#adelene koh

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HAPPY 2022!

It is once again, a brand new year. Amidst the insane happenings around the world, I must say, 2021 has been a rather challenging, fulfilling, enlightening and a year filled with immense personal growth. In this new day of the new year, I reflect upon the things that has happened in the past year that has made the future a far brighter and exciting one. 

Firstly, my lack of posts on my website is because of a rather personal reason. I am currently in my first year in Graduate school, studying a Masters in Arts for the Conservation of Cultural Relics in the Tainan National University of the Arts. I am now currently based in Taiwan and therefore, will only accept commissions if they can be sent to me via post. 

Secondly, the journal I have chosen for 2022, is a homework that was given to me by my dearest teacher and mentor, Mark Cockram. He tasked me (a long time ago) to explore the binding techniques of Jean de Gonet. I decided to use the fish skin parchment I made, paired with a soft plate printed rainbow prints of the fish I used for this parchment: the trout. This was bound sewn on cords, featuring the fish skin parchment on the spine as well as the corners. As fish skin is very translucent, I added coloured paper under the skin to brighten it and to give it variety. 

In a Chinese new year greeting “年年有餘”, which translates to “Abundance Every Year”, I look forward to this new year with abundance of love, joy, happiness, opportunities, great health and new knowledge. 

Here’s wishing the world, a better future, while I study hard, to become a bookbinder/conservator! 

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Repairing Contes Roses de ma Mere-Grand

Story books that were handed down from generation to generation always have a lot of meaning and love in them. When we were first handed them when we were young children, we did not understand their value. It is only when we are much older, in our adult life, that we realise their importance. The urgent need to make sure they are in working condition increases when one has the next generation to hand it to. 

Contes Roses de ma Mere-Grand belongs to my customer who had it when he was a young child. The entire binding has fallen apart and both the front and back boards were broken. The spine of the book is barely holding everything together. 

After repairing the broken folios and pages, and aligning the pages, I discovered that the top edge of the book is gilded in gold. The coloured illustrations in the book are half-tone lithographic prints that are tipped on. 

The textblock was resewn and the boards are hinged back with toned book cloth that is laminated under the original book cloth. It is then toned with acrylic inks to match. 

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The Repair of Voyages of William Baffin

More often that not, when books are packed tightly on shelves, their spines get exposed to light and pollutants. This will cause the spine to discolour and have a stark difference from the boards. The exposure to light and pollutants also cause the covering material, for this book it is cloth, to age and become brittle. The hinge of the front board has ripped in a very clean straight line. My observation is that, the cloth has cleaning ripped along the grain direction of the cloth, or someone has accidentally used a knife to cut the hinge (which is odd) or during the making of the book, the bookbinder used excessive strength to push in the hinge.

I rehinged the boards using a similar colour and type of book cloth, laminated between the original cloth and boards. The binding is still in relatively good condition, so this was merely to repair the hinges and recase the book. 

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Repairing 常用新辭典

Sometimes when something is old and broken, it does not mean it has to be discarded. Some things cannot be replaced with the new. 

This dictionary belongs to my customer’s eighty-four year old mother. She has been using this dictionary for almost 4 decades and have grown accustomed to the dictionary. This is the first time I have ever seen a Mandarin dictionary that is categorised this way. In fact, I find this the best Mandarin dictionary because it makes a lot of sense, and it will definitely be very useful for me now. 

The dictionary came with a lot of tape, both on the outside and the inside. And as with most books that were made during that time, the paper quality is very inferior. The pages were all spotted with foxing, and the edges were very brittle. I had to treat the front pages with a deacidifying solution and then Klucel-G. Then I support the edges with Japanese repair tissue. 

Initially, I wanted to keep the dictionary as a soft cover as how it was originally, but after discussing with my customer and considering the brittle edges of the dictionary, we decided to give it hard boards with good amount of squares to protect the edges from being in contact with too much surfaces. 

Now the dictionary has a new lease of life, and I am on a new mission to find myself a similar type of dictionary. For I am now, on a journey to master traditional Mandarin. 

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Grandma’s Treasured Photo Album Restored

When my lovely customer came to me, she was extremely happy to know that I was able to restore her grandmother’s photo album. This album was found stuck at the back of an old cupboard, long forgotten. And upon finding it, the condition was not exactly its best. 

The album had a textured paper covering, and was tied with a rope that held the covers and pages together. As the paper covering has worn out over time, it was not able to bear the weight of the padded thick board front cover. The rope had also worn out over time and frayed, however the thickness of the rope held and the pages remained in position.

When I did the first assessment, I was very amazed at the condition of the photographs. They were taken in the early 1930s to 40s. Many of them are in great condition.The textured onion skin paper however, was crispy and was crumbling very badly. 

I managed to find a book cloth that was as close to the colour of the original paper covering, and replaced the endpapers with a black book cloth instead of a sheet of black paper. Instead of a rope, I used brass pillar screws to hold the pages in place. The onion paper was also replaced with a buffered glassine paper. 

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Stub-Bound Birthday Wishes Book

I was asked to bind a stack of beautifully calligraphed birthday wishes into a book, for a lovely customer who is now a great friend.

The birthday wishes were written on a thick card stock of about 300 to 350gsm, and they were in the wrong grain direction. I wanted to make a book that could open completely so that the calligraphy can be enjoyed. Since most of the single sheet bindings do not allow for that to happen, and also considering the thick card stock and its wrong grain direction, I decided to use a stub binding technique. 

My customer previously requested for some journals to be made, and she really loved deckled edges. So i decided to tear the stubs by hand to create a deckled edge. The book is then bound, rounded and backed, using Bradel binding. The covers are made using the paper bags of the bakery my customer owns. She said she loves the patterns and would love it on the book as a feature. Hence, after getting my hands on 2 large paper bags, I created this beautiful birthday dedication book for a lovely boss, from her lovely staff. 

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The Unassuming Mighty Amphibian (Skin)

Time is flying by so quickly, and I have been overwhelmed with work and various things that are happening all at once that is taking away time from updating this blog. However, I foresee some time coming up soon that I can put together posts about work that I have been doing these past couple of months in 2021.

One of the greatest achievements for this first quarter of 2021 is the publishing of the second part of my article in the Designer Bookbinders UK Spring newsletter. This is a follow-up of my earlier article in the Winter edition of the newsletter about my explorations with frog skin. In this issue, I showcase 2 books I made, using the frog skin as covering materials, onlays and parts of a box. 

I must say, frog skin is extremely versatile and despite its tiny size and thinness, it far exceeds the initial assumption that it is weak and fragile. The skin is flexible, tough and very malleable, making it extremely nice to work with. 

I am hoping that the uploaded images are big enough for reading, if not, do drop me an email and I will send you the pdf of the newsletter.

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A Supremely Beautiful Behemoth

This book, to date, is the most beautiful and the biggest book I have ever laid my eyes and hands on. Cabinet Choisi De Curiositez Naturelles by Georg Wolfgang Knorr is the highlight of 2020 for me, as a bookbinder, as well as a bibliophile. 

This first edition, was by Georg Wolfgang Knorr, a German engraver and scientist, and was later finished by his heirs. It is an imperial folio (355 x 505mm) and the entire binding measures 370 x 517 x 72mm and weighs a hefty 9 kilos!

All the plates were carefully printed onto the pages and are not tipped on, which means that this book was made with extreme care and extravagance during its time. All the plates are hand-painted and for a 250 year old book, the colours of the hand-painted plates are still very vibrant and colourful. This really shows the quality of the pigments that were used. There is even no ghosting on the opposite pages. 

This big boy only needed a tiny Japanese tissue support on the hinge near the head of the front board. It is toned to match the leather. I believe this book was rebound sometime in the mid 19th century and the spine leather has been replaced, most likely due to rot. The front and back boards original leather was laid onto the new leather. 

I must say, being able to see and touch this book had made it a tremendous way to end the wonderful year of 2020.