation that echoes nature with both repetition and variety.” I think she is completely correct here. Each book is intended to be a contemplative experience. I was surprised by the complex and at times subtle layers of meaning in the Spirit Books. Each Spirit Book is made from textural and earthy papers, with marks evolving from a variety of means; sewn beads, bits of twigs, seeds, plants, threads, wires, and patterns carefully composed for careful looking. They are meant to be displayed opened for viewing each in its own cradle or nest. This supporting structure is designed to fully compliment the book it supports. Further, the books appear as small alters of contemplation, meditations in fact. Gaylord achieves this by presenting each book as an important artifact, elevated to viewing by each one’s unique stage. The Spirit Books serves as a catalog of the series and is the next best thing to seeing a piece, you can get very close. The photography is clear and intimate, one sees the fibers lifting off the edges of pages, the gleam of an amber bead, the carefully placed stitches, or trimmed twigs delineating pages.

This modest book cataloging The Spirit Books series presents a grouping of 35 from the total of at least 73 books. Gaylord explains that the series remains fluid, sometimes she disbinds a book and re-composes it into another piece. Each Spirit Book is presented as a discrete contemplation placed in its own unique cradle, or nest, or one might even say alter built specifically to present and contain its book. On the verso page Gaylord names the book photographed on the recto. She describes the book including a few words about the making and naming of it. Gaylord wisely lets the photos present the books as singular objects. Her descriptions are sparse, but there is enough information to prompt thinking. Book number 1 is called Sewn Prayer and “it was named for the act of sewing which is considered a symbol of life and its temporal nature.” What The Spirit Books does so well is present a hint of the breadth of the series. It suggests how rich the visual and emotive experience of the Spirit Books series must be. In that busy, energetic marketplace of the Book Arts Bazaar, I wanted to stop and think about what was being offered. This book reminds me of stopping and looking.

SpiritBook #43: RenewedWisdom

I can imagine hiking in my own northern woods and coming upon a granite ridge face with a naturally occurring mossy niche, surprisingly holding a Spirit Book. I can imagine pausing, looking carefully, reading, and thinking this most appropriate. I can see that each page, each leaf, might echo the experience Gaylord is seeking to prompt. Alternatively, I can see an installation of many Spirit Books, in a space that is conducive to contemplation, with the books elevated and accessible so that you could look deeply into the architectural environments of each one while moving around them. Lacking the opportunity to see these books in person, or to act as a memento of this singular series, The Spirit Books by Susan Kapuscinski Gaylord is a fine alternative.

[Note: to view more of the Spirit Books online visit Susan K. Gaylord's site online]



Velma Bolyard teaches emotionally disturbed children in Potsdam, NY. She also teaches papermaking, book arts, and fiber arts workshops, often at her mill, Wake Robin Papers. She holds a BS Design, MS Teaching, with elementary, art, and special education certifications, and has studied fiber, paper and book arts in the US and Canada. In 2000 she received the Nell Mendell Scholarship for PBI (Paper and Book Intensive). She has shown her work in fiber, paper, and books for many years.