Hermes Gallery in Halifax is currently exhibiting a collection of book and text-themed works in a group show called "Book Club." Works on show are by several members of the gallery as well as a couple of special guests, including the Nova Scotia Book Arts Group. The Book Arts Group has contributed a wide range of handbound books including blank journals, a sculpural artist's book, and even a medieval wooden board binding. There are two books in this exhibit that I bound. One is my copy of Lock's Bookbinding Materials and Techniques 1700-1920 which is bound using a split board library binding ..read more

In between the ordinary day-to-day bookbinding projects, I have also been teaching workshops quite regularly although I haven't shared the results here for a long time! New spring workshops are happening soon. Registration is underway at the Centre for Craft in Halifax NS as well as Honeybee Folk School in Fredericton NB. In the meantime, here's a recap of that last few workshops taught at the NS Centre for Craft. Dec 2023 - Students made these personalized monthly agendas using a hardcover pamphlet binding technique. Jan 2024 - My students made these wonderful case bound journals. Feb ..read more

Happy new year, everybody! I'm going to kick off the year with a giveaway, as I've often done in the past, perfect for those of you who still like to write in real books. I have one handmade book to give away and it is a 2024 monthly planner, shown below. It is a hardcover book with my own original marbled paper on the covers. The spine and corners are dark grey cloth. The book contains a printed monthly calendar for 2024. In addition to the calendar pages, there are also standard pages for personal information, lists, and some blank pages at the back. The various preprinted text is in both E ..read more

Merry Christmas, happy holidays, season's greetings, happy solstice, lovely day! Pick whichever you prefer, one of them must be suitable! I tried one final little project for the end of the year, involving folding pretty paper to make little boxes. I tried a variety of origami box structures looking for one that might work for packing up some little books. I had two main requirements for the boxes. Firstly, the miniature books needed to fit in the box, and secondly, I wanted the box to have a lid. Initially I thought it should be a rectangular box so I attempted several rectangular boxes but ..read more

A few weeks ago, the Nova Scotia Book Arts Group hosted its first book swap. Anyone in the group who wanted to participate just had to make a blank book, bring it to the meeting in November, and then they got someone else's handmade book to take home. I've been participating in various book swaps for years. Christine Cox, of Volcano Arts, used to host book swaps which were done online and through the mail and those were the first swaps I did. Later I found several other occassions to participate in swaps and exchanges for blank books, marbled paper, and artist's books. Many of these have been ..read more

Mind Your Ps and Qs was a recent exhibit held at NSCAD's Port Loggia and Treaty Space galleries in Halifax, NS. This exhibit was a celebration of the Dawson Printshop and Bindery and all the amazing work that has been created by folks who have studied and worked there over its many years as a focal point of book arts education in this city. As a Dawson alumnus I was thrilled to have a couple of my own books included in the exhibit alongside the 15 other artists. The scope of work included traditional bookbinding, artist's books, letterpress printing, printmaking, and tool making. The photos ..read more

I see lots of books that have been previously given an unauthorized tape treatment, sigh. In fact, most of the time, tape will probably make the situation much worse than it would have been if it had been left alone. Also, although there are products out there called things like "book tape" and "repair tape" and even "archival book repair tape," none of them are actually good solutions. Nonetheless, here are a couple before-and-after examples of books where I had to remove a lot of tape. It's tricky and tedious, but it can be done ..read more

This is a clever way to make a protective wrapper for a book. It can be made from a single sheet of stiff paper or folder stock. I saw this idea on outofbinding.com. She had received a package wrapped in cardboard using this technique and posted photos of it on her website, calling it the turning triangle. I thought it looked like a great idea so I wanted to replicate it. Here it is, fully open with the book sitting in the start position. A while ago, I posted the video on Instagram and several folks asked if there were instructions for making it, so I made this rough diagram to help you f ..read more

Recently I had an opportunity to see a collection of fine bindings made by Douglas Cockerell. Cockerell is well-known to students of bookbinding. He is the author of the enduring instructional book, Bookbinding and the Care of Books, first published in 1901 and still used by many today. Also these small booklets, "Bookbinding as a School Subject" that he wrote. These are my own copies shown here. Books one and two are from the second printing; books three, four, and five are from the third printing. Cockerell is especially known for his skills as a fine binder. The Killam Library at Dalhousie ..read more

It is wonderful to see a local exhibit featuring book artists. The book arts are not often represented in local galleries, in my experience. Ocassionally I'll see an exhibit that has a smattering of book art objects mixed in with other mediums, but as a general rule, the book art component is not central to the work or the exhibit. However, the Mary E. Black Gallery in Halifax is currently exhibiting a collection of artists' books, curated by Anthea Black, who is a Canadian artist, writer, and curator. The exhibit features queer and transgender book artists and as stated on the gallery's webs ..read more