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.

The books from two recent fine binding competitions have recently been posted online.

First, the prize winners of the Designer Bookbinders International Competition 2009,

Second, the works handed in for the Bel Libri 2009 competition at the Center for the Book in Ascona, Switzerland.

Thanks to Tulibri for the links!

(Binding by Jenni Gray, 2nd prize winner in the Designer Binders competition)

When I moved up to Salt Lake City, a few of my new friends were “besmitten” (I think that’s the word Vivian used) when they first learned that my roommate Kohleen and I are both book conservators and bookbinders. I had been invited to teach a sewn board structure at BYU as a guest instructor, so I invited my new friends to come along for the demonstration. A few days later we got together for a bookbinding dinner party. It took us two sessions (spaced a couple months apart, whoops!) to finish, but here are the final books!

I had thrown together a text block for each of the girls. When I make this structure, I like to wrap each section in some kind of special paper, since the spine is exposed–I think it makes the book extra lovely. :)

The book pictured below was the one I sewed for the demonstration. The marbled papers are my own (I made them).

Kohleen put this text block together with her own paste papers and a cave paper cover:

Kathryn made this one: I’m not sure what the cover is–it’s just some nice heavy artist grade paper. The sections are wrapped in my own recycled papers that I made when I was probably 16 or 17 years old–it was nice to put them to use!

Shannon sewed this one up. The cover and insides are my recycled papers again.

There are two more books whose binders couldn’t make it to the 2nd binding session. I’ll try to get photos of the last two when they’re finished.

I’ve finally begun an experiment I’ve wanted to try for some time: I’ve opened up an Etsy shop and listed some of my handbound books online. You may recognize some of the books from my portfolio. They’re lovely little books, and I hope that someone out there likes them!

Head on over and take a look!

As I approach this collaboration between Liverpool and Utah-based artists, I can’t help but consider the connections between the two places and their people.

In the 19th century, millions of emigrants left England through Liverpool to go West–including some of my own LDS ancestors who eventually settled in Utah.

Utah and the British Isles are the two parts of the world most familiar to me, and they are the two places I can comfortably call home. Having returned recently from living in the English countryside, the two places naturally juxtapose themselves in my mind. When I am in England, I often find myself missing Utah, and vice versa. This fold-out book is a visual exploration of the relationship between the two places I call home.

Mapping the West art collaboration between Wirral Metropolitan College (Liverpool, England) and Brigham Young University (Provo, Utah)

May 7-May 20, 2009
Gallery 303, Main Gallery (beyond the opening hallway and into the main gallery) Harris Fine Arts Center, BYU (SE corner)
Gallery Hours: Mon-Fri 9am – 5pm

Upon returning from our camping trip, we each had three days (two for me, since I went to work one of those days) to put together a book-art object* for the show.

The theme was the title of this blog post: Mapping the West. Each of us was given a map of Escalante, Southern Utah. Our artwork was to somehow incorporate the map (either conceptually or physically), and the artwork also had to somehow collapse down into the dimensions of the folded map. (It also wasn’t supposed to contain more square inches than the map itself–though some of us may have bent on that rule, I’m not sure).

Considering the amount of time, there was some really good (and a lot of it!) work produced–35 pieces in all. I was surprised how well-received the show was. I think part of the audience’s engagement was due to the subject matter–so many of us locals have always loved southern Utah. It was interesting to see how our Liverpudlian friends interpreted the red-rock terrain.

The day after the show went up, our Liverpool friends returned home. I’m sure the whole experience was a whirlwind for them (it was for me), and I do believe they had a good time. As I mentioned in my last post, Wirral College has their own blog that they have kept, devoted to the Mapping the West project. It can be found here.

The show will be at BYU for another week or so. Then it will be packaged up and shipped off to Liverpool to be exhibited there.

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* (Warning, the following is a bit of a soap-box on my feelings toward “book-arts”)

I still struggle with the term “book arts…” I find it interesting that so many universities and students are having students make so-called books. Most of these students (and indeed, many instructors) are not actually trained in bookbinding…consequentially, the resulting “book” is often not actually a “book,” but more of a sculptural object. Being a bit of a snob for craftsmanship, I often thumb my nose at the whole book-arts scene–simply for the fact that so much of it seems haphazard and thrown-together. Perhaps if we called them book-art sculptures, or textual sculptures, or something else… I don’t know. The term book art has definitely taken on its own meaning over the past decade or two. It forces other kinds of “book arts” to have their own terms such as “livre d’artist,” “fine press book” or “design binding” etc etc. It all gets quite confusing. I suppose it’s just that with the proliferation of interest in bookbinding, everyone–including painters and sculptors and printmakers–wants to try their hand at making “books,” and perhaps I just need to let book-arts be what it seems to have become! And anyway–notwithstanding me being a book-arts snob–it was fun doing this show…(though in my own biased opinion, this show was much better than most university “book arts” shows I’ve seen) ;)

(Stepping down from soapbox now).

During the past couple weeks, a group of BYU artists hosted a group of artists from Wirral Metropolitan College (Liverpool, England). I thought it a great opportunity to

a) meet new people, both from BYU as well as from Liverpool

b) rub shoulders with some of my favorite former professors, as well as former classmates.

c) have a chance to go camping in Southern Utah,

d) make art

So I took some days off from work and volunteered to help out in any way that I could.

Here is the description of the project as cited on the Wirral Metropolitan College blog dedicated to the project:

‘Mapping the West’ is an international collaborative project between Wirral Met BA Fine Art Printmaking department and the Fine Art department at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, USA.

For two weeks, from the 25th April to the 8th of May 2009, BYU will be hosting ten of our students and two members of staff. We will be sharing our experience and delivering a master class in book arts production with the intention of producing an exhibtion of artist’s books based on our responses to the map of the Escalante region of southern Utah.

It was a really good experience. Although it was definitely hectic at times, it was also rewarding, and I’m glad I could participate. The first few days were orientation: showing the new group the ropes, visits to Salt Lake city and Walmart ;). Then we had 3-day camping trip in Escalante. We visited Bryce Canyon,

camped in the Petrified Forest,

hiked to Calf Creek falls,

(some folks were brave enough to take a dip in the freezing water–I wasn’t one of them)

Ate delicious dutch oven dinner and had a brief lesson on the history of Escalante at Wulf Barsch’s gorgeous home (in Escalante),

(This is his all-wood, no-nails barn)

and roamed around in the Devil’s Garden.

Knowing that as soon as I returned from the camping trip we would each be making a piece of art for a collaborative show, I found myself thinking a lot about my relationship to Utah–and also my relationship to the British Isles (which really has become my second home).

Here’s a blurb I wrote for WMC’s Mapping the West Blog:

Thursday 30 April

Reflections on the camp out and the cultural differences of BYC and WMC

Lili Hall BYU student

When I was a little girl, I would go on road trips with my dad. He would give me a map of Southern Utah and tell me that I could pick any point on any road, and off we would go. As a result, I’ve been exposed to many rugged terrains off the beaten path, and the sometimes barren/ sometimes lush (it all depends on elevation, the latitude, and the time of year) landscape of Escalante is very familiar and homey to me. I was excited to go to Bryce Canyon with the Liverpool group, though, since this is one famous site in my own home state that I’ve never seen with my own eyes.

I found that being with people who were seeing this kind of landscape for the first time influenced the way I viewed things–I kept wondering what our new friends were thinking of the mountains, of the highways, the dry air, the red rocks, the heights, the blue sagebrush, the s’mores…of everything. Viewing the sites through their eyes gave me a bit of a fresh perspective on the land I sometimes take for granted. I paid attention to the comments people made–both from the BYU group as well as the Liverpool group. The Liverpudlians expressed things such as “I feel so small” or “everything is so big,” while those of us who grew up here said things like “even though I’ve never been to this very spot, it still feels like coming home.” I don’t typically realize just how cowboy-ish this countryside really is until I’m with people with lovely English accents!

In October, I came home from a yearlong study program in England. Having lived in the English countryside so recently, I can’t help but juxtapose the two places (Utah and England) in my mind as I embark on this Mapping the West art collaboration. The two landscapes are so vastly different… but they’re the two parts of the world most familiar to me.
I think that travel impacts the way one sees and appreciates their own home. The fact that I’ve seen Liverpool gives me a bit of insight as to where my new friends are coming from as they come out to visit. I can’t help but link the two places in my mind as I approach this Mapping the West book arts project, and I think that my piece for the show will be an exploration of my thoughts as to how the two places and their people are (or are not) linked insofar as my own experiences are concerned.