#fine bookbinding

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The Threads That Bind Volume 1

I am very pleased to be one of the invited exhibitors for The Threads That Bind Volume 1, encompassing artists & designers across a broad spectrum of the associated visual arts and crafts.

Looking forward to featuring some of my works from before, and also some new works that I have been working on. 

Special thanks to the organisers for inviting me, as well as featuring me and my works to introduce me in your Instagram page. Do take some time to look at the other exhibitors that will also be showing in this show.

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Vita Nuova by Dante Alighieri for Society of Bookbinders International Competition 2019

The Society of Bookbinders Education and Training Conference happened in Bath from 29 to 31 August 2019, and together with it, the International Competition prize giving ceremony and exhibition is happening in conjunction with it. 

My entry for this year’s competition did not win a prize, but I am very honoured and happy to be amongst the world’s best bookbinders in the exhibition, and of course, seen by all the delegates that are there for the conference. 

For this year’s entry, I was hoping to get nominated for the Animal Free Binding. I attempted materials that I have never used prior to this binding and its marquette. It was quite a challenge trying to understand these two new materials: Tyvek® and mycelium (mushroom) leather, Mylea by Mycotech.  

The binding is covered in hand dyed and inkblot printed Tyvek® with foil tooling and hand sewn double core endbands using metallic threads. Mycelium (mushroom) leather onlays of the letter VI in medieval typography, which is reverse reflected to create the title, Vita, while Nuova is tooled in modern typography to represent 'new'. VI represents the 'Lovers' card in the Tarot.

I had various issues with the the Tyvek® which I later found a way to counter it in another book. The mushroom leather, Mylea presented some problems, but it is a very versatile material and can be treated like how an animal skin will behave. It was backed with its growing medium, cork, but can be slowly removed by gently wetting the leather and scraping. It takes gold tooling very beautifully and I love how it has a very natural uneven colour that makes it ever so organic. 

I do enjoy using new materials in my work. Exploring the possibilities of materials from the 21st century, making books specific of the era. As what I was once told, explore and try new ways and materials, because that is how new inventions were discovered. 

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An Artist Talk About Bookbinding

On 3rd March, I had an Artist Talk about my work, in a very lovely auditorium next to the exhibition space at Jurong Regional Library. Prior to the talk, I was told by the organisers that the registration for the event was over-subscribed and I was pleasantly surprised. I am very happy to know that there are people who wish to listen to what I had to say about bookbinding, Designer Bindings and my other ramblings about cats and my beloved teacher and mentor, Mark Cockram. 

I was asked quite a lot of very wonderful questions during the talk, of them, here are the 2 that really meant a lot to me. 

Question: As a designer bookbinder, am I considered an artist or a bookbinder.

Firstly, you have to be a bookbinder. Without the knowledge of a bookbinder, you won't be able to express effectively using the book as the medium of creativity. Before a painter can be an artist, he first has to be proficient in painting, before he knows how to use the paints and colours to express what he has in mind. Just like a glass blower, a ceramist, a chef, a fashion design, even a programmer, who needs to know codes before he can create beautiful programs for the computer. By practising the fundamentals, and being very good at it, then it is possible to create. Because it is very difficult to be artistic, when all you do is struggle with technique.

Question: What is my favourite structure in bookbinding?

I do not have a specific favourite structure. In fact, it is often the book that tells me what it needs. The content will have a specific request, per se, to how it should be bound, to best bring out its true essence and beauty. There is no one-size-fits-all type of binding for every book. In fact, codex is used simply because it is the most economical method of production commercially. And of course, we have gotten used to the structure, so everything is just done in codex. But some books require more than a codex, or less than a codex, or it has to be thought out differently. 

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Of course, I was glad I brought the exact book to illustrate the point for the second question. I used Get In Line to show how the correct binding structure can make the content of the book flourish. 

I enjoy talking about my work, to a point, I sometimes hope that I am not rambling too much that people lose interest. But otherwise, I think it was a rather successful afternoon, with a guided tour of the exhibition immediately after the talk. 

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Design Binding Commission - Singapore through 19th Century Photographs

Back in March this year, I started working on this commission for a dear customer, but my life went into a whirlwind of an upheaval. It was difficult to manage having a clear mind to work on a design binding, and having to sort out the toughest months in my life thus far. So I decided that I should pack it up and do it when I am at my best and my mind is clear.

As promised, I will show a weekly update of the work in progress, as my customer enjoys watching his book come along. And also, this is a chance for me to share about the process of how a design binding is done. 

It is not often that the textblock comes nicely in folded sheets, unbound, from the printers. It almost always comes already bound, in the factory, by a machine. Then it takes some precision work, effort and a lot of slow careful heating to remove the factory binding. First the case comes off by gently cutting away the board endpaper, then with slow heating, the fly leaf comes off. I learned a very hard lesson to not pull off the tipped on fly leaf because it takes a whole chunk of paper off from the first folio of the first section. It will then be a tedious task to repair that. So instead of a heated tacking iron, I used a hair dryer to slowly heat it bit by bit, and ease it off slowly from the first folio. I enjoy looking at the textblock after all the nasty adhesive has been removed, and I have a nice clean spine to work on. 

My initial idea for this book was to use rather bright colours in a kaleidoscope kind of way, but through these months away from my bench, I decided that this book should not have such a loud cover, for such an amazing collection of photographs of my country from the 19th century. I have decided to do something more 3 dimensional, almost as though the photographs are coming out at you. But subtle.

So first things first, the endpapers ideas have to be sorted out, endpapers decorated, prepared and then sewing will begin. 

This is getting exciting. 

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A Great Start to the Year of the Dog: Venus Explor’d

Happy Lunar New Year to all that are celebrating this special day around the world. It is the year of the dog and it is my year. It has been a great start so far, with my first miniature commission, received by my customer, Neale Albert, who is a collector of miniature books in New York, and hearing that he loves it. 

Venus Explor’d is an entire book of black and white photographs. I was toying with the idea of keeping the book monotone, but after reading the quotations that accompanied each photograph, I gained some inspiration.

This final design was not exactly what I had originally envisioned. It gradually transformed to what it is. One of the quotations was “This is the porcelain of humankind...” by John Dryden in Don Sebastian. Which lead me to wanting to create a fluid form, a softness and translucency to bring out the beauty of the female form, the soft skin on a woman, and the pinkness that lies beneath it, of the warmness of her blood and her touch. I also wanted to create a sort of “lost in the galaxy” effect, or looking out at space and the beautiful colours caused by the energies that surround the beautiful planet of Venus. 

This binding is made with laminated attached boards, with a leather-joint doublure that extends beyond the boards and “turned-out” onto the outer sides of the covers, in white kangaroo leather. The endbands are hand sewn with white Japanese silk and the edges of the book are left pure white. The endpapers are made with a blend of alcohol inks on translucent paper and folded over so that the colours overlap and can be seen through when placed up in the light. 

The covers of Venus Explor’d is a resin tile, mixed with alcohol inks of the same colours as the endpapers, swirled and poured over the handwritten title using Chinese ink. It took me many tries to get the resin to a correct thickness and consistency and I do enjoy that there are some air bubbles trapped within it. It adds to the specks of black ink, giving the covers a three dimensional effect, with the floating bubbles, fixed in place. 

The box I made for this binding is a basic two tray drop-back clasmshell box. However I made a little tab so that the book can be lifted up from its recess. 

I did enjoy the process of making this book and the exploration of the materials and techniques. I took a little longer than necessary, but I am glad that I have “landed” on Venus, happy and sound. 

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Design Binding Commission - Week 6 & 7: The Sewing Up of The Actual Book

Now is the time when everything gets exciting. The research and development stage has come to a point where I am ready to start on the actual book itself. The textblock is prepared, and the stubs are folded, pressed, marked out and ready to be sewn individually to each section. As it is a rather thick textblock, I need to make sure that the sewing is secure enough to hold the weight, but not make too many holes that it perforates the paper, and it becomes like a tear-out coupon. I then used a hammer to knock the sewing, making sure that the thread is embedded nicely into the paper, and the little swell of thread is absorbed into the softness of the fold. This ensures that the folds and sewing is as flat as I can get it to be, which is the same thickness as each section. 

I did pre-drill holes using a hand hole punch using a 2mm bit size before using the drill press (from the wood workshop, but using a metal drill bit) to drill into the stubs. Louis explains that the metal drill bit cuts gentler than the wood drill bit and is more suitable for paper. I still had to spend a whole afternoon, carefully slicing off the burr using a very sharp scalpel. 

The textblock is then sewn together. The edges are then sanded, and I used the same sponging method to apply the same pearl acrylic paint onto the head, tail and fore-edge. I have other plans for the edge of the spine, which is the fore-edge of the stubs. 

Now it gets more exciting as the book is ready for the next step, which I feel, will make or break the binding. Wish me luck!

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Terre De Glace - Restoration & Rebinding

It is my birthday today! So instead of the usual Endpaper Challenge post, I am posting about a recent restoration and rebinding of a book about Iceland, written in French, published in 1883. It belongs to a very good friend and customer, Philippe, who lived in Iceland for about 5 years. 

The book was in a library that was on fire. And it was in a rather bad shape. Upon removing the original binding, I realised it had been repaired before. But all the maps were broken, and the binding was slanting badly. I will share the photos of the binding before I took it apart in the next post. 

For this restoration, I decided to leave the charred head edge of the book as it is, as a reminder of its near demise. It was lucky to have been spared from the flames. 

Philippe wanted the binding to remind him of Iceland and the colours of the landscape. Instead of purchasing a ready-made marbled paper, we decided that it was more meaningful if I did some flotage papers. The results were stunning and I had a whole batch of flotage papers to choose from and Philippe chose this as the covers for the book. 

Bound in quarter Harmatan navy blue fine goat leather, and flotage papers, using unsupported link stitch and attached laminated boards. The endbands are hand sewn using Japanese silk threads in the double core French style. The maps and pages were repaired using a kozo mix of 40% kozo and 60% pulp. 

I enjoyed restoring this old beauty and seeing Philippe’s reaction really made me very happy. That is why, I have decided to share this joy on my birthday. I am 3 dozen years old today. Happy Birthday, me!

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International Miniature Bookbinding Competition 2017

Just last week, I received my textblock for the Internation Miniature Bookbinding Competition organised by The Dutch Handbookbinding Foundation (Stichting Handboekbinden).

The book was written by Geert Mak in English, and was illustrated by Max Kisman. The textblock is printed by De Buitenkant’s printers, all in Amsterdam. The mini books will then be judged and be a permanent collection in the Meermanno Museum. 

This is super exciting because one of my books will become a permanent exhibit in Holland, and this will definitely be a great reason to visit Amsterdam to see my book in the museum. 

So for now, work begins, amongst the many other commissions I have.