It feels so good to hold a thing you’ve made. Even more to give it away. This is why I share the art of bookbinding, running workshops in which participants make an entire book themselves, each picking color combinations for the case to make an artifact that is uniquely their own.

Attend a workshop

I currently run bookbinding workshops in San Diego’s Liberty Station through the San Diego Craft Collective. The workshop has even gotten some nice reviews. Occasionally I’ll get invited by a library to do an event.

Host a workshop

If you would like me to bring the materials to you and run a workshop as an event in your space, please reach me via email.

The beauty of binding

I find books to be beautiful structures. Rigid enough to protect something as delicate as paper, flexible enough to use it.

I see this balance of loose and tight in my music and writing as well, but it’s particularly physical in a handmade book. Sewing pages together with just enough slack in the thread not to bite the paper, yet with tension enough to keep the sheets from moving and preserve them. It is similar when attaching the text block to the case so that it’s snug yet opens easily.

Binding is also a meditation on materials. It shows me that I do not make a book alone, and that the object is interdependent on many processes. This is particularly clear in the decorative papers and book cloth, materials which are made in other countries with historically meaningful processes.

I look forward to sharing it with you.