My mouth dropped when Mike Die of Cutter’s Edge near Smithville, Texas, moved my Jacques Shear with a lifting magnet. The cutter dangled like a Christmas ornament and in a matter of seconds it was on the trailer.



Don and I moved most of the equipment ourselves like this guillotine by using a series of rotating dowels. The Lifting Magnet is on the right.

This was a move of a lifetime — an adventure to say the least, including a busted window on one trip, torrential rains, fishtailing trailers and even the breakdown of a fully loaded 26 foot Penske truck only 50 miles west of Austin with our classic 1955 Chevy station in tow.

That trip took four days and three extra motel rooms, but brothers Mitch and Curtis Johnson and crew at the Comfort, Texas, Truck Center made the disaster a pleasant one, including feeding us and providing an air conditioned room for our cat, Sugar. Mind you, the folks at Penske were quick to put these guys on the job.

Yummy BBQ awaited us as the cargo on our truck was reloaded onto a new one. Curtis’ son examines the vintage airplane engine that had to be transferred, along with a collection of petrified wood on other rocks from my Texas garden. We felt like Lucy and Desi in the movie, The Long, Long Trailer.

Mountains of boxes fill the space in Don’s future museum area.

Now, after all these months, we still face the continual task of un packing and countless work to do on this old building. But daily we wake up to face the view of Turtleback Mountain and we are happy to be here.


We stayed at this brick motel one block from our building while the living space was remodeled. The blue roof seen in the picture is the church across the street from our place.

Don stands proudly by our last trailer load full of his treasured rusty parts for future yard art, not to mention the hidden gas pumps laying down inside!

The bindery entrance will be in the smaller space on the right, while Don will have a move in ready space for his dream aviation museum, featuring early civil and airline history displays, artifacts, folk art, toys –all non military. We have been living with the collection for years!



Interior shots of Dons space left, and part of the bindery space, right. It has been an auto museum for the past 15 years. There is a two bedroom apartment at the back side of the building where we will live.

I will always be grateful for my years in Texas, which really shaped my career and where I made so many good friends, colleagues, and have had such great students. But I will not be gone forever. Don’s family are all in Austin and I will plan to return regularly for workshops and other classes. Keep checking this site for updates and also for future workshops in Truth or Consequences.

While a handsome trade edition is still available from the Museum of New Mexico Press, the deluxe edition of fifty bound at Hands On were hand sewn, rounded and covered in black and rust colored cloth, with gold stamped title and lines on the case. They were housed in a sage green cloth slipcase. The edition was pre sold even before I had completed the binding!



In February 2006, several student participants of the 2005 Fine Binding Intensive returned to the bindery to learn decorative techniques and to design work to apply to the books completed in the 2005 workshop.



Tony Lyon’ publication.

A series of workshops on casebinding techniques, from the beginning, were held in the spring and repeated in summer 2006, in between steady production working including small editions for Tony Lyons’ fishing books, as well as two new publications from Bob Baris’Press on Scroll Road. A farmer by day or season, Bob prints fine letterpress editions on Twinrocker papers, beautifully designed and illustrated with handsome wood engravings.



June was a month full of travel and book activities from beginning to end, starting with the fourth Helen Warren DeGolyer Triennial for American Bookbinding, held at the SMU Bridwell Library in Dallas. My binding of In the Garden, with text by Colorado book artist Laura Wait, was shown in the exhibit.



Immediately following, I departed on a road trip to northern Indiana for the Paper and Book Intensive (PBI) which took place in a private school outside LaPorte. The first week I had the luxury of being a student in Laura Wait’s painted book workshop, learning new techniques that will no doubt be used in future fine binding and artist books.



PBI Painted Books completed in Laura’s class..


During the second week at PBI, I put on my instructor’s apron and taught edition binding techniques. Students learned production tips for dealing with multiple works via the use of jigs, team work, while reviewing sound methods of making case bound books.



On the return trip, I stopped in Iowa City to teach another edition workshop for the Midwest Chapter of the Guild of Book Workers at the University of Iowa’s book conservation laboratory.

While in Iowa City, it was a pleasure to see and handle the large collection of works by book artist Paula Hocks in the U of I special collections, particularly to see how well cared the books are by the protective housing created by the conservation staff.



In the fall, the long awaited centennial celebration for the Guild of Book Workers meant a trip to New York City. Three days of open houses and exhibits around the city October 12-14 were part of the event. Historical talks on a century of book workers in North America were presented at the New York Academy of Medicine. Who would have ever imagined that I would represent Texas in these talks, but next year in 2007 I will have resided in the Lone Star state twenty years.




Gary McLerran, Mindy Dubansky, Craig Jensen & Don Etherington at Grolier opening in NYC.

The GBW centennial exhibit was hosted by the Grolier Club in New York, where I was pleased to have two books displayed, one in the retrospective and one in the contemporary exhibit. Additionally, I was proud to be included in the extensive miniature book exhibit held on the second floor, in the collection of Neil Albert and all featured in a hardbound and slipcased deluxe exhibition catalog published by the Grolier Club.

The Guild celebration was made complete by a banquet cruise around Manhattan.


Kristen Baum & Jim Canary waiting to board the boat for the GBW centennial bash.

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.

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.

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.

It is hard to believe that next April 2005 will mark the tenth year I have operated the Hands On Bookbinding studio. Originally established out of my home in Austin, Texas, in 1995, the bindery was moved in 1998 to its own building in Smithville, a small town 45 miles SE of Austin, where I now live.

Prior to establishing my bindery, as many of you know, I had the privilege to work with Craig Jensen for eight years, along with Gary Frost and an incredible crew at the now legendary BookLab, Inc., once in Austin. Craig is still busy binding at his own BookLab II bindery in San Marcos, Texas.

With previous training in bookbinding from the London College of Printing (1980/81) I have remained challenged by hand bookbinding with an emphasis on creating well crafted and artistic books. A prior degree in printmaking from the California College of Arts & Crafts (1975) was the basis for focusing my studio work on edition binding.

What could be a more fitting tenth anniversary celebration than to hold a week long intensive workshop in April 2005 on Fine Binding at the Buescher State Park, practically in our backyard, only 3 miles from the studio.
I am pleased to announce the Fine Binding Intensive, April 17-24, 2005.