Bookmaking concepts

Books are taken for granted. They are rarely regarded as art. The majority of books the general public is familiar with are bound simply and presented with text or photos presenting a story. It seems that children's books are the only avenue of departure from conventional binding. Remember pop-up books when you were a child? That is a form of book art. It is interactive and dimensional. The pop-up book ventures into your world.

Most media can only be experienced in a chronological manner. We watch films from beginning to end. We listen to songs from start to finish. The greatest advantage a book offers the reader is the ability to control the sequence of events. The pace of the experience is viewer determined. A reader turns pages at their leisure, reading random pages at will. While a book will offer the same presentation of content each time, the reader’s experience can vary each viewing depending on where the reader chooses to begin.

For a book artist, a book is more than a collection of pages glued together. When considering a new project, several components must be considered; the nature of the binding will facilitate the presentation and the pace of the story. Each element of the book is considered as an aggregate, each contributes to the whole of the book's entity. A specific binding may allow many pages to be viewed simultaneously, or limit the experience to only one page at a time. The type of papers used for the cover, text pages and end sheets will convey a visual and literal texture. The dimension of the book and pages will determine the amount of content per page. The book is the artist's studio, and the pages become canvases. The book as a whole becomes the experience, not simply the content of each page. The book becomes art.

A book is the joining of many parts, each vital, each telling a story. The joy experienced when exploring a handmade book is an adventure; a new world visited over and over. This is a world in which the reader has complete control over the advancement of time. In an age where the demand for the delivery of information has become immediate, a handmade book is the antithesis of such information delivery. Books are meant to be held and read leisurely. Handmade books are designed to open up into your world so you may explore their world.

This is books.by.hand.

Enjoy your entry to the world of book art.