Eric Alstrom

Okemos, Michigan
Member for 27 years

Binders' Lettering: A Neglected Art, Colin Franklin
Twinrocker bleached abaca, acrylic monoprint, Irish linen thread.
19 x 14 x 1 cm 
Completed in 2020
For Sale - $400

What inspired you to create this work or select this text for your submission
Since this is the 40th anniversary of the New England Chapter, I have been thinking back about my involvement in the Guild and my career in bookbinding. The book I selected was taken from the keynote speech given during the second Standards I attended in 1995 in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. I purchased the text block a long time ago and had forgotten about it until I was going through stuff as a result of being stuck at home during the pandemic. This was too much of a coincidence to ignore. 

The lecture is about the often poor quality of titles that binders tool onto their bindings, so I decided to focus on letters in the abstract. The binding is a cross structure made of an old sheet of Twinrocker bleached abaca I've had for years, which has a very textured surface. The title, stamped in black foil, reflects this rough texture and is broken and missing in places. The monoprint background has a random series of letters which is referenced in the lecture.

Eric Alstrom has been involved with the book arts since 1989 when he began his training in conservation and bookbinding in Ann Arbor, Michigan, first at the University of Michigan under James Craven and then at the Bessenberg Bindery. Eric teaches book arts workshops, has had his books exhibited both nationally and internationally and presented at GBW Standards in 2013. Currently he is the Head of Conservation and Preservation at the Michigan State University Libraries. See more of Eric’s work here.

Jeffrey Altepeter

Cambridge, Massachusetts
Member for 21 years

Rewarding Work: A History of Boston's North Bennet Street School
Dark brown goatskin with blind and gold tooling, yellow goatskin onlays, hand-marbled paper.
23.5 x 16 x 4 cm
Completed in 2020

What inspired you to create this work or select this text for your submission?
The bookbinding department at North Bennet Street School and the New England Chapter of GBW have been intertwined for decades. The binding is a simple, classic style of fine binding in honor of the historical nature of the book.

Jeffrey Altepeter is a 1999 graduate of the bookbinding program at North Bennet Street School and a 2003 graduate of the fine binding program at The American Academy of Bookbinding. He is the current bookbinding department head at North Bennet Street School and a former chair of the New England Chapter of the Guild of Book Workers. He operates a small bindery in Somerville, MA specializing in leather bindings, boxes, and presentation work. See more of Jeff’s work here.

Richard Baker

St. Louis, Missouri
Member for 42 years 

Le Tour du Monde en Quatre-Vingts Jours, Jules Verne
Scarlet and deep purple goatskin, gold leaf, silk headbands.
29 x 20 x 5 cm
Completed in 2004

What inspired you to create this work or select this text for your submission?
In 2000 one of my binding students brought to class information about a bi-annual binding competition in France, open to anyone who bought the loose sheets. Two of the students and I decided to participate. The result was three trips to France (2001, 2003, and 2005) to see our efforts on display with the other entrants from around the world. This binding was my favorite of the three. No prize, but three "business" trips to France eased the disappointment. 

Richard Baker studied binding with Bill Anthony in Chicago and his first bindery job was at Monastery Hill Bindery. He worked as a conservator at Johns Hopkins University, Smithsonian Institution, and American Antiquarian Society. From 1989-2011 he was self-employed as a book and paper conservator in St. Louis, MO.

Barbara B. Blumenthal

Northampton, Massachusetts
Member for 45 years

BOOKBINDINGS HONORING CRAFT: In memoriam. Two volumes.
Jost Amman's Cuts of Craft-Workers, Jost Amman
Black goatskin, paste paper by Henry Morris, gold foil, Bugra endpapers.

A Binding Love, Arno Werner & Carol J. Blinn
Gray goatskin,  marbled paper by Arno Werner, gold foil, Bugra endpapers.

20.3 x 13 x 1.5 cm (Jost Amman)
21 x 14 x 1.3 cm (A Binding Love)
Completed in 2020

What inspired you to create this work or select this text for your submission?
Thinking about the 40th anniversary of the New England Chapter GBW made me nostalgic about important people in my life with books, who sadly are no longer with us. One of them is David P. Bourbeau, a self-named "bibliotect" who gave me a small poster which has always been in my bindery. It reads: "Craftsmen are those who cannot help doing whatever is given them to do better than anyone else thinks worthwhile."

For this exhibition, I decided not to bind anything fancy, but to submit a 2-volume set of quarter-leather bindings which I've titled "BOOKBINDINGS HONORING CRAFT: In memoriam" to honor master bookbinder Arno Werner--with whom I apprenticed in 1973--and master printer and publisher Henry Morris--for whom I bound a number of editions for his Bird & Bull Press. I consider both of these men consummate craftsmen. I decided to honor Henry by binding a copy of Jost Amman's woodcuts of craft-workers with a pastepaper Henry created, overprinted in gold ink. I found both a customer in Henry and a very good friend. I used one of Arno's own marbled papers to bind Carol Blinn's recent book of letters between her and Arno. It chronicles their love and friendship, which I shared as well.

Barbara B. Blumenthal came to bookbinding through a love of books and reading. She studied typography and calligraphy at Smith College and apprenticed with master bookbinder Arno Werner while still an undergraduate. She has had her own Catawba Press & Bindery since 1976 and also worked as a rare book specialist in the Mortimer Rare Book Room at Smith College for 35 years, retiring from Smith in 2017.

Valerie Carrigan

North Adams, Massachusetts
Member for 15 years

Cup of Gold
Pochoir, letterpress printed from wood type and polymer plates on Crane's Lettra, monotype on Rives BFK, folio made of St. Armand paper.
22.2 x 14.6 x .6 cm
Completed in 2020
For Sale - $350

What inspired you to create this work or select this text for your submission?
I saw my first California Poppies during a two-week stay at In Cahoots Residency in Petaluma, California in the spring of 2019. With horses neighing nearby, I crouched down to study the poppies, sketching them as light hit their petals. I was awestruck by their color, which also happened to be the color painted on the door of my cottage at the residency. Thumbing through old books in a Petaluma antique store, I learned of the flower's historical significance to the regional indigenous people - Coastanoan, Coast Miwok, Luiseno, Cahuilla, and Pomo - as a medicinal aid. It is in looking back that we often learn the best way forward. 

Valerie Carrigan works out of her studio in a historic mill in western Massachusetts where she produces drawings, paintings, prints and artist books, exploring the intersection of the natural world and the human spirit. She is currently a Visiting Artist and Lecturer at Bryant University in Smithfield, Rhode Island, where she teaches Drawing, Design and Studies of the Book. See more of Valerie’s work here.

Katrina Carye

Cambridge, Massachusetts
Member for 1 year

A long, long way from home
Vegetable-tanned leather dyed with ink and decorated with carborundum, mica and thread, handmade Degener Black from Cave Paper, photopolymer etchings on Arches paper, photography with text printed on Awagami kinwashi hemp paper with suminagashi patterns in ink.
12.7 x 45.7 x 5 cm
Completed in 2020

What inspired you to create this work or select this text for your submission?
This book documents my 2019 trip to Kalispell, Montana to explore the place where my great-grandfather died in 1896 after an accident on the Great Northern Railway. It was my first exposure to this majestic part of the country and I was in awe of the beauty of Glacier National Park and the nearby Flatfoot reservation. The book is dedicated to my Dad who died of Covid and who had always wanted to take this journey to finally see the place behind all the stories. The cover also integrates the 15th century bookbinding technique of cuir bouilli which I have been experimenting with lately to achieve more three-dimensional effects. 

Katrina Carye is a printmaker and enthusiastic continuing education student at NBSS (and elsewhere) where she first discovered the wonderful world of bookbinding. She is passionate about making original artist books that integrate etchings, monotypes, and suminagashi with unusual uses of leather and other materials like mica. 

Sam Ellenport

Belmont, Massachusetts
Member for 47 years

Shakespeare's Poems
Navy blue morocco, gold leaf tooling and die-stamping.
31.8 x 19.7 x 2.5 cm
Completed in 2014

Can you speak about one technique you used and its history in the field of book work?
I have always tried to introduce a new angle into very traditional and often simple decorating patterns, mostly in gold. I started using rondels, made from rotating a single line pallet around a central point, on several bindings - simple and eye appealing. In this instance I wanted a central front cover design. Instead of rotating a single line pallet I began experimenting with a capital letter. Rotating the "S" proved effective. Introducing one element of the rotating "S' with a heavier line gave a subtlety to the design.

Sam Ellenport left a teaching career to become a bookbinder in 1971. He was mentored at The Harcourt Bindery. His enthusiasm for the craft has never waned, and he has taken delight in the friendships made over the years.

Mark Esser

Providence, Rhode Island
Member for 36 years

The Robber Bridegroom, Eudora Welty
Goatskin, pigskin suede, gold leaf, silk thread, acrylic paint.
24.8 x 16.5 x 2.8 cm
Completed in 2019
For Sale - $5,000

What was your path into book work?
As a boy I sometimes helped my grandfather at his shoe repair shop. I always felt that I'd be happiest doing that kind of work, but shoemaking never felt quite right. Just out of college, in the early 1970's, I worked at a library where books were being sent out for binding and repair. This captured my imagination and stuck with me until I eventually found a way to begin learning the craft of bookbinding some seven or eight years later.

Mark Esser began bookbinding at the Harcourt Bindery in Boston in 1979. He worked in the Conservation Bindery at the Newberry Library in Chicago, and also studied with David Brock. He served an apprenticeship with William Anthony from 1982 to 1986. He was the first instructor for the hand bookbinding program at the North Bennet Street School in Boston, where he taught from 1986 to 1994. He was the Rare Book Conservator at the John J. Burns Library at Boston College from 1994 to 2008, and now works privately.

Erin Fletcher

Belmont, Massachusetts
Member for 10 years

Stuart Williams: His World and His Art, William Corbett with an essay by Adrienne Jacobson
Hand-painted fair calfskin, hand-dyed fair goatskin in grey, yellow and dark blue, handmade Katie MacGregor orange paper, embroidery floss, light blue Stonehenge paper, matte grey foil, handmade periwinkle paper from Morgan Conservatory
27.5 x 25.5 x 2.1 cm
Completed in 2020

What is your favorite thing about this binding?
I love the playfulness of the design, which was greatly inspired by the work of Stuart Williams. Celebrated within the text, Williams was an artist from Vermont living with Prader-Willi disease whose art is not widely known. Williams drew what he loved about the world around him. Living on a farm in a rural town, meant that he captured the spirit of both human and animal behavior. 

I was so enchanted by his chaotic drawings, which are layered with ill-proportioned plant life and creatures; all saturated by color applied with uneven marker strokes. Williams' work inspired me to work freely and open up the possibilities of my embroidered leather bindings. And so the thing I love most about this binding are the hundreds of hand-stitched paper "sequins". 

Erin Fletcher runs Herringbone Bindery from her studio in Belmont, Massachusetts, offering unique handcrafted bindings and boxes. She also teaches workshops for North Bennet Street School in Boston and other institutions around the country. Her design binding work has been exhibited worldwide and is held in various private and institutional collections such as The University of Virginia, Grolier Club, and the Boston Athenaeum. See more of Erin’s work here.

Jane Bortnick Griffith

Kensington, Maryland
Member for 12 years

Maine Woods
Green suede collaged with pine needles, mull, and various papers; embossed green calfskin; blue wire staples secured with wood and parchment tackets.
18.5 x 19 x 1.5 cm
Completed in 2020

What inspired you to create this work or select this text for your submission?
I am always moved by the beauty surrounding me as I hike along the streams and trails of Maine each summer. My eye catches a stray mushroom peeking through the leaves, moss clinging to a rock, or a patch of lichen creating a design on a tree that I try to capture in a photograph. This book includes a collection of those pictures bound together in a staple binding. The collaged suede cover was inspired by the shifting kaleidoscope of nature experienced while exploring these unique New England woods.

Jane Bortnick Griffith studied bookbinding with Jacqueline Liekens in Brussels. She completed additional courses and workshops with a variety of well-known binders and participates in exhibitions around the country.

Penelope Hall

Kingfield, Maine
Member for 16 years

Orchidelirium
Laminate of polyester film and mica sheets, various acid free papers, embossing powder, water media and beads, wooden dowels, embroidery floss, wheat paste, Jade 403 PVA and acrylic gloss medium.
34.5 x 22 x 3.25 cm
Completed in 2020

What inspired you to create this work or select this text for your submission?
The topic of “Orchidelirium” has always interested me. It provides an opportunity to combine text of fascinating history with illustrations of some beautiful plants in a book form utilizing sculptural elements. It also has allowed me to experiment with an unusual binding method and materials. Lastly, the use of these materials has given this book the look of an old plant conservatory.

Penelope Hall is a retired geriatrician living in the western mountains of Maine where she works as a book artist and clay sculptor. She has studied bookbinding, printmaking and sculpture in workshops at the North Bennet Street School, Maine College of Art, University of Southern Maine, and with local artists. Her work has been exhibited regionally and nationally.

Karen Hanmer

Glenview, Illinois
Member for 21 years

A Natural History of the Most Remarkable Quadrupeds, Birds, Fishes, Serpents, Reptiles and Insects, Mrs. Mary Trimmer. 
Striped bass parchment processed by the binder, red buffalo-grained goatskin, grey goatskin onlays, 23 kt gold foil, Ruscombe Mill paper. 
15 x 10 x 2 cm
Completed in 2020
For Sale - $1,000

What is your favorite thing about this binding?
I wanted to have fun with the grandiose title of this book. Most remarkable! Binding based on Jen Lindsay’s “fundamental” or “simplified-simplified” binding structure: boards glued onto the flange of a separate spine piece that the cords (made by the binder) have been laced through. 

Karen Hanmer’s artist-made books are physical manifestations of personal essays intertwining history, culture, politics, science and technology. She uses both traditional and contemporary book structures, and her work is often playful in content or format. She offers workshops and private instruction focusing on a solid foundation in traditional binding skills. See more of Karen’s work here.

Nancy Leavitt

Stillwater, Maine
Member for 41 years

HOPE, Emily Dickinson
Gouache lettering on MacGregor handmade paper, illustration of handout snowflake flowers and feathers sewn onto batik fabric. Mermaid Bindery box.
37 x 27 x 8cm
Completed in 2018
For Sale - $3,000

What inspired you to create this work or select this text for your submission?
The current political climate inspired me to create this work. Sometimes poetry is the only consolation - and Emily Dickinson's poem 254 says it all. I buried hope in this box which when opened reveals flowers and feathers made of hand-cut white snowflakes opposite Dickinson's poem.

An internationally recognized lettering and book artist, Nancy Ruth Leavitt has created over 120 contemporary illuminated manuscript books and over 25 editions and collaborative books filled with lettering, poetry, and colorful painting. Her work encompasses the multi-disciplinary studies of art, literature, and history and her work is represented in many prestigious public and private collections around the world. See more of Nancy’s work here.

Yi Bin Liang

Watertown, Massachusetts
Member for 3 years

I Love This Part,  Tillie Walden
Dyed/painted goatskin, alum-tawed onlays, decorative edges of gouache and gold leaf.
24 x 17 x 1cm
Completed in 2019
For Sale - $800

What inspired you to create this work or select this text for your submission?
I created this binding as a submission for PRIED, a Society of Arts and Craft show featuring LGBTQIA+ makers. I chose this text because it resonates with me as a living queer woman, and I like heavily illustrated books.

Yi Bin Liang is a bookbinder, illustrator and fabricator from Singapore, working in Watertown, Massachusetts. Yi Bin graduated from the Rhode Island School of Design with a BFA in Illustration in 2017, and received a Diploma in Bookbinding from the North Bennet Street School in 2019. See more of Yi Bin’s work here.

Elaine Nishizu

Los Angeles, California
Member for 28 years

Seiyojiki (Western Character Study Guide) in Japanese, Kikume Abe
Japanese handmade paper, elephant hide paper, wooden strips.
19.5 x 19.5 x 8.6 cm (outer box)
8.9 x 18 x 1.4 cm (inner box)
Completed in 2019

What is your favorite thing about this binding?
The cover paper is from a paper museum in Japan. I have never seen this "bubble" pattern before so I wanted to use it for a special Japanese book project.

Elaine Nishizu practices box making and bookbinding as an avocation. This is how she combines her love for books and paper. She has studied with Eleanore Ramsey and Cor Aerssens.

Graham Patten & Sarah Smith

Graham Patten
Medford, Massachusetts
Member for 9 years

in collaboration with
Sarah Smith
White River Junction, Vermont
Member for 24 years

News Cycle, Sarah M. Smith
Museum board, Cheloniidae Rag paper, and Hahnemuhle Bugra paper.
9 x 9 x 3 cm (closed)
19 x 18 x 9 cm (open)
Completed in 2019
For Sale - $1,100

Did you fully plan every aspect of this piece before starting to work on it, or did you make design decisions along the way?
Graham: Since this structure is such a technical challenge, every aspect needed to be planned in advance. But in order to get to the point where I could plan it so thoroughly, I had to experiment with a series of variations, and come to understand the mechanics well. The idea didn't come together in one clean moment, and the result came from following a weird idea where it led, pushing hard to see what the limits of the form were and troubleshooting fails. I'm a heavy planner - but I can't know how to plan unless I've first played around with materials and structural models.

What inspired you to create this work or select this text for your submission?
Sarah: Graham and I started talking about a collaboration involving something based on my daily cartoons and his continuously convoluting carousel structure. His structure shows a number (five in our book) of panels that change or morph four times. The change of seasons would have made life easier and the project go much quicker, but somehow that seemed a bit too obvious. God forbid I keep things simple! It was tricky coming up with an idea that wasn't a linear narrative with a solid beginning and end. I also didn't want to make something strictly decorative either. It needed to be cyclical, and still tell a story of sorts. Because a lot of us have been glued to the news in recent years—perhaps to the detriment of our mental health—I thought of the roller coaster feeling everytime we check the news. It feels like there's a collective reaction to every headline—although different groups might react differently. So I created a five panel crowd—trying to show a variety of people—reacting to the news. They go from indifferent, to shocked, to angry, to elated and back again. Sadly the elated panels seemed the hardest to draw. Between the structure and the images, the hope is readers are compelled to keep moving through the cycle and notice new things each time.

Graham Patten is currently the book conservator at the Boston Athenaeum. He previously served as an Assistant Book Conservator at the Northeast Document Conservation Center (NEDCC). In his artistic pursuits, Graham often focuses on dynamic sculptural and mechanical elements, and enjoys merging these features with innovative book structures. See more of Graham’s work here.

Sarah Smith runs the Book Arts Workshop at Dartmouth College. She received her MFA in Book Arts/Printmaking from University of the Arts, Philadelphia. She taught at various institutions including Montserrat College of Art, Beverly MA, where she created a letterpress studio and BFA concentration in Book Arts. Sarah produces books, broadsides and comics in the realm of nonsense and absurdity. Her work is in collections and with booksellers such as Vamp and Tramp Booksellers; Printed Matter; Moma Artist Book Collection; The Banff Centre; University of Wisconsin; UC, Berkeley; Yale University; Wellesley College; Ringling School of Art & Design; and others. See more of Sarah’s work here.

A video of the continuously convoluting carousel can be viewed on Graham’s website here: https://grahampatten.weebly.com/news-cycle.html

Todd Pattison

Somerville, Massachusetts
Member for 20 years

Quilted: From Pattern to Patchwork, Janine Vangool ed.
Natural goatskin, goat and calf leather onlays, Hatakami silk paper, embroidery floss, acrylic pigment, linen thread.
21 x 17.7 x 3.8 cm
Completed in 2020

Can you speak about one technique you used and its history in the field of book work?
Given the subject matter of this book I wanted to use embroidery, which has been used in bookbinding for centuries. Most historical embroidered bindings have been on textile but more recently binders have been using embroidery on leather. A big part of the Guild for me has been sharing with, and learning from, other binders and embroidered leather binding is a technique that I learned from the current Chapter Chair of NEGBW, Erin Fletcher.

Todd Pattison is the conservator at the New England Historic Genealogical Society. See more of Todd’s work here.

Jennifer Pellecchia

Boston, Massachusetts
Member for 4 years

The Progress of the Marbling Art from Technical Scientific Principles, Josef Halfer
Hand marbled paper, 23K gold foil, carbon paper.
22.5 x 15 x 3 cm
Completed in 2020
For Sale - $400

Can you speak about one technique you used and its history in the field of book work?
Paper marbling has a long history, beginning in East Asia, as a decorative technique for writing materials, end sheets, covering materials, and the edges of books. Halfer's text, which was generously given to me in sheets by Dan and Regina St. John of Chena River Marblers, details how difficult it is to turn both organic and inorganic pigments into marblings inks. This difficulty became apparent to me the first time I tried marbling on my own; the results were pale, smudged patterns, with large white spaces where certain colors would not adhere to the paper. In the spirit of making lemons out of lemonade, I used one of these sheets to cover this book, filling in some of the design gaps - and highlighting some of the imperfections - with freehand tooling and titling.

Jennifer Pellecchia is a 2019 graduate of the North Bennet Street School's bookbinding program. She is currently serving as Standards Chair for the Guild of Book Workers. See more of Jenn’s work here.

James Reid-Cunningham

Cambridge, Massachusetts
Member for 40 years

Trans-Siberian Prosody, Blaise Cendrars and Sonia Delaunay
Black, blue, pink, brown and white goatskin, metallic foil, palladium leaf and gold leaf.
33.3 x 35.7 x 1.6 cm
Completed in 2020
For Sale - $3,000

Did you fully plan every aspect of this piece before starting to work on it, or did you make design decisions along the way?
I don’t work from a design, I work from a concept, a visual impression, an intangible sense of what the final binding will look like, how it will feel. Rather than choosing a specific design for a book, I create a binding that looks the way the book feels to me. The process is almost unconscious. I don’t exactly know why my bindings appear as they do.

James Reid-Cunningham is bookbinder and conservator in private practice, specializing in artistic binding as well as the conservation of rare books and manuscripts. He received the DeGoyler Prize in American Bookbinding in 2018. His bookbindings have been exhibited nationally and internationally. See more of James’s work here.

George Sargent

Woonsocket, Rhode Island
Member for 38 years

Bag Of Bones, Stephen King
Harmatan goatskin, goatskin and calf onlays, inset stone, gilt board edges and leather spine label.
24 x 16 x 4.5 cm
Completed in 2020

What inspired you to create this work or select this text for your submission?
A favorite summer read that even has a woman singing the blues.

George Sargent is a graduate from the School of the Worcester Art Museum (1972) and Rhode Island School of Design (1976). From 1982 - present George is a partner at Dragonfly Bindery/Studio in Woonsocket, Rhode Island. See more of George’s work here.