No wonder papermaking was held in such awe in bygone days and was known as the “white craft,” for it is a kind of magic - even a kind of miracle.
Jean Chitty, Paper in Devon, Exeter 1976
Welcome to all those, who like me, have a yen and a passion for Paper. What a joy and a privilege to be able to interact with handmade sheets of this wonderful natural medium, in a creative and immensely satisfying way, in the book arts. I fell into bookbinding almost by accident as a result of visiting a special Craft Fair, which was part of Edinburgh Arts Festival quite a number of years ago. Whilst browsing the many beautiful stalls of high quality handcrafted items, I fell in love with the handbound books of Rachel Hazell, who happened to be exhibiting that day - luckily for me. I noticed that she was advertising bookbinding workshops and I instantly signed up for the next one - and that was it, I was hooked.
This was the very first book and I will never forget the thrill of binding , because each time I finish a new book, I have that thrill all over again. Since then I have attended various workshops with a number of different binders in the UK from the Scilly Isles in the south:
to Forres in the north:
and the Isle of Skye in the west:
If you have never attended such a workshop I would highly recommend it, as a way of meeting other binders, learning lots, improving your skills, getting ideas on fashioning your paper into lovely new books and generally having a great time. One word of warning - time flies by when you are engrossed in paper pursuits!
You are more than welcome to have a browse around this very new blog. There are a couple of pages for more information on myself and what I hope to achieve with this blog, there is a link to my Flickr site where you can view more of my work, and there is also a link to my new Etsy shop, which I would like to encourage you to click through and check out my some of my books that I have for sale.
Please feel free to ask questions here in the comment box!