Another Bookbinding Class

After the Shanna Leino class, I spent my bookbinding time making more decorative paper and creating the text for the book I was writing about John and Louise Pike, David's parents. I happened to check the Ringling College Community classes website and spotted a bookbinding class so I immediately signed up. No sooner had I signed up than a phone call informed me that the class had been canceled! This was the second time Ringling had canceled a bookbinding class that I had signed up for so, in a fit of pique, I contacted the instructor Stephen Sidelinger and complained.
Stephen responded immediately with an offer to teach the class in his home workshop, which happens to be in Venice, where I live. I couldn't believe my good fortune to be able to have a personal tutorial in bookbinding. I signed up for once a week sessions of two hours each for eight weeks. We covered much of the same content that he was exploring in the class he taught at Ringling, adapted to my level of experience. I brought samples of my work so he could get an idea what I had tried. The beautiful equipment that David made for me, especially the book press, became an integral part of the work.
Stephen is an excellent teacher. His method is basically to demonstrate the process with the student participating. By the end of each class, we would have made a book form and then my assignment would be take that basic book form and create another at home, adding my own unique twist.
We started at the beginning since my experience so far had been rather willy-nilly. We talked about grain and paperfolding, tearing and cutting. Our first project was a perfect bound book; I learned several methods of making sure the binding held together such as using a Japanese saw and gluing cord into the cut. Stephen showed me some of the creative covers he had made for this simple type of binding and I made one at home, using a date book I had picked up at Office Depot.
Our second was a flag book and again I tried a couple of different types at home. The piano hinge, star book was next. The home assignment took a couple of weeks since it became quite complicated. Using mat board for the paper, each page comprised a design from various paste papers I had made. The cover was multiple layers with cut out shapes, the back cover being a negative of the front.
I enjoyed the Japanese stab bindings with the fascinating ways of folding the paper for the cover along and envelope. During all these tasks, I was learning about cutting, gluing, pasting, folding and other techniques for construction. We tried a fore-edge binding, and I made an accordian book of Haiku poems at home.
Finally we were ready for a bound book with signatures. Stephen taught about choosing and waxing the thread, sewing and more gluing. We made a book with Bristol board covers. The next week we advanced to a cloth cover and a book box. At home, I was working frantically to finish Pike Stories in time for our last class, making a list of all the questions I needed to have answered before our sessions ended. I wanted Stephen to see the culmination of our work.
I encountered several problems that Stephen helped me solve. In addition, he encouraged me to think more seriously about the book design and layout. The prototype book I finished in time for our last class had a cloth and paper cover, the paper being a print I had made at the Penland class a few years ago. Thank you Stephen Sidelinger!
Even after the class ended, I kept working. I completed five leather bound copies of Pike Stories in time for Christmas giving. This was a major achievement and the culmination of my first goal: to write and bind my own book. The printing was done using my Apple computer and HP printer.
But that's not the end. There are five more copies of Pike Stories to bind with cloth and paper covers.
More to the point, I now will advance toward my next goal which is to write and bind my own book, using my own handmade paper. The content is a memoir about my own parents. So I will begin the writing even as I search for the right paper making workshop to advance my progress. I am daunted by the thought of actually doing hand-set printing myself for this project, so I think there will be at least one more book after that - written, hand bound, and printed on my own press on my own handmade paper. To make it feasible, it will need to be short! Perhaps a book of poetry.
When I embarked upon this effort, I had only a vague idea of what would be involved. There was a lot more to learn than I realized. I might have veered from my path if I had known how little I knew! But that is the way of it. We plunge on in our innocence, undertaking tasks that are beyond us. But we don't know it and so we persevere and in the end we do it!