Quarto
Midwest Chapter Newsletter 11-2
Spring 1998
Contents
Don't Miss the Midwest Annual Meeting
The Other New Co-Chair of the Midwest Chapter: Gabrielle Fox Butler
Book Review: New Resource for Paper Conservators
Report on Learning the Craft from a Journeyman
News from Your Studio
Unclassifieds
Don't Miss the Midwest Annual Meeting
The Midwest Chapter Annual Meeting is happening at the end of this month. Mark your calendars for Friday, May 22 and Saturday, May 23. The workshops and meeting will take place at Jim Downey's studio in Columbia, Missouri. There will be a tour of Jo Stealy's papermaking facilities on Friday afternoon. On Saturday, there will be two hands-on sessions. One on Turkish Paper Marbling by Jim Downey and the second on Tunnel Book Making by Annie Tremmel Wilcox. The Business Meeting will take place mid-afternoon on Saturday. There will also be a "Show n' Tell n' Sell" Saturday afternoon. Workshop fees are $20 for Guild members and $25 for non-members. The deadline for registration is May 15. For more information, contact Jim Downey at:
Legacy Art & BookWorks
1010 E. Broadway
Columbia, MO 65201
573-442-0855
legacyart@www.legacyart.com
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The Other New Co-Chair of the Midwest Chapter: Gabrielle Fox Butler
by Maximillian Bradawl, Roving Book Arts Reporter
At the beginning of the year, Gabrielle Fox Butler became one of the co-chairs of the Midwest Chapter of the Guild of Book Workers.
Gabrielle studied journalism at the University of Cincinnati, but became interested in bookbinding. "I was intrigued with something that required completely different skills,"she said.
In the late 1970s, there weren't a lot of places to study binding in the United States, so after graduation, Gabrielle went to visit some of her mother's side of the family in England. She got into the program in fine binding and restoration at Guilford College in Surrey. "I got on a plane for a two-week holiday, and came back two years later," Gabrielle said.
She then held a position as a library conservator at the University of Cincinnati. Two years later Gabrielle returned to England for eight years where she worked on her own, and started a teaching career. She held the position of Senior Lecturer in Bookbinding at the Croyden College of Art.
In 1992, Gabrielle returned to the United States to take a two-year position as Binder-in-Residence at Transylvania University in Lexington, Kentucky. Now making her home once again in Cincinnati, Gabrielle has a studio at Duttenhofer's Books. After renting basement space there for a number of years, Gabrielle said that she is suffering from a lack of natural light - something those of us with basement studios and labs can sympathize with.
Gabrielle's work is a mixture of conservation, restoration, and fine binding. She currently has a design binding and two miniature books on exhibit in Brussels at the Biblioteca Witlockiana with the Society of Bookbinders' Exhibition. Miniature binding is Gabrielle's passion.
"I became involved in miniatures twelve years ago," she said. "I had always been intrigued by them, and had a student who wanted help restoring some." Gabrielle's interest grew, and this spring, she and Alice Cornell, head of archives and rare books at the University of Cincinnati, are self-publishing a miniature letterpress edition on ancient rock art.
Shaman: Anthropomorphic Figures in North American Rock Art contains an essay on rock art, fifteen hand-drawn images of rock art figures from ethnographic regions of North America, and a bibliography of major works on North American rock art. Gabrielle is binding both the standard and limited editions. "As they get sold, I bind them," she said.
One of Gabrielle's goals as co-chair of the Midwest Chapter is to help connect binders with exhibits in the United Kingdom. If you have ideas about this or other activities for the Chapter, you can contact Gabrielle at the address on the back of the newsletter.
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Book Review: New Resource for Paper Conservators
Print Council of America's Paper Sample Book: A Practical Guide to the Description of Paper by Elizabeth Lunning and Roy Perkinson.
Review by Judith Walsh, Paper Conservation Department, The National Gallery of Art. Originally published in the American Institute for Conservation's AIC News, March 1998.
This publication might just change the way we write and think about papers. It is a practical cipher for the physical description of paper in which the authors present 26 samples of new and vintage paper chosen to represent the physical characteristics of sheets. Using these as standards, they offer a vocabulary for the description of paper that can be precisely understood or duplicated by anyone consulting the book. Their goal is nothing less than consistently intelligible descriptions of papers in catalogues, exhibition labels, publications, and reports.
The Paper Sample Book comes in two parts held in a slipcase: a pamphlet text that describes the samples and a folder that holds the samples themselves. These are something like an instruction manual and a tool, if you can imagine a meditative and philosophical instruction manual, and a really refined tool.
Handbound in black and blue linen, letter-set printed on Rives paper, lovely to hold and use, the Print Council's of America's Paper Sample Book is a deluxe tool for scholars. If the membership of Print Council and the membership of AIC embrace the vocabulary we shall all benefit.
For information on ordering, contact the Print Council of America, c/o Marjorie Cohn, 32 Quincy St., Cambridge, MA 02138. The price depends on your connection to the Print Council, but varies from $75 to $150. There are only 500 copies available, so those interested should act quickly.
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Report on Learning the Craft from a Journeyman
[Ed. note: For the 10th, or 11th, anniversary of the Midwest Chapter, I will reprint some articles from the early years of the Chapter. This first appeared in Volume 1, Number 4, October, 1988. Other early articles will appear in following issues of Quarto.]
by Ursula Freimarck
Last summer I spent two delightful weeks as a student of journeyman bookbinder William Streeter in Northampton, Massachusetts. His Heraldry Bookbindery is a hub of activity not only for a dozen or so students, but also clients from near and far, colleagues wanting to share information, and local citizens stopping by to say hello or pet old Heidi, the German shepherd. Bill himself is at the center, sewing sections together or skiving leather or explaining the fine points of continuous and split endsheets to a student.
Bill has been an active bookbinder for only five years, but is well established and recognized for the high quality of his work. His philosophy is that one should change careers occasionally just to keep alert and face new challenges. Hence, he has evolved from restauranteur to merchant to psychiatric aide to teacher to historian and to bookbinder. But now he feels he has found a niche that continually presents challenges and will keep him alert until he is at least 90 years old.
Originally he was known as "Bible Bill" because his clientele primarily brought their family bibles for restoration. But now he lavishes his talents on a great variety of rare books and family heirlooms. "Beware of children's books," he says, "they are positively addictive." A stream of lovingly restored children's books confirms that he succumbs to this addiction quite regularly.
His enthusiasm for bookbinding has inspired much local interest and his shop is a regular stop for organized tours of Northampton. He is always ready to share his love for an old book with another bibliophile, or goldstamp a label for a wide-eyed youngster. Earlier in the year, he was invited to give a public lecture in nearby Springfield. It was a cold, rainy night and so he expected only a handful of people, but more than 300 crowded into the hall.
The January, 1988 issue of Yankee contained a number of articles on the book arts in New England and included a small notice that Bill Streeter accepted students at all levels of bookbinding. This announcement had a far-reaching effect. Latent bookbinders across the U.S. and Canada inquired about the possibility of learning the craft from Bill Streeter. With his limited space and time, he accepts as many as he feasibly can and adjusts his program to individual needs. Some come for short, concentrated periods; others come once every week or so.
The syllabus includes single sheet sewing and casing; restoration of cloth-bound books; re-backing of leather-bound books; quarter, three quarter and full leather bindings; album hinging; clam-shell and Solander boxmaking; portfolios; and original designs. Ample supplies and excellent equipment make it possible to achieve highly satisfactory results in all of these categories. Since instruction is on a one-to-one basis, the program is adjusted to the student's level of proficiency and special interests, but it also awakens new interests. For example, as a low-level apprentice, I felt that working with leather was something of a vague possibility for the future. However, during my second week I was preparing leather for restoring some 19th century books and, with a little help from my friend Bill Streeter, was able to do a creditable job. I was proud of the little stack of books I had rebound and am looking forward to working on an assortment of deteriorated volumes that he gave me for practicing my newly learned skills.
It was sad to leave the Heraldry Bindery after such a wonderful experience. Leaving Bill and his delightful students and co-workers was alike bidding good-bye to one's family, with a return visit inevitable.
Ursula Freimarck can now be found volunteering at the University of Michigan's Buhr Building Conservation Lab.
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News from Your Studio
Rebecca Shaffer, from the Full Circle Bindery in Clayton, Missouri, is exhibiting eight bindings of Jabberwocky printed by eight printers from the St. Louis Letterpress Society for their show "Letterpress in St. Louis: 1898-1998, A Centennial Exhibition." This is on display at the Olin Library, Washington University, in St. Louis until May 22.
She is also exhibition one biding of French Platitudes on Art in the annual exhibition of the Cedar Rapids Chapter of the Embroiders Guild of America. The binding is full leather with an embroidered front panel that was executed by an member of the E.G.A. This is on display at Brucemore Mansion, Cedar Rapids, until May 15.
Letter from Green Bay: John Trester writes: "It's mid April and signs of Spring are here: the snow has stopped falling for awhile and cars are beginning to fall through the ice. I've told you before, I don't have a studio, just a basement!
"Just finished the prototype Œclamshell' box for my Book of the Crow and for those who saw the pictures a while back, I finally set the onyx in the eye. It took me awhile to decipher Laura Young's instructions, and I modified it a bit, but the structure is complete. Now I must design the final box artwork. My ('masterpiece' dream of ten years ago is a lot different from the original, but a lot more original. Unfortunately, I won't get started before fishing or car repair season starts, so the time frame for completion is out there.
"As for computers, I use the one at the Brown County Library. I am a hitchhiker on the information super highway, and my wife claims to be way over in the slow lane.'
Eric Alstrom, your esteemed newsletter editor, writes: "Since no one else sent their news in, I get to fill up the rest of the column." Eric just finished his first international binding for the Italian Giacomo Leopardi competition. After a few harrowing days stuck in Italian customs, when he thought we would have to pay some outrageous sum to send it on or get it back, the book miraculously turned up in Ancona. I guess I should thank Peter Celestine, patron saint of bookbinders (and did you even know we had a patron saint?).
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Unclassifieds
Send items for sale or wanted to Eric Alstrom, Newsletter Editor.
Bruce Beck of Evanston, Illinois has a Miehle V50 vertical press which he will give away to anyone who wants to remove it from his studio. It is in excellent condition, all operating manuals and related matter come with it. If interested contact him by email: Beckbruce@aol.com
Mary Haegele is selling Rural Roots: A Photo Celebration of Kewaunee County. Over 200 photographs, many from the archives of the Kewaunee County Museum. One chapter is a then and now chapter. Photos from yesteryear compared to the same location today. $34.95 plus shipping. Comb bound. In bookstores and giftshops around Kewaunee County or order directly from the publisher: abacusbks@aol.com. Distributor inquiries welcome.
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