 Bookworks, the Pacific Center for the Book Arts 7th Membership Exhibition, will be on display in the main library's 3rd floor exhibition hall through December 31st. Here are Dominic Riley and John de Merritt to show us some highlights of the exhibit. Hello and welcome once again to the San Francisco Public Library, where we're going to be showing you our latest exhibition here, which is the Pacific Center with Book Arts 7th Biennial Exhibition. I'm Dominic Riley, bookbinder. This is my identical twin sister, John de Merritt. And as you can see, we're wearing our shirts, matching shirts, which commemorate the various aspects of Book Arts. The various and richly diverse variety of book arts in the Bay Area and all over California. Absolutely. John de Merritt, who you may have seen before on this program, is a fine bookbinder, box maker and teacher from Taurus Bookbinder in Berkeley, and he's going to be showing us some of his favorite things from the show. John. And Dominic here from, you're from France, aren't you? No, England. England is a fine binder from England. Working out of his shop and teaching and acting. Oh yes, currently in Berkeley. Currently, you want to give a plug for your plug? Oh yes, currently the Berkeley Reddent Corkation Chalk Circle. Only $34 cheaper, isn't it? Running for how many more weeks? Oh, about seven more weeks, I think. Don't miss it. So, shall we move on to some books? Why not? Let's, we're going to look first of all at this extraordinary piece of book sculpture. Are you feeling hungry yet? I certainly am. Can you hear the ping? Yeah, let's bring it over here. Lunch is ready. This is a book by Berkeley book artist Lisa Koken, working out of West Berkeley, using primarily found objects, as it were. I wonder why she found this in the kitchen. I think she bought that. I don't think she found it. Oh really? Various parts of the book are small jacket with text on it. The text sort of embroidered on it. What does it say? It says, now how was it that I hadn't noticed the door when I rented the apartment? And a small, oh, it looks like a faucet handle. Oh, I thought it was an anchor. Yeah, I thought it was a hammer. You be the judge. Oh, she's so confusing. And then in the actual toaster is, this might be the text block made out of corrugated cardboard, and it looks like some sort of silk. I have my surgical gloves on, so I can't really feel it. With more of a printed text. Oh, a nondescript color. A nondescript color. Oh, that's what it says. It did actually a very beautiful shade of off-white. This says fear. It's a sort of metal mesh. Attached metal pieces on there. It's extraordinary, isn't it? I don't know. I'm sort of afraid. I've never put anything metal in a toaster. I've never put anything in your mouth bigger than your elbow. Is that right? Right. Unless it's made out of cheese. Well, let's move this out of the way and move on to our next book. Yeah, that's great. That's one of the strangest things I've ever seen. I don't know what to make of it. Well, actually, we've got something equally strange coming up here. I'm going to show you this a little bit more traditional, though actually still kind of wacky in its own way. Yeah. This is a book by Steve Woodall, who is our favorite man. Our leader. Yes, he's our leader. He's the president of PCBA and has been for a couple of years. Yeah, I think two years. He's also a cab driver, which is really interesting to keep in the group. He works primarily in Xerox and so-called low tech. Yeah, Xerox and a series of very interesting workshops and teaching, helping people to create art on the Xerox machine, cheap, affordable and versatile art. This is a book. And he gives away all his books. Oh yeah, he does. This is a book that's called Traditional Styles and it's a sort of tribute to the shoe, really. These are letterpress printing done by Alice Johnson at the Paltrude Press in Berkeley. And the images are laser printed on his computer printer. All computer-generated artwork. It's really a really fantastic, high-low combination of styles. And it just works in terms of how like this, an accordion style. Traditional accordion style books that sort of bound into a codex form. This leather on the back is actually the leather that's used to line shoes, I guess for the for the uppers. For the inside of the shoe. Oh yeah, okay. And the whole thing is tied together with an actual shoelace. It's fabulous. Bound by yours truly, by the way. Oh, bound by John. I completely forgot to plug him. Happens all the time. And it's from Steve's Press, which is called the Same as That Press, which is right here in San Francisco. I can't read it. Hang on. It's upside down. Yeah. Yeah. Maybe you should take it up. Oh, John, wrong camera. This is nothing that appealed to me. I chose to show today. It's an extraordinary piece of sculpture by Sharon Wind, who's a book artist, living in Berkeley. And well, I'm not a critic. She's done some planning. And certainly just telling you what's inside her. Yeah, she has. It's a great thing. She's putting something up for the winner. She certainly is. This is a piece of gold leather. I don't know whether it's been sprayed. I think it's been sprayed gold, actually, although you can buy gold. It's got little marble, glass marbles in the bottom, held together with like gold safety pins. I don't know if you can see right there. Gold safety pins. A bunch of brass wire. It looks like a headband arrived. Oh, that's a good idea. And here, all this text at the back, which is torn out. I think it's been done on the computer, but it's all been torn up and ripped in it. It really doesn't say anything, particularly although I think that's a Walt Whitman poem there. Yeah. It's called Jarring Text. The title has been applied here. And it's a fabulous piece of esoteric artistry. It reminds me, put it together with tweezers. Do you think so? How did she get all that stuff in there? That's what I'm wondering. Because it won't come out. Not far as bad. It reminds me also of the work of Sphere Serendint, who's an other book artist who does sculpture here. He's using sculpture a lot. He does fabulous work. It's a great piece of sculpture and really sort of threatens all those established notions as to what is a book, which is a favourite hobby course of mine. This certainly is a book. It has text and claims to be so. So why not? I think it's great. Right? Yeah, should we move on? And it'll keep the winner. Oh, yeah. Yeah. You can add to it, you know, over the years. Here's a couple of books that are quite interesting. These are more traditional, sort of traditional chat books by a guy named Jeff Conan. Wolf Press makes his own paper. I believe he's a teacher. He teaches the letter press classes at New College of California. Makes his own paper, does all of work himself. And he's also an apprentice at the West Coast Print Center over in Berkeley. And he made this paper. I believe so. Huh. It's great. Two nice little chat books of poems. This one is called Broken Monkeys. It says words rushing where monkeys fear to read. This one's called On Becoming an Angel. And I really like the first line. It says, in the mood for becoming an angel. This is by Francis Butler. Tell us about Francis, John. Francis is one of the founders and proprietors of Polteroo Press along with our good friend Alistair Johnson. Looks like some sort of traditional bathroom tile with grout here. And she's got these ceramic sculptures of different styles of pasta. This is part of a series of pieces on how many other two that I know of. And it's based on a this is going to be for a book show at the Smithsonian based on scientific texts, I believe. And I cannot remember which text this is going to be based on. This is based on a scientific text. Yes. No, not a cookbook. No. Oh. Lasagna. Can't you tell? I can't read. Pané. Bravio. Ziti. I don't know Ziti. Is that this one here? Yeah, I believe so. Oh, okay. No, that's this is you can see. I'm getting hungry. It really is. It's like a bathroom. It's fabulous. And this is made of wood and it's got a huge brass hinge here. And the thing does actually I think where's the time? And here is Alistair's book. Alistair Johnson. Polteroo Press. He's a former president of PCBA, I think. Yeah. And a reasonable, shamelessly self-emoting, nasty black region. Awful man. Pretentious. Yeah. He was at my house last night, actually had a lovely dinner and brought some nice wine. He's also... Did he hug you? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah. He's a sort of consummate world music historian, has his own show on KUSF, is it? Yeah. Tuesday nights. Tuesday nights. So tune in. If you're not at the theater seeing me, listen to Alistair. This is I think all the catalyst notebook, which was inspired, he says by an article by Steve Levois in the Ampersand, an article he wrote about file effects. The Ampersand is PCBA's publication. I have it right here. This is our quarterly journal, which is... Which you get quarterly when you join the PCBA. You get it quarterly. That's interesting. And it has some great articles and it's very nicely put together. This is wooden blocks with inlays of wax, which have been carved with a stylus. Actually, he carved it. He told me he carved it with his Swiss Army knife. Oh, he did? Yes. He's such a charlatan. I don't rope. And he just celebrated his 50th birthday, didn't he, recently? So we shouldn't be mean to him. But he's always mean to us. It's also... It takes its inspiration from examples, book blocks of this kind that were found in England and Ireland and are now in museums there. And it's a great... Of course, Romans. This is how Romans would write off along these wax tablets held together with leather thongs, sort of early codex form. It's great. It's chunky. You can wax your thread with it when no one's looking. Yeah. And then the nice thing about it is you can scrub this out and write your own words, which is what Don and I have done. I've written a couple poems of mine on here, actually, because I didn't like what Alice started to put on there. But there we are. Alice Jumpson, Catalyst Notebook. Shall we go on? Yeah. Next piece is our very Georgianic Greenwood. Well-known local, very well-known local calligrapher. She's done this fantastic piece. Another sort of... In the same vein that's of Steve Woodall's book, it's really sort of a Xeroxed photographic image there with some beautiful calligraphy below it, so that the combination... And then she's taken some gold thread and sewn all around it. Can you see that? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Silver thread, I think, John. Silver, excuse me. I'm sort of dyslexic. You are? Yeah. It's just a fantastically simple... Eros is always a story in which lover, beloved, and the difference between them interact, and it's just a bunch of guys really looking inside a car engine. Probably blowing out their carburetor. Yeah. I think she told me that was a 54 Mercury. Oh, really? Yeah. I don't know anything about American cars. Let's see. Levis, Wranglers, Tuftskins. What's that? Georgian is actually going to be my calligraphy teacher soon, when I'm not at the theatre. And there's a little rap that it comes in. Yeah, sort of a chemise that it comes in. That's French. Oh, chemise, yes. That was our word last time, wasn't it? Yeah. And oh, you have to lay it down, John. Oh. And I know that you want people at home to see it, but I can't do it in the middle. So I try to make it well done. Yeah. It's just a wonderfully simple piece. Beautiful. Our next book is by one of our most influential members, Anna Wolfe. Yeah. Anna's been responsible for teaching many of the people in this exhibition. A major influence in the Bay area on structure, these diamond folds. They're really fantastic. She does a lot of mobiles for children. And I have a wonderful alphabet mobile that she did, which I sent home to my students. She's a very good marbler too. Oh, yeah. All of which I think she teaches classes and she's taught for years and really influenced a lot of people. She deserves a lot of credit. Yeah. This is a great book. A wonderful teacher and influence. You can do lots of things. They're like a double helix. Felix the helix. Yeah. And it really returns, it's amazing. It just returns to its storable shape, just like that. Incredible. Now in contrast to that, we have, what should we look at next? How about the scroll? Yeah. This scroll is by another bookbinder. There's also a member of Handbookbinders, I believe, and her name is Judith Serravin. And this scroll, if we could pull it out. Go in and hold this. Yeah. The earliest book form that we know of. And it's really a simple, gorgeous thing. This is a piece of wood. This is, what is this? This is a piece of paper. Handmade paper. Which she has, looks like it's been printed. Yeah, printed and some illustrations on here. Tiny illustrations of houses, which are really sweet. Yeah. And then there's a piece of text on the back. Yeah, on here. A text. Which looks like automatic writing to me. Yeah. I can't read it. All held together by a traditional clasp, wooden clasp here, that the whole thing, when you roll it up, as I'm going to do now, wraps around and ties off, like so. It's great. It is wonderful. Very cool. Yeah, in case you're wondering where, how we all come together to this show, Dominic is going to say a few words about our organization before we move on to the next piece. The Pacific Center for the Book Arts was founded in 1980. After many years of people trying to get an organization like this together, by a group of professional book artists, calligraphers, fine printers, collectors, conservators, restorers, binders, and so on. Have I left anybody out? No, I think the Bay Area has always had a really rich tradition of book arts printers. You know, the Pressman's Union was founded here, the fine press movement in the 40s and 50s, and then all sort of culminated in the PCBA being founded. And they established to foster the promotion of book arts, education, the craft of the book. And we have, every two years, we have an exhibition and we publish the Ampersand, which is the quarterly journal, and every month we publish a small newsletter called Etcetera, which has information about events, workshops, items available for sale, that kind of thing. It's a great place to pick up teaching presses and equipment, generally. So, let's move on. This is a book by local printmaker, Derek Oropallo. Done, I think the printmaking was done at Eric's shop. Eric did the letter press. He sort of is, I think these were prints made from, I don't know where the original images were from, but she's done some prints of them, and I think these are all sort of wallpaper patterns that she's printed on the opposite side with letter press. I think these were faces from a high school yearbook, actually. Yeah. I think that's what they were. Yeah, I think you're right, actually. And then the beautiful binding was done by Peggy Gotthold, another binder from Berkeley, and she's also the binder at Arion Press. Right. So, a lush book by local artist. These were soup screen prints. The images of the face. Yeah, I think so. All these, all these look smooth. Now, they're monoprints. Oh, okay. Yeah, it's great. And I love the colors of the fabric on the binding. This is a great book class. This is a gorgeous fabric. This book class, I believe, are from Brian Johnson. Good. And another accordion binding that will fold up very neatly. And it comes with a box, does it, John? No, it doesn't. Oh, just like that. I believe so. It's lovely. Okay, good. Wonderful book by a member of Indigo Somme from Berkeley. The name of our press is Bichibuda Press. Howard's and Hoover's, a sample book of Chinese-American male names. Made like a sort of a standard brand's paint sample. You want to read some of the names? Yeah. Garrett, Willden. Right. Constantine. Yeah. Letterpress printed hand-colored with watercolors. And then there's laser printed text on, looks like mylar. I remember when Nelson was born, I was standing by grandma's buffet where she puts up all the family photos. I believe these are personal recollections of perhaps some of the people. Great. Does it go together like this? Yeah, like a sample. It's like a... There it is. These three book objects are by Don Meyer. They're called Mymedia. This press is named. Let me press. They're called in order, although I don't know quite which order here, ambiguous contradiction, a paradigm of uncertainty. How does one know? How does one tell? And revealed defenses relieved. They're really simple. Yeah. Wooden blocks held together with branches and hinges. Or in this case, aluminum. And these weird... Again, whether these have been found or not, I presume they are. They're some kind of gratings or something. What would you say? Yeah, I don't know. They look like something that he made, I think. Who knows? The back here, they have a strange sort of acoustic effect. They have an interesting tactile resonance to them. An image here of a fur cone. This one says mending plate, not for trusses. Ah, that's a found object, I'd say. Yes. This is gorgeous. This is a piece of plexiglass enclosed inside it in this compartment. A dried... It looks like a little rose, I'd say. Yeah. But here's the image of it for the black and white photograph. And the versatile. It really is, eh? Yeah. A cute little image. And a little chunky book hearts question. The back, the whole thing, you see these screws are held in with these little... Do you call these wing nuts? Yeah. Yeah. Isn't that great? Good. Okay, we have... All right. Whose book is this? Is this your book? No, no, that's my tissue. It's not cold. The book by Gabrielle A. Ella. And Wattelia. A wonderful sculptural book. I don't know if the camera can get it, but it's almost like an adobe or some sort of brick material. He's molded around this grate to look like a window. It's a beautiful piece. It has a wonderful tactile feel. I wish I could feel it. Yeah. This book is called... Well, can you read that? You're better at reading space, right? Me, Ultima Adios. I'll ask it by. It's a tribute to Jose Rizal, who was a Filipino national hero. And the book opens up in a great accordion style like this. It just goes on and on and on. His letterpress printed this onto a beautiful paper. And it's burned a hole in each page. The hole gets bigger and bigger. Yeah. And if you can fold this back up again. We can see the hole. This is a wonderfully finished piece. The hole ends up with a sort of faux medallion that he's inlayed into here, with a medallion head representing Rizal there. Again, mounted on this sort of plinth. It's a beautiful piece of art. It's a adobe surface to it. Yeah. Wonderful. And it goes back inside the box. Like so. To me, the journalist looks like a prison. Yeah, it does. It's very lightweight, too. And it looks a lot heavier than it is. Yeah. It's really one of the finer pieces of the show, I think. Yeah, I think so. That's about it for what we have on the table. We've certainly only shown you a small fraction of what is in our show. There's over. There's more? Oh, yeah. Oh, shoes. If you go out in the hallway, if you come down to the San Francisco Public Library, to the third floor, on the way to the Special Collections, the show is up through the end of December. There's more than 150 books in the show, except the PCBA membership is this is really one of their finer shows. It makes a happy book fun. There's good writing books. Oh, newspapers kind of. Quick. Yeah, there's really far and away one of the best bookshows a year in my opinion. So make sure you come here and see the library. It's always very generous about putting the show on for us. Yeah. So, from John de Merritt. And Dominic Ryans. Goodbye from the San Francisco Public Library, and we'll see you soon, I'm sure. It's about 12 o'clock. I'm kind of hungry. Yeah, you got some lunch? Yeah. What have we got? Toast? Here, I think it'd be good with some pickles. Oh, okay. I've got gold pickle, marbled pickle, and... A sprinkle of a little sand on. Okay, yeah, it's good.