A display of Marblesmith papers.

Hands On Bookbinding offers a weekend workshop dedicated to Paper Marbling and Pastepaper Decoration

with instructors, Pam Smith, aka Marblesmith,

and Priscilla Spitler.

Saturday & Sunday, April 28 & 29, 2007

Where: Buescher State Park, WPA Hall, Smithville TX.

Workshop fee: $250, which inlcudes all materials/equipment.


Pam Smith is a fine printer and paper marbler who resides in Abiquiu, New Mexico, and produces papers under her Marblesmith imprint. As an instructor, her enthusiasm for the craft is contagious.

Priscilla Spitler is has been creating paste and pochoir (stencilled) papers for her books and fine bindings for over 20 years.


It is sure to be an action packed weekend. To accomodate the popularity of this workshop, it is being held in a large recreation hall with access to outside work areas overlooking a small lake in the park.

Find details and registration information under: Workshops.

Spitler pastepaper design.

It has been a diverse year at Hands On Bookbinding comprised of edition work, workshops and fine binding, some of which involved travel to other sites.

Binding the deluxe edition of Passions in Print dominated production work in January 2006 to meet a February deadline for its book signing in Santa Fe.



Written by friend and colleague, Pamela S. Smith, the book tells the history of private press work in New Mexico and the passionate artists, writers and printers who created the book works from the mid 19th century to the present. Pam’s extensive research inspired the Museum of New Mexico’s Lasting Impressions exhibit held at the Palace of the Governors Museum, Santa Fe, since 2005 (ending February 2007).



Passions in Print deluxe edition.

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.

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.

Thirteen students gathered at the Buescher State Park, Smithville, Texas, from April 17 -24, 2005, for a week of intensive study on fine binding technique.

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.

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Magic Chef

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.

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More New Mexico Stories

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.