Jill Oriane Tarlau Eye Candy and News

On September 28, 2015September 27, 2015 By American BoundIn Binders, Eye Candy, News3 Comments

I started this post in July after a wonderful correspondence with Jill. Then I was overcome by events:

I was frantically rounding up binders to participate in a fundraiser for Booklyn. Today, the photos posted are of Mark Cockram’s box, followed by 3 views of his binding (Mark was assigned copy 1/10, the “deluxe” copy with all kinds of weird ephemera included. He blogged about it here. The next two photos are Gabrielle Fox‘s binding, and the last four are Celine Lombardi‘s (already sold!). Bindings by Christine Giard and Uriel Cidor are in the photography queue and five more are in the works. Many, many thanks to all of the artists who have donated their time, materials, and extraordinary skill to create outstanding bindings to raise money for a not-for-profit organization that exists to support book arts.

At the same time, I was preparing for Brooklyn BAPD, which happened last weekend, and the Editions/Artists Books Fair in November (they have really early deadlines for all kinds of stuff). In the midst of all of this, I am delighted to announce that I became the sole dealer for Timothy C. Ely. Keep checking his page on my website as I add many images and essays about his work. Prepare to have your minds blown.

Back to Jill Oriane Tarlau.

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My Day in Bindings, Part 1

On September 15, 2014September 25, 2014 By American BoundIn Exhibits1 Comment

September 10th was like an orgy of bindings.

I saw so many bindings and spoke to so many binders in one day; it was sensory overload. It has taken me days to recover.

I started out in Somerville at Sheri’s place (Sheri is my editor), met Sonya Sheats in Cambridge, took the T with her to Boston to see La couleur du vent at NBSS. Sonya has a binding (which she doesn’t like) in the exhibit, but hadn’t had a chance to see it yet (more on that exhibit later). We ran into NBSS binding program director Jeff Altepeter on his way back from a coffee run for Dominic Riley, who was teaching at the school last week. We had arrived just in time for Dominic’s informal lecture about his life in fine art bookbinding. What a nice surprise! Sonya and I were allowed to sit in.

Continue reading “My Day in Bindings, Part 1” →

Impatience and Eggshells

On October 4, 2013September 25, 2014 By American BoundIn Catalogs, Collections, Miniatures, TechniquesLeave a comment

Is there such a thing as a book emergency? Other than fire and flood, I often try to tell myself there is not. It is merely someone’s impatience. It’s a useful thing for me to keep in mind. I should use it as my mantra. But I already have one.

This time, however, it was my impatience. It took two ENTIRE weeks for me to receive my copy of the The Neale M. Albert Collection of Miniature Designer Bindings. I even called the bookstore because they were off their usual timeline.

Finally it arrived!

Tom Grill takes MUCH better photos than I do.

I saw, in person, many of the bindings in the catalog. I did not have descriptions of the bindings at the time, just binder’s name and title of the book (and not always that). One of the bindings I tried to photograph was by Paul Delrue. When I came across it in the catalog, it gave me a giggle. The description states, among other details, that the binding was French sewn by “Gavin Povey.” Ahem. I believe the cataloger meant Gavin Dovey who, I happen to know, worked with Paul Delrue for a bit before coming to the US.

It’s all very nice that I got a laugh out of the Gavin typo, but I was left with the question: what is French sewing?

Turning to my ABC:

Chain stitch: A sewing stitch which catches up previous sewing threads but is not sewn to a support, also called unsupported sewing. Used in Coptic, Ethiopian, Near Eastern and Islamic binding and in France in the 16th century (called French sewing). Machine sewing is a type of chain stitch sewing.

No supports. That sounds like a good choice when binding a book slightly less than 3″ x 3″.

As I read through the catalog, another binding caught my eye. It is, I think, a very unusual technique, but I have seen it before. When I saw who the binder was, I knew why. It was a very delicate Mark Cockram binding, with panels of crushed and laquered eggshell. Guess whose first teacher was Mark Cockram, back in the days when they both lived in Lincoln? None other than current resident of the USA, Gavin Dovey (or should I say Povey?).

Several years ago, Gavin made something rather clever using eggshell panels. He describes the process briefly here [click the image]:

On her blog, Jana Pullman has a very detailed description of an eggshell panel project she did in 2010.

Anyone else experimenting with eggshell panels?