 The Handbookbinders of California 23rd Annual Members' Exhibition is on display now through the end of November at the main library in the south hall of the third floor. With over 30 books on display, the show features the work of fine binders, addition binders, conservators, and book artists. Stay tuned now for a look at a sampling of the exhibition as Bay Area Bookbinders Dominic Riley and John De Merritt host a review of the exhibit and talk with a few of the bookbinders whose work is on display. Hello it's Book Talk with John and Dominic. Hello. Hello John. Hi Dominic. Today is the first anniversary of our show. Wow. We've been running for a whole year now and to celebrate this moment is our sixth show. I think it is. I have a little gift to give to John. You've got something for me? Can I give you my gift first? No, you give me yours. All right. Dominic, I want to give you something very, very dear to me and my father gave it to me and his grandfather gave it to him. Yes? Yes, it's my most cherished possession. It's my Girl Scout knife. Oh, let me see. Yeah. And I want you to have it always. I don't know if the camera can see this but it actually says GS which I think stands for Girl Scout. Girl Scouts of America. It's a beautiful thing. Little blades. It's gorgeous. I have something for you. I hope you cherish it always. I will. Yeah. This is a spine flexor that I got in Alabama recently and it's a bookbinding tool and I hope you can find many uses for it. What are you supposed to do with this? You put it in your mouth and then you just squeeze it. There you go. Many years to come, I hope. Much use. Anyway, John, tell us about what we're going to do today. Thank you. Get off. What are we going to do today, John, please? Well, let me put this away. Today, we're going to talk about, like we did last year, we're going to talk about the handbook binders of California. Oh, yes. The members exhibit the 23rd or 24th. It depends whatever we wrote on the poster. I think it's the 23rd this year. Yeah. It's up at the San Francisco Public Library in the South Wing as you go toward Special Collections running through the end of November. Mm-hmm. Come on down and see it. And then if you happen to be traveling to the Los Angeles area, it will be at the Honnold Library. God forbid. Claremont College is February, beginning of February, through the end of January. And we have a special surprise today. We've invited some of the binders. Yes. Indeed. We're going to be looking at some of the books, but also we're going to be talking to the people who bound them. We're very excited about this. They've flown from all over the world to be worlds. Our first guest... Internationally famous bookbinder. ...is our friend from Philadelphia, internationally renowned bookbinder. Yeah. And her name is Margaret Johnson, and we're going to be looking at her book. She is also the secretary of handbook binders of California. Oh, yes, she is. And then the newsletter editor of the August organization, the Gila Book Workers. She's a busy lady, but she's made time on her busy schedule to be with us today. And here she is. And here's her lovely book. It's a book called Egypt. And the interesting thing about this book is it's the first book in the handbookbinder show that is an example of a restoration. It's not a new book. It's a book that Margaret has a client brought to her, and she's fixed it. And here she is. Hello, Margaret. Hello. So you didn't do all this lovely gold stuff here? No, I didn't do that. What did you do? What have you done to this book? When I got the book, the cover was off. The front cover was totally off. The back cover was loose. Oh, we have a photo actually here of what it looked like before, which I think we can get a nice close-up of. This photo shows us that this cover's come off. Yeah, that's the front cover. The spine is all broken. And some of the paper in here was missing. It looks like you've repaired some of the paper here. Right. Replaced the joint. Uh-huh. And the whole spine has been replaced. Oh, okay. With leather. The original spine. Excuse me, can I interrupt you for a minute? Yeah. Would you like a drink? Oh, yeah, would you like a sherry? Absolutely. Anytime. Okay. Johnson, I'll bottle up to bring you some sherry. Johnson! He's very old, but we keep him on because we love him. Right. Continue, please. It has a new piece of leather going all the way around here. Yeah. Yeah. And the original spine was taken off and replaced. Careful. Careful. Thank you. Okay. Thanks for the binding. Thank you. Thanks, John. See you later. Okay. Margaret, would you like a sherry? Yes, thank you. Cheers. John? Thank you. Well, cheers. Here's to a good show. It's nice to have you. Mmm. Oh, it's not bad. Oh. So, and what else? And the corners. Oh, the corners. The corners are all chewed up. So, and you've consolidated the boards of the corners, too. Yeah. Yeah. The thing that I always think is sad about restoration is that if you do a good job, you can't tell that it's been worked on. Yeah. So, it's hard for us to show this and, you know, show precisely what it is that you've... You can see it if you're up close enough because I don't think that you should make it look like brand new if it's an old book. You mean everything? Have you done any work to the text block itself? Only some of the corners that had been bent here. Okay. Oh, yeah. Because they're quite brittle. You can't really see this, but here on the corner, Margaret has covered this with a piece of very fine Japanese tissue, which has reinforced what used to be a very limp and broken corner, which is a really good thing to do. They're wonderful photographs. Yeah, that's true of these. I mean, this book is for the 1870s. Early photographs of Egypt. Beautiful. Really quite gorgeous. Here's a pyramid of the Sphinx. Made, apparently, the whole thing was made for British travelers who went to Egypt. And they brought home this wonderful photograph. And if you can feel how heavy this book is, it's incredibly heavy. Right. It's printed on coated stock. And you have... You've polished this, then, have you and cleaned it afterwards? Oh, yes. Yes, yes. So it's much brighter than it was before. Right. And then you've made a lovely box for it, too. Oh, yeah. I made a box for it. Now, why have you made a box for this book? Well, I think that anything as old as this needs a little extra protection. Okay. So we will protect it as much as possible. Oh, good. Put it in like this. Like that. Good. And then it closes. And then it closes. And you stand it up on the shelf. And there you are. And there you are. Well, thanks very much, Mark. Thank you, Margaret. And we'll see you next year. Okay. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. Here's the mascot of our show this year. What's he called, John? He's called Binder Man. And here's the man responsible for Binder Man. It's our old friend, Carell Romain. Hi, Carell. Hi, Carell. Hi, John. Hi, Dominic. The Weircat Binder. That's the place. What's a Weircat? Weircat. Weircat is like a werewolf, except the Weircat transforms at will, not at the full moon. Well, enough of that. Kind of like Binder Man, huh? Kinda. Yeah. So let's have a look at this extraordinary thing. This is a most amazing box. Yeah. Inside the box, Carell, you're going to show us what you've put in there. Okay. This actually, this whole construct is actually an answer to a question. I made almost 50 of these, not without the ornamentation, for sale at a local bookstore. And people would say, well, what do we do with these things? And... This is your answer, huh? More or less. And what else do you... And there's another book. And this is The Companion Journal, which is still in progress. I haven't written anything in it, actually. I just published a great box. Carell, you want a drink? Sure. Oh, yeah. Sherry. Johnson? We might have to move this, so Johnson can... So what do you do with this? That would be my question. This is just a collection of recycled thoughts and ideas by... Oh, put it here, Johnson. So you can just put your own scrap material. Whatever you want. So you sell them blind to you. Yes. That's great. And there's stubs, so you can build them up with whatever you want. Careful, careful, careful. There we are, Carell. Thank you. I'd like to see my book. No, thank you, Johnson. Just a... Don't you have something else to do, Johnson? Thank you. He's got pretensions, you know. Cheers. It's nice to see you. So this also... And this book is this wonderful cloth. Tell us about this cloth. This is amazing. Look at this. Let's see. I think this cloth is actually from Senegal. Uh-huh. And then these are various veneers from... Show it to them. Oh, it has a wood veneer on there. Yes. This is a dyed carry. This is a natural carry veneer. That's a sugi veneer. Uh-huh. Now, how do you get these from Senegal? Can you buy them in America? Well, imported, yeah. You can get them at various fabric stores. And you've used this wonderful colored paper here for the text block. Oh, that. It has a sort of rainbow effect on the forehead. Yeah, let's see that. Okay. I think this was actually some damaged paper from a local paper distributor. Uh-huh. I went in and it was like a dollar for a ream, so I walked away with it. So there it is. Yeah. Well, good. And I particularly like the fact that on this book here, there are all these great things you can play with. Here's a little compass in case you get lost. Here's a spring, so if you drop it on the floor, it bounces back up. These are all found. Yeah. Got it. Just on my walks. That's great. A pair of handcuffs here. And we'll whip it. That's actually Robocop's leg. Oh, yeah. How about that? Oh, do you know I know the man who designed Robocop? No. Yeah, yeah. Great, great, man. Phil Tiffett in Berkeley. And maybe I could get a few knock-off parts from the original for you. Okay. I'm sure he'd be willing. There it is. Well, thanks very much for coming. You're quite welcome. And I'll see you next year. All right. Thanks. And now let's move on. Our next book is by a local binder, Judy Hodling, who's done a very nice, it's another travel book, actually. And this really looks like a book. You can see that it has a nice quarter-bound effect there, title on the spine. But it's really, when you put it down, you can see that it's a box. And here's Judy right now. Hi, Judy. Hi, John. Hi, Dominic. Hi, Judy. Nice to have you here. Judy, you've done this wonderful box with this wonderful paper, which we'll talk about in a minute. And inside this book, it's another travel book, isn't it? Yes, it is. And why don't we open it up and take a look? Isn't it also a travel book from Africa? No, from the Middle East. No, this is from the Holy Land. And it's actually my grandfather's. Your grandfather's letters. Letters of travel. And I tried to do a facsimile version. You've done this as part of an edition, isn't it? Yes. It's an edition of 13. So it's a facsimile. It looks exactly like the original. Yes, it's Xerox. It's Xerox is actually of the TypeScript. And then I bound it in the same way that my grandfather had with handmade paper. Yeah, with these two, and sort of a stab binding there. Yes. Did he also have a nice ribbon like this? Yes, he did have a ribbon. And this is an old ribbon. The letters date from 1911. So I've tried to make it kind of authentic. But when I finished it, I realized it was very fragile and it wouldn't stand up. So I then made this box. So you've made this beautiful, lovely box. And the box is lined with ultra suede. Judy, how about a drink? Oh, wonderful. Do you like sherry? Oh, yes, I love sherry. That's what we have. Now you've got this wonderful, and what I really like about this piece is all the colors really come together beautifully. Oh, thank you. And the ultra suede here. It makes a nice nest. You've also made it. Oh, here he is. Oh, Johnson, be careful. He's not very good at this. I took the liberty of bringing my book. I'm sorry? What? My book. Oh, thank you very much. That's very nice. We have something else to look at. We're very busy right now. Judy, here's your sherry. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you, Johnson. Thank you. Well, cheers. Welcome to the show. Thank you. Thank you, Judy. To our show and your show. Right. What we were saying about the ultra suede is that you've done this wonderful little croff here that you've cut out of. I'm assuming that's where the ribbon goes. That's right. And the ultra suede makes a nice little nest for the book. Yeah. And then I've covered it with this paste paper, which I made myself. Wonderful paste paper. And it looks like a sort of a, how did you get this pattern effect here? Well, I actually painted bubble wrap and used that. Stamped it. So that's a really innovative way of making a paste paper. Thank you. So you take a plain piece of paper and you brush paint onto it. Do you? No, I brush the paint onto the bubble wrap and then put that onto the paper. It's wonderful. So shall we see how the book goes in? Oh, yes. I want to see how this thing works, too. It does. Lovely. So this ultra suede is like what? It's not really suede. Oh, it's a man-made suede. Right. And this will close over that. Gorgeous. Like so. That's lovely. Thanks very much for coming, Judy. Thanks to you. See you next year. John, did I ever tell you about that time that I bound a book in water buffalo hide? Oh, no. Don't you have a book? Oh, I think I got something somewhere here. It's a lovely little book. It's called Arrow Food. See? Oh, Arrow Food. Covered it in sand. Where is that, man? Yeah. Johnson. More drinks. Oh, a double six. Oh, you know, it's got some text. Uh-huh. Comes in a nice little box. Made it all myself. I'll just put the weight up next to him. Oh, is he? I win. Don, don't you have a book somewhere? What? This is my book. Oh. A book don't look like a book. It's about time. I had to grab for another bottle of fat. Oh, dear. I know. You just can't get the stuff these days, can you? Thank you very much. We'll buy a case next time. Yes. I would really like to show you my book. Oh, thank you very much, Johnson. Now, go away, and we'll... It's very nice. Now, go away. We'll talk to you later. Yeah. Well, anyway, it's time to move on with the show. Who have we got to see now? John, be careful. Oh, I'm sorry. I think that's just spilled on a... Yeah, that's all right, isn't it? It was just Johnson's anyway. I think things are descending into the usual chaos here. And we're going to talk now to our very good friend. Who is it? Oh, it's our friend, John. No, it's not. It's our friend Molly. Is it Molly? Yes, Molly West. Molly West. Yes, let's see. Molly. Boom. Here she is now. Hello, Molly. Molly. Hi. Welcome to the show. Hi, Molly. Thank you. And thanks for bringing your lovely book. Yeah, can you show your book to us, please? Sure. Sure. And this is... What's this? Beautiful material that's covering it. It's veiled it. This is a photo album. That's right. That you have made in your shop in Emoryville. That's correct. And you mass produce these, I understand. What do you do? I wouldn't say mass produce. Well, yeah, small scale mass production. You're in production in these things, right? Right. Right. Molly, could I get you a drink? Would you like a share? Sure, I'd love one. Of Let Me. That would be great. Tell us about how this book has been made, first of all. Sure. Well, this is just a combination of different materials. We didn't actually make these materials, but it's Japanese paper on the inside. Oh, right. Here it is. Yeah. Molly, I believe this is... Right, thank you. Good job. Thank you very much. I'll have a refill, please. Me too. And thank you so much. Thank you. Careful there. Perhaps the young lady would care to see my book. That'd be great. I'd love to see that. That'd be great. I'd love to see that. Thank you anyway, Johnson. He's been trying to show us his book all day. So, Japanese paper on the inside. That's beautiful. Thank you. This is cloth here, though. This is a cloth joint here. That's correct. And then we have acid-free cover stock for the pages. It's intended to be a photo album or scrapbook. It's all archival. Now, Molly, something that I think that's interesting that you do with your cloths is you basically have your own book cloth. You have your book cloth backed. Great. Thank you. You send it to someone who will back it with paper. So, these aren't traditional book binding cloths that you buy. Right. These are our own. So, you've been really innovative and you've found regular cloth, and you've transformed it so that it can be used for books. That's what I think is really nice about this book is the materials are really exquisite. What's this for? Ribbon. Well, it's a French wire ribbon that we just used for tying the binding itself. Oh, this holds the book together. And the wire is what holds that shape. That's correct. But this is really just sort of like a stab binding. That's right. That's right. It's a very simple sewing structure. Beautiful thing. And this also, I understand, is self-adhesive too. We should also mention at this point that Molly is our exhibition's chair this year. Who is responsible for this whole exhibit. That's how you got the book in the chair. You should come down and see it. It's a great show. Thanks very much. Let us put our books in. Yeah. Thank you, Molly. And we'll see you on Thursday night. Thank you. Thanks, Molly. And we do have to move on. And it's our last guest, unfortunately. And it is... It is Joanne Sonicson. Welcome to Joanne. And here's Joanne's book. It's a lovely black on black on black. Where are you going? It's a little slate thrown in there. It's The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe. Printed by the Chalandidae Press. And here's Joanne. Hi, Joanne. Hi, Joanne. You have a wonderful announcement to make. You've hot footed it over here from the private meeting of the... Top meeting. Oh, a very public meeting. Oh, a public. Why weren't we invited? Surprise me. Sorry. Oh, we were here, making a check. Right. The Book Club of California. That's right. And is it true that you've just been elected their new president? Yes, that's true. Well, congratulations. Congratulations. Thank you so much. I'm sure you're the best man for the job. Now, would you like a drink to celebrate? I'd love one. Absolutely. Johnson will bring our sherry, I'm sure. Now, why don't you tell us about your book. Tell us a bit about your book while we wait. I think most people are aware of the poem, which is a little bit depressing. Somba, I'd say. Somba is a good word for it. Not very uplifting. Yeah. It's one of the most difficult parts. Oh. Excuse me, John. Excuse me. Oh, excuse me. This is mine. Thank you so much. I appeal to you, madam, as a woman of taste, to take a look at my soul. Oh. Johnson, please. Joanne, I'm sorry. I have to... Just a minute. No, no, I... But he looks familiar. Oh. It's purely a coincidence. He's an old retainer of ours. I don't think you've ever seen him before. No. Which, well, very great. One of the more difficult aspects of the design of this book was to keep away from using color, because the Raven is, after all, a very depressing poem. And the book, as you can see, has the impression of having a stamp on it. It is not a stamp. There are three different leathers on it. Yeah, I don't know if you can see that. There's one in the center here, which sits on this one, and then the leather, that is the covering leather. It's box calf, Kate Morocco, and shagram with this print. And this leather is extremely smooth. I also notice that you have a lovely... Now, what have you done to this leather to make it so smooth? This one, once the book was covered, I sanded the entire surface, outside surface, and then waxed it with a colored wax that I got from the Bibliotech National. And that is... Now, the only color here is the edge. You have gold here. Now, you gilded this yourself, didn't you? Yes. This gold edge. You didn't send it to France. No. A lot of people do that, though. I don't. Oh, well, good for you. Good for you. Thanks for bringing it, Joanne. It's my pleasure. Thank you for showing it, and congratulations on your new presidency. Well, thank you, gentlemen. Thanks, Joanne. John? Yeah? We've come to the end of our show. Oh, our anniversary show. Our anniversary show, one-year happy marriage. So why don't we say... Hope to see you many more years. Thank you very much for coming down here to see us today, and please come and see our show. Yeah. It's up through the end of November at the San Francisco Public Library, South Wing, Third Floor, and at the Honnold Library from December through January in Claremont, if you're down in the LA area. Yeah. So please come down and see the show. Bottoms up. Yeah. Or bottoms down. Yeah. Oh, perhaps I could show you my book, which is bound with wool, Morocco on lays and... Oh, dear.