Living With Artists

Means having to share shelf space with things like this:

He bought it on ebay and it is very much real. It used to belong on a Chinese lady's head. He's used it quite a lot! Sometimes it makes me particularly uncomfortable.

Oh Vanity

In my past life as a magazine editor, while I was still on the scruffier end of the style spectrum, I definitely took a lot more care in my appearance than I do currently. I'm pretty sure we had a dress code and I totally wore daily make up, but let me tell you: it's difficult to have luscious-looking lashes, for example, when mascara seems to attract and adhere to the godforsaken leather dust that proliferates during leather paring. This phenomenon is even more disgusting than you'd imagine ( but you should imagine it, just for a second. It's like having horrible moths that hate you on your eyes!) Anyway, the above pics are before work and after of an awesome Sally Hansen nail decal manicure that was is basically the greatest thing I've ever put on my fingertips. It just didn't stand up to the rigors that are washing out glue brushes, I'm afraid. And cleaning ink pots. And anxious biting from waiting to see if I ruined something in the press. Also, that last photo is after I scrubbed my very skin with Ajax. Dang dye just won't come off! It's worse when it gets on my face.

 

  

This project is basically the most successful happy-making book, if I do say so myself. A good friend of mine is doing one of those "lets only make each other presents" holiday kind of thing with her boyfriend, and they broadened the criteria to include bartered gifts as well. I helped her bind up an adorable little book she wrote about why she loves him (aww) and her end of the bargain included gin and tonics and several hours of delightful conversation. She is totally rad.

It's my third leather project but my number one favorite. I even got to gold stamp it! I used some paper I had marbled from the class at Center for Book Arts with Lauren Rowland (which is happening again!) to up the pizzazz level. She was super-pleased and I must say that I am as well.  And she reports that he just loved it! As he should.

Hand Me My Leather

It's finally happening! We've embarked upon working with leather and I couldn't be more excited. Seriously, to the point where I was vaguely concerned that I was possibly plunging into a manic episode after catching myself actually shaking when trying to explain to my boyfriend the intricacies of Scharf-fixing and how when the gold foils get old you can totally use the flakes as eyeshadow, but I've calmed down a bit and now just totally blissed-the-heck-out about this new step on the bookbinding adventure. The first pic features fine-enough leather work and dreadful stamping, but the second one looks a little grotesque, no?

Birthday!

I've been taking a black-point calligraphy class with the incredibly tallented Karen Gorst, and have been alternating between absolutely detesting and loving the practice. I'm at the love phase right now, because I'm learning to enjoy the process of shaping rather than enjoying the letters themselves (the more difficult they are to shape, the more ugly they become in my mind. I am a total wuss, this is obvious). I guess it's like learning how to cook something you wouldn't want to eat? Maybe? Anyyyyyyway, watching Karen shape the letters is utterly transfixing. Seriously, it's akin to meditation, and I didn't realize until she had gotten halfway through the second word that she was making something for me! Because it's mah birthday! I yelped when I figured it out and I think half the class thought I had stabbed myself with a nib. It happens! But seriously, check out Karen's work because she's a letter genius and it will make you want to be a better person.

It All Becomes True

I got the most wonderful surprise in the mail today - a copy of a knitting book to which I contributed a pattern! Super great, and they did a fabulous job making the socks look lovely. It is definitely rad being published but in this case, the best part  is my bio in the back, which reads "Faith is a former associate editor at [bla bla] magazines. She is currently pursuing a  new passion in fine bookbinding and lives in New York City." It's PROOF! That I'm really doing it! This bookbinding thing! Right? If thousands of copies of a book say so, then it is definitely not just a hobby or a weird way of identifying myself, it's actually like... the truth? Oh how exciting! How affirmational!

Gratitude, duh

This guy is The Best

Aside from images of medieval serfs in ugly hats making glue out of horses, or Micky and those psychotic brooms, I had only the vaguest idea of what an apprenticeship was when I embarked upon mine. I knew my responsibilities would involve washing brushes, sweeping, cutting, sewing, tiny tasks of manual labor and probably the occasional errand that would take me out of the bindery and into the wilds of Brooklyn. I wasn't so sure what I'd be learning though. I mean, "bookbinding," of course, but I was comfortable with the basics (or thought I was) and entered into this open and enthusiastic about learning whatever the boss decided to teach me.

I've been assistant teaching an introductory bookbinding course, and it has been a hugely important experience. It's much harder than I had anticipated, more interesting than I had hoped. It wasn't until I had to explain a particular technique five hundred times in an hour or try to figure how to correct a student's gigantic error without making said student cry that I realized how truly difficult teaching is. And that realization was accompanied by another realization - that my boss Gavin Dovey of Paper Dragon Books is a frickin' rockstar. I mean, aside from being an exceptional craftsman, which he undoubtedly is, it's the patience, the generosity of time, the willingness to share his craft with this enthusiastic but admittedly bumbling chick who interrupts his work almost constantly and, lets be honest, really only gives back in the form of a clean floor and dust-free presses and the occasional granola bar that is humbling and inspiring.

Lest this come off as an attempt at brown-nosed blogging, I'll confess to spending the first few months vascilating between frustration and absolute fear of the guy. I had spent the previous four years working with a gaggle of kindly, gentle, mild-mannered knitter ladies, and was ill-prepared for directness, for critique, for frenetic energy. But I've figured it out, pretty much, and now that the fear has subsided, I am truly in awe of the generosity he has shown me.

I am thankful for so much in my life right now, for my family, my friends, all the lovely and warm things in my life. Yay Thanksgiving, right?! So many great things! But I wanted to express particular gratitude for this opportunity I've been given, to learn these skills and to grow in this craft. Thanks, Gavin, for making me your apprentice, and for teaching me so much.