2006 marks the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Guild of Book Workers in New York City. In the last century the organization has kept the original founders’ goal alive — to educate and promote all areas of the book arts. Now, with over 900 members, there are ten regional chapters across the country.

In celebration, the annual fall meeting of the Guild will change its usual format. A symposium on The Art of the Book in America will be held on Friday and Saturday, October 13 & 14, at the New York Academy of Medicine, located on Fifth Avenue at 103rd Street and Central Park.

Non members are also encouraged to attend the event. Details about the GBW Centennial Celebration can be found at the Guild website, including information about the GBW 100th anniversary exhibition of member’s work. The show has an entry date of May 1 and opens at the Grolier Club in New York in September.




GBW President Betsy Palmer Eldridge (left) chats with Hedi Kyle, who was honored at the 2005 Portland banquet for her many contributions to the book arts. The 2006 centennial banquet will be a dinner-cruise on the “Spirit of New York,” including a boat ride on the Hudson with the Statue of Liberty and the skyline of New York on view.


On the Carpet,
GBW Members at 2005 Portland Meeting

The annual Guild of Book Workers meeting is held in a different part of the country each year. It is more than a sharing of techniques during its Standards of Excellence seminars, but it is also a time to reconnect with old friends and colleagues in the book arts.



Peter Verheyen (GBW Exhibits Chairman) and Donia Conn at the Friday night Forum.



Portland Letterpress printer Barb Tetenbaum with Seattle bookbinder Carolina Veenstra & San Francisco book artist, Julie Chen.



Anna Embree (left), bookbinding instructor at the University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, and Chela Metzger (center), conservation studies instructor at UT Texas in Austin, both lean on Iowa City book artist, Emily Martin.

Organized by Priscilla Spitler, the Fine Binding Intensive was held in a temporary bindery set up at the park’s old WPA recreation hall, with teaching assistance from professional binders Craig Jensen and Olivia Primanis. The class focused on the traditional English style of full leather binding, the method in which all three instructors were originally trained.



Students Anna Embree, Gale Flax, Karen Hanmer, and Jeff Hunt made the longest journeys for the intensive workshop, from Alabama, Virginia, Illinois and Utah, respectively. From around Texas participants were: Rose Harms, Sherry Barber, Jane Elder, Liz Hamel, Ingrid Karklins, Edward Kopinitz, Rollin Polk, Jane Ross, and Sialia Rieke (via Santa Fe). To view scenes from the workshop, visit the Fine Binding Intensive Album: April 2005.

Laura Thoms worked her magic at lunchtime for hungry students of the Fine Binding Intensive. Laura was a participant of the summer 2004 pilot class on fine binding at the Hands On Studio. Austin’s loss will be Iowa City’s gain next winter 2006, when Laura enters the program at the University of Iowa Center for the Book.

LASTING IMPRESSIONS


An outstanding exhibition opened in February 2005 at the Palace of the Governors, Museum of New Mexico, in Santa Fe. Curated by Pamela S. Smith, Lasting Impressions, The Private Presses of New Mexico, takes you on a journey across two centuries of literary history as it introduces the people of New Mexico’s private press movement, their work and their tools, including several historic printing presses.

The Santa Fe New Mexican Pasatiempo feature on the exhibit.

The show will have a two year run at the museum through February 2007. Afterwards, elements from the exhibit will travel through the museum’s TREX program. A thumbnail visual tour of selected materials from the exhibition can be seen at the TREX site by selecting View Exhibit Checklist on the right side of their page.

Pam Smith & Priscilla Spitler celebrate after the Santa Fe opening.

The opening of Lasting Impressions was an event I would not have missed. It was like old home week, seeing local printers and book people. Pam and I worked together at the Palace Print Shop (aka Press of the Palace of the Governors) in the early 1980s, where we organized an annual Book Arts Festival until 1985. At the press, I assisted Pam with typesetting and bound editions printed on the historic presses. After 28 years at the print shop, in 2001, Pam left the museum and began tackling years of research material from which this exhibition was created. Later this year, Pam’s book on the subject entitled Passions in Print will be published by the Museum of New Mexico Press.



The February 18 opening date was especially significant for me because it fell on the second anniversary of the death of dear friend and book artist, Paula Hocks. What could be more fitting but to have her work included in this exhibition under her Paula Hocks’ Running Women Press imprint.

To read a review and to see more pictures from Lasting Impressions click on this picture of private press printers Virginia Mudd & Clifford Burke (Desert Rose Press) and Janet Rodney (Weaselsleeves Press) at the opening.

Author Lisa Sandlin stopped by the Hands On studio early February 2005. An old friend from the Santa Fe days, Lisa was a guest instructor during the Spring 2005 semester at the University of Texas at Austin’s Michener Center. Her most recent book In the River Province has been published by SMU Press in Dallas.

Set around the annual Good Friday pilgrimage to Chimayo, New Mexico, In the River Province is a collection of short stories. They can be read individually or in context with each other, as some of the characters reappear. Wonderfully surreal at times, Lisa Sandlin really understands New Mexico culture and its people. As soon as I finished reading this book, I wanted to begin again. Visit Sandlin Reviews.

Every ten years, since the early 1980s, San Francisco photographer Jane Grossenbacher takes a portrait of these two friends, New Mexico (Galisteo) artist and poet Catherine Ferguson and Lisa Sandlin (right). Of course anyone around Santa Fe in the late 1970s will remember Jane and Lisa flamenco dancing, both former students of dancer Maria Benitez.

Catherine, aside from writing, landscape painting and avid birdwatching, is known for painting retablos, saints painted on wood. Her parents met in Mexico City when they studied painting with Diego Rivera in the 1940s. One of Catherine’s images appears on the cover of In the River Province (for a great detail of the illustration click on the cover thumbnail at this site). She also illustrated the New World Saints portfolio published by the Palace Print Shop in 1995 (bound by BookLab in Austin). Below is a custom retablo she painted for Pam Smith of Saint John, the patron saint of printers.

One of the best kept secrets in recent years has been the Helen Warren DeGolyer Triennial & American Bookbinding Competition and Conference, held at the Bridwell Library, Southern Methodist University, Dallas. I say this because I am always surprised at the small number of participants.



The fine binders who have previously taken part in the DeGolyer Triennials have had the opportunity to be in a first class exhibition, only on view for a short time period, that has been documented in a full color catalog. They have enjoyed an intimate conference with great speakers and presenters, a banquet, and all for a bargain registration fee. The book selected for the proposed binding commission is Jorge Luis Borges’s Ficciones, printed by the Argentine fine press Ediciones Dos Amigos.



This competition was established due to the generosity of the late Helen DeGolyer, a charter member of the Guild of Book Workers’ Lone Star Chapter, who had a passion for fine binding. It is the only fine binding competition in the United States that offers cash prizes.



The 4th DeGolyer Triennial Exhibition & Conference will take place June 1-3, 2006.
There is quite a line up of demonstrators for the conference in a small setting, including an impressive group of vendors with bookbinding supplies. Details can be found at the SMU Bridwell website along with DeGolyer Bookbinding Conference Registration form.

We signed up for this?

In the Texas July heat and humidity, this serious group of students sanded, or cushioned, their laminated boards for their fine bindings behind the Hands On Bookbinding studio.

Laura Thoms (left), Marylyn Bennett (right) and Andrea Knowlton (center) sand their boards by hand, while others use the electric sanders.

Our boards were laminated with combinations of 2-ply and 4-ply museum board, or two 4-ply boards if the book was larger. A piece of paper was sandwiched between the boards for stability and was pasted on each side as the boards were laminated. Only paste was used for laminating the boards in order to sand them smoothly. Boards glued with PVA peel when sanded.

For more pictures from this summer class, visit a Workshop Diary: Summer 2004 . This was a pilot class in preparation for planning the Fine Binding Intensive, April 17-24, 2005.