Paper & Glue

Wow! The last three days have been just a whirlwind of paper and glue. Total sensory overload. I was at the three-day workshop for Bookbinding at Maiwa Handprints. Paper had been my first fibre love right from day one - I come from a long line of printers. I grew up running around printing presses. I love paper. I have memories of me sitting at my dad's desk playing with the bits of paper trimmings. I would glue the ends to make great elaborate sculptures or stack bits of paper together and make little tiny books. I would take the die-cast letters and dip them into small ink puddles to stamp my pages. I still have some of those teeny tiny books around somewhere.

Gaye Hansen is an excellent instructor. I've heard so many good things about her classes before and I'm glad I had the opportunity to take this workshop. The last time I actually made any books was close to twenty years ago. I had forgotten so much. The little blue book (our practice book) is covered with Japanese paper and fabric binding. The larger book is covered with fabric from Maiwa and put together, using all sorts of wonderful add-in pages.

It was good to do this workshop and refresh a few things and learn a whole lot more. One thing about these workshops is that you're not just learning from the instructor. The work that everyone was doing was amazing. So many ideas and so little time. I feel like a diver coming up to the surface too quickly. I really need to go into a little room and decompress. Unfortunately, I had to go straight back to work today. It was really really hard to concentrate...my mind was on paper.


Everytime I look at this book, I can't help but think - wow! it looks like a real book! It has headbands and everything! And there's another use for my kumihimo braids. :)