I was working on a book the other day in my favorite venue (the Sierra Vista Public Library’s Café Sierra) Normally I’d have been either writing or painting in my current book, Mind at Work – Mind at Play – or one of the smaller satellite volumes that I carry for when I need to loosen up a bit. That day however I was actually binding a small new volume, to use as a sample for a bookbinding workshop that I was going to teach that evening.
A man stopped to watch for a moment, then began to ask questions. I’m used to most of the questions tossed at me, but one made me stop and think a bit. After I had explained that I was actually binding a book, he asked me why I didn’t just buy one.
I think that this is possibly the most complicated question I get.
On the surface, there is a simple answer. I enjoy the process. Binding a book is rather easy to do, doesn’t take an overwhelming amount of time, and is a pleasant break from the much harder work of writing or painting. I enjoy the entire process, from selecting (or sometimes even making) the paper, to designing the cover, and stitching the spines. Once you’ve done it a few times, much of the process is done on “automatic”, using the physical memory to work while the mind is free to do other things. And the end result is very satisfying too. I love books – all books – but I have a special love for the ones I’ve made from scratch (even some of the early attempts, which have uneven stitching and many glaring flaws in the workmanship!)
I carry a small but complete bindery in a little fishing tackle box, which means that I can make a book anywhere – in a café, out in the desert, on top of a mountain, by a campfire. That means that I can create memories that go along with the physical object. One thing I want to do in the near future is to make a book at the Grand Canyon so that every time I open it to work, it will summon the memory of that amazing place.
If I’m traveling, I can buy local papers to give the books I make a regional flavor – especially if there are small papermaking shops that produce unique pages with distinctive surfaces or colors or smells.
One thing I’ve always loved about the process of art is its transformative qualities. I studied intaglio printing in college, and the real joy of it for me was in taking a plain metal plate and putting it in acid to watch the magic of chemistry infuse it with my ideas and images. I used to get breathless watching the plates etch and my heart always beat faster when I cleaned off the etch ground and got the first glimpse of the plate surface.
I get some of the same thrill making a book. I always start with large sheets of paper, which I fold score and tear into the dimensions I want. The flat sheets get smaller as I tear them, but then when the binding begins, they become something oddly much larger than the original sheet. Something about the way pages work in a book makes its dimensions inside seem infinite. A page is just a page, but a book can be an entire universe in and of itself.
There are loads of blank books available, some of them not very expensive, some of them even pretty good. If I have the money to burn, I can even order a hand made book and have in the past, with a fine leather binding and marbled covers and extraordinary Italian paper from Amalfi. A large book like this is a pleasure to work in, but the cost for one starts at just over $100, and can range as high as $800, if I order all the bells and whistles.
There are other reasons too, possibly enough for another entry on another day. Oh – and that guy who asked me why I don’t just buy a book? I gave him the simplest answer I can: Because its fun.
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