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How to Make Books: Fold, Cut & Stitch Your Way to a One-Of-A-Kind Book
I meant to relate the following story above, but have lost my stamina for writing much more than a page by hand. Sad, I know. I previously mentioned somewhere that a friend and I took a book arts class a couple of years ago. It was an experience that threatened to turn me off of book-making for good.
The teacher of the class was talented in the craft, of that there isn't doubt. Her teaching method, however, nowhere approached her skill at assembling bound documents. I know little about teaching, but I do know this: if you don't have boundless patience for people who are not as good as you at the thing you are teaching, DO NOT BE A TEACHER.
This woman grew irritable and snappish at anyone who didn't successfully imitate her increasingly difficult bookmaking techniques on the first try, to the point where a student fled the class in tears before the end of the first day. The rest of us sewed signatures in terrified silence, desperately trying to follow her instructions to the letter, lest she snarl and make a sarcastic example of our ineptitude to the other cowed bookmaking hopefuls.
At the end of day two, anxiety had completely overtaken any grasp I may have had on bookmaking fundamentals, and I turned my back on the craft for some time. But thanks to "How to Make Books," I'm back.
PS:
There were some interesting comments on the last post I meant to respond to, but houseguests compelled me to take a webcation. I've finally posted a comment, and enjoyed everyone's thoughts on that post. Which begs the question:
WHO WOULD LIKE TO SUBMIT SOMETHING TO THE THE RETROTECH REVIEW (or whatever we are calling it?) Speak now, and include the category of your submission in the comments (fiction, poetry, art, photography, nonfiction, all on the general theme of ephemera and retrotech). Submissions s/b no more than 2 8x11 pages and should not cover any topic not appropriate for youngsters.
15 comments:
I've never tried bookbinding, but have logged in a bit of time on Etsy drooling over "upcycled" handmade books. I'm halfway through a blog post of my favorite haunts there for that very thing.
Your class experience sounds dreadful. I'm always amused at folks who think knowledge in a subject is all they need to teach it. Teaching is a separate art. The good ones make it look easy.
The word verification is "heart." Wow.
Monda said: The word verification is "heart." Wow.
I got "oviloggi", a word I feel compelled to find a meaning for and incorporate into everyday conversation.
Bookbinding is one of those arts which I would love to try my hand at, but my talent for hand-crafting things is roughly on the same level as my talent for yodeling. I dread the day I have to help my son assemble a model car or ship, because in my hands such things come out looking like cubist revival sculpture.
I had a brief burst of "I wanna learn bookbinding!" last summer when I saw some of the lovely handmade journals people were putting together on FPN like these and then decided I was better off sticking with knitting and typing. I've already bought more blank books that I seem to be able to fill right now.
As a lifelong bibliophile, I am fascinated with the idea of bookbinding even if I lack the skills. Another excellent treatise is "Hand Bookbinding: A Manual of Instruction" by Aldren A. Watson. He also wrote and illustrated (he is a wonderful artist) "Hand Tools: Their Ways And Workings". Anyone who enjoys tradtional woodworking tools will love this book. I bring it up because he takes the same approach to bookbinding.
As to the 'teacher'. Such people should be confronted and just as loudly as they embarassed the students. And I mean get in their face. They should also be reported to the organization that sponsored the class. Admittedly, I'm a big, hairy, older guy so maybe I can get by with that attitude. But life is too short to put up with such disrespect and nonsense. (Sorry. That story pushed one of my buttons.)
Jeff
I would love to learn bookbinding. I have held onto a copy of Alice in Wonderland that I bought when I was a kid. The pages are yellow with age, but in good shape otherwise. The cover is in sad condition though. I've always thought it would be nice to put a new cover on it. Maybe someday when I develop more patience.
Bookbinding is one of those things that is certainly an involved process, but when you finish a book, it has a very satisying result. I remember after I finished my first hard bound book just looking at it and marveling at the fact that I had made this thing from scratch. Admittedly, it wasn't perfect, but it did look enough like a book if you didn't stare at it too closely.
There are definitely some steps in the process (sewing signatures) that are most likely too difficult to pick up just from an instructional book alone. Having at least a basic bookbinding course would be immensely helpful.
The other thing about bookbinding is that if you purchase official "bookbinding" supplies, they are actually quite expensive. If you just buy them at an art supply store, a small swath of book cloth (enough to make a small book) can be over $10. But you can use other materials with varying results. Cheap binder clips can be used instead of some clamps and a stack of heavy books works as a makeshift book press for small runs of books. I did find a place online (in New York - Talas I think it was called) that has decent prices on stuff. It is one of those hobbies that gets cheaper the more you do since you can buy in bulk.
The other part of the process that is particularly tricky and I always have to turn my brain upside down every time I do it is imposition - which is calculating which pages go on the back side of which to get them to read correctly. This is something that you will take for granted as easy until you actually have to do it. For sewn books, the pages are broken down into signatures (groups of pages). So your first signature would have page 1 on one side and possibly page 7 printed next to it. Then on the reverse side of that page you would have page 2 and page 8. You can see where this gets complicated. To the best of my knowledge, there is no way in Word to do this type of printing. There may be other programs out there that do this, but the one I use is InDesign. But even then, it gets really tricky when trying to figure it all out and which way to load the paper in the printer and in what order to print. Once you go through this process even for a small book, you will have new found appreciation for every book you have ever read in your life!
One of the biggest challenges that I have is content. Since I am not a writer, I tend to make sketch books or photo books. But if I could write, I would be making books all the time! So the readers of Strikethru should have no problem overcoming this major stumbling block.
Ok, when we have our typecasting conference someday, there will need to be a bookbinding session. Put that on the calendar.
Nup, no one can say you haven't rolled up your sleeves and gotten serious about amateur bookbinding, that's for sure. For the record, Nup bound my nano manuscripts as a gift, and did a beautiful job. Oh, and he was the other victim of the crazy bookbinding instructor.
See Nup-- you are not a thread killer.
So good to see such an interest in bookbinding!
If I can help just let me know.
My daily livelihood involves bookbinding and a lot of restorative conservation (which uses the same principles), and I've been teaching this for the last 11 years- using a textbook I wrote and photo-illustrated.
Perhaps a way for beginners to start, incorporating typed and collaged pages, is to try accordion-binding. Research this online, and look at Japanese bookbinding styles.
From there, the sky's the limit- and you'll be able to rebuild the books you've worn to pieces.
Bookbinding = amazing.
Me + bookbinding = horrible mess, and even horrible-er book.
You get my point.
Depending on the deadline(if you've noticed my blog, I had yet to mention that my typewriter is back in my longing little hands D: ), I want to write something! I'm not sure what...but I'll think of some kind of fiction thing...or possibly poetry.
Okay? :]
Shall we add calligraphy to the mix, here?
That really goes wonderfully with book arts, journaling, photography, and typing!
not exactly retrotech, but for the proposed journal it may be a good idea: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/30/technology/internet/30mag.html?em
Regarding your plea for submissions: will a hesitant and provisional response be acceptable? Because I may have something for submission in a fictiony or creative-nonfictiony kind of vein.
Books about bookbinding are awesome. You feel all crafty without getting binders glue on your hands.
(My verification word is "winers". What's up with that? The coolest word verification I got was from a government site, believe it or not, and the two-word verification was "paradise bigamist".)
The idea sounds great - but can any reasonable level of bookbinding be learned - I hate to say it - from a book?
If time and funds permitted, I would travel to the (nearest) big city to take a course.
Keep up the good work!
Thanks a lot it is a fantastic support, now to make books is without a doubt easy utilizing your tips. Kudos
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