book arts – Peachey Conservation

July 2, 2021

Upcoming Delrin and Bamboo Toolmaking Workshops, Fall 2021

It is a great feeling to use a tool you have custom designed to fit your hand and working methods.

Making tools is not only engaging and fun, but entirely practical since the result is set of tools you can use daily. Book conservators, other conservators, bookbinders, technicians, artists and others will find this workshop valuable. Filing, scraping and polishing are meditative activities, no previous experience required. Working Delrin and bamboo is a great way to start toolmaking and we will make folders, lifting tools, microspatulas, hera, and creasing tools. Most of the skills and techniques taught are transferable to wood and bone toolmaking too. Fair warning: making your own tools is highly addictive!

Thankfully, the pandemic is subsiding in New York, but I originally created this workshop specifically to teach online with a kit, and it has worked well for the past four sessions, so I will keep it up for a while. So far 49 students from 7 countries have completed this workshop.

All aspects of making tools with delrin and bamboo will be discussed in detail: design considerations, cutting, filing, rough shaping, final shaping, and polishing. The workshop consists of two 3- hour synchronous zoom sessions with PPT’s, videos, discussion of handouts, demonstrations, Q&A chat sessions, and working together. Also included is one month access to web resources, PPTs and videos demonstrating key techniques.

The workshop includes a kit with enough materials to make nine tools with a retail value over $300. A set of hand tools is also included: a cherry bench hook, scraper, burnisher, a file for plastics, and a variety of sanding and polishing supplies. All you need is a stable work surface, a few common hand tools, and some time to work outside of class.

DATES: There will be three sessions: September 11 + 18, October 16 + 23, November 13 + 20

Saturdays, . 12-3pm Pacific, 1-4pm Mountain, 2-5pm Central, 3-6pm Eastern, 8-11pm GMT, 9-12 CET, 10 – 1am EET, 5am – 8am (+ 1 day) JST, 6am – 9am ( +1 day) UTC

COST: $390 US Register here.

International participants need to contact me confirming they wish to attend, I will save a seat and send you an invoice enabling you to pay by credit card. I will hold the seat for 24 hours after I send the invoice. The cost is $440 Canada, $465 EU and other countries, and $490 Australia and New Zealand. This includes kit shipping. Up to 3 kits can ship in one box internationally, so if you place one order for 2 or 3 people there will be substantial shipping savings, with the second and third places costing $390.

SCHOLARSHIP

A generous patron has offered a scholarship (worth $390 — $490) for the “Delrin and Bamboo Toolmaking Workshop”, to be held November 13 + 20, 2021. The award is intended for a book conservator, bookbinder, or technician new to the profession, with less than five years working experience, who is in need of financial assistance. Domestic and international applications are welcome.

To apply, contact me with the subject heading “Tool Making Scholarship Fall 2021”.

The application should consist of two paragraphs, the first explaining why this scholarship is necessary to the applicant, the second detailing how it would benefit the applicant’s work. Applications are due September 1, and the successful candidate notified September 7. Submission not adhering to this application process will not be considered, and unsuccessful candidates will not be notified.

Some versions of the tools you will make in this workshop.

May 1, 2020May 1, 2020

Cathryn Miller’s Five Essential Tools for a Book Artist

Top to Bottom: a custom scribing tool, well used Olfa Model 5001, Olfa swivel cutter with scalpel blade, ruler, and hemostat

Cathryn Miller

Book Artist. Byopia Press, Blog, Instagram

In my practice I create artist’s books and content-sensitive altered book works. I rarely use the sewn codex as a format, so I did not include an awl —I have three lovely ones in different sizes made for me by my partner David— or a needle. My two most used tools in any project are a home-made scoring/scribing tool and an Olfa snap-off-blade knife. I also use a scalpel when cutting, especially curves. The eighteen inch steel rule is absolutely essential. The surgical forceps would not have made my list under normal circumstances, but I discovered that they were the only tool I own that would enable me to assemble my most recent artist’s book.

The tools I would miss most:

Bone folders (four at this point)
Glue brushes (though I have been known to use my fingers)
Swivel knife and Circle Tool
Set of graduated width steel rules
Kutrimmer 1080

May 19, 2015May 19, 2015

Books and Representations of Books on Display at The Cloisters Museum

The Cloisters is a branch of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, located in upper Manhattan, quite near my studio. In fact, I think I might be able to see it, if I climbed up on my bench and peeked out the upper left corner of my window. Northern Manhattan is quite different from the rest of the city. It is where the Dutch purchased the island from the Native Americans and there is still even a farmhouse located on Broadway dating to 1784, which is now a museum.

The Cloisters was built (assembled?) in 1938, and consists of four medieval buildings imported from Europe. It is located inside the 66 acres of Fort Tryon park. There are also beautiful gardens, including a nice garden featuring plants used for making dyes and paints. Looking across the Hudson River, there is a stunning view of the Palisades of New Jersey which John D. Rockefeller so admired he purchased 12 miles of shoreline to preserve the naturalistic view from the park.

The Cloisters is not only my favorite museum, but it has my favorite painting, The Merode Alterpiece. Note to the impecunious: although the Met recommends a $25 entrance fee, you can pay whatever you wish.

In April of 2015, I decided to photograph 34 actual books and works of art which contain representations of books which were on display. This was also a great chance to try a lot of handheld, low light photography with my new Panasonic Lumix DMC-GX7, which is proving to be the second best camera I’ve ever owned. There are higher resolution images for most of these on the Met site, searchable by accession number.

If anyone would like to visit my studio, we could take a short detour to the Cloisters and look at the works, discussing what we can — and can’t — learn from looking at representations of books in art. Or you can can use this as a virtual or self guided tour.

BOOKS AND REPRESENTATIONS OF BOOKS ON DISPLAY IN APRIL, 2015,

AT THE CLOISTERS MUSEUM, NYC

This virtual tour starts on the main level in the Late Gothic Hall, and follows a counterclockwise path around the Cuxa Cloister, then jumps to the Gothic chapel, Glass Gallery and the Treasury on the lower level.

LATE GOTHIC HALL