I first joined the Guild of Book Workers perhaps a decade ago. But not once had I attended the annual seminar. This year, with the prodding (and financial assistance!) of my boss, I made it out to San Francisco. And it was great. A very short, but sweet time.
The highlight, for me, was on Friday evening when we were invited to the home of a gentleman who collects fine bindings. The books were all out and available for us to gawk at (and even handle)–I have never in my life seen so many spectacular design bindings in one place–nor have I been at liberty to look at them so closely. The binders/designers represented included Michael Wilcox, Philip Smith, Paul Bonet and many more (well known names if you’re into this sort of thing). Below are a few of my favorites. (I’m trying out this gallery feature–click on the image for a larger version).
My apologies, the following post is not about bookbinding, but it’s a pretty pumpkin, so… :)
But rest assured I’m still keeping busy with books, and I promise to get some long-overdue bookish posts in this blog… before the end of the year ;)
I’ll miss this year’s annual family carving because I’ll be in San Francisco for the Guild of Bookworkers convention. I was a little bitter that they picked Halloween weekend, but on the other hand, San Francisco at Halloween could be interesting.
Anyway, I was happy that I got to carve a pumpkin tonight at a church activity. Last year’s pumpkin took me a couple hours to design and a few more to carve, so I’m proud of myself that I whipped this year’s puppy (or owl) up in about half an hour! (But only because Stephanie was ridiculously kind in that she scooped it out and then let me design and carve it–now that I’ve got pictures, I think I’ll deliver it to her so that she can enjoy it).
(Yep, I just so happen to have a box full of carving tools, which I brought for the cause). I shared–but I only let people use my tools if they would leave me with a shoe as collateral. Ha.) Oh–and you can see that I used the new craft punch that my mom gave me for my birthday as inspiration for the design.
A few months ago at work I was given a project of reattaching several boards to some 19th century leather books. As I opened up one book, I discovered the following in the gutter of the book (stuck down in the spine at the hinge where the board was detaching from the book):
The original sewing needle! My guess is that the person who sewed the book up was on such a roll / working so fast, that she (I’m assuming it was a she–women were usually the ones to sew the text blocks) tied her knot and moved on to the next book, forgetting to remove the needle–then whoever glued up the spine and forwarded the book missed the needle, too… and it’s been there all these years.
Anyway, I thought it was fun/cool, so I’m sharing it.
I saw the new Harry Potter film a couple weeks ago, and had a bookbinder’s moment:
Whatever the movie, my eyes are instantly drawn to the books. Gandalf may be chastizing Bilbo, but all I’m looking at are the books behind them. So here I am, watching Harry Potter. Harry and Hermione are in the library, and subconsciously I’m examining the books, when I think: “wait–I know those books…” and suddenly I remember that Duke Humphrey’s Library at the Bodleian in Oxford (where I interned last year) is used as the Hogwart’s library in all of the films. Only then did I look at the rest of the library in the film–which would be the logical means of recognizing it in the first place. Anyway, I was tickled that I identified the library by its books.*
I had another moment of recognition during the film, too. There’s a very short scene where the following tapestry is shown:
My roommate (also a book conservator) and I looked at each other right away. This is one of the Unicorn Tapestries–the originals were woven in the late 15th century and now hang in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. In 2001, West Dean college (my grad school) started the ambitious project of reproducing all 7 tapestries. The completed ones are now hanging in Stirling Castle in Scotland (and yes, I did get to see them in person). Read more about the tapestries here, and more about the West Dean / Stirling Dastle weaving project here.
And those are my two nerdy things about the newest Harry Potter film.
*When I first arrived at the Bodleian, my mentor took me across the street to Duke Humphrey’s library for a private tour. She explained to me that many of the books, many of which are 500+ old, were bound at the Bodleian–and back in those days, the books had a specific hash line across the head of the spine to indicate that the books had been bound at Oxford. (I looked for a picture online, but couldn’t find one). Of course the film didn’t show the books closely enough to show the hash marks. I’m sure that the books/environment were just familiar because I’d spend a good amount of time gawking at the magnificent library and its books.
