The Temptation of Handmade Paper

  

Last week I went to see the atelier of Razvan Supuran, Romanian artist who makes paper by  hand. Or better yet, craftsman, as he considers himself. It was a fascinating experience. From the moment you enter the door of his atelier time seems to slow down. In a world of technology, there it's an island of peace and imagination that gives a different quality to life.

At the Romanian Peasant Museum, Razvan and his team make more than paper. They make art from it. They do printing, bookbinding, book art and much more. The best part is, you can just take your ideas and go there. For sure you will find a way to make them come real.

"Craft is learned and carried on. You give to others.

This is how the Book Atelier started. An idea continued with another, a hand came to help the other and the first papers started to show up: born from vegetables or reborn from their  recycled sisters. With respect, patience, joy. Through the practice of handmade paper."

http://atelieruldecarte.blogspot.com

 I confess, sticking my hands into the paper pulp felt utterly delicious.

I got home that evening with a pile of delicious handmade paper. I wanted to keep it for something special. But then I wanted to see how it folds. Then how it tears. Then how it is sewed. And in that same evening it turned into a book :)

 

  

Bolg Feature

  

Robyn from ArtPropelled wrote a wonderful post on journals and inspiring quotations and she selected for it some of the most beautiful journals I've seen in a long while. She was so kind to include some of mine.

I literary had to take out my journal and copy some of the quotes people left in their comments. My favorite for today - 

"I want to unfold. I don’t want to stay folded anywhere, because where I am folded, there I am a lie."

       from:

I Am Too Alone
by Rainer Maria Rilke

I am too alone in the world, and not alone enough
to make every minute holy.
I am too tiny in this world, and not tiny enough
just to lie before you like a thing,

shrewd and secretive.

I want my own will, and I want simply to be with my will,

as it goes toward action,

and in the silent, sometimes hardly moving times

when something is coming near,

I want to be with those who know secret things

or else alone.

I want to be a mirror for your whole body,

and I never want to be blind, or to be too old

to hold up your old and swaying picture.

I want to unfold.

I don’t want to stay folded anywhere,

because where I am folded, there I am a lie.

And I want my grasp of things

true before you.  I want to describe myself

like a painting that I looked at

closely for a long time,

like a saying that I finally understood,

like the pitcher I use every day, like the face of my mother,

like a ship that took me safely

through the wildest storm of all.

~ from Selected Poems of Rainer Maria Rilke,
translated by Robert Bly (Harper & Row, 1981)

Go over to Robyn's blog for some quality reading and to her website if you want to see the works of an incredibly talented artist who carves totems in wood.
 

Books with Memory

Yesterday it was Saturday so I went to the fair. It was not a really good day, full of finds, but I got these three photos. They are from the beginning of the last century, all mounted on cardboard, not in perfect state but meanwhile I already cleaned them and they look great. I have been collecting old photos since many years and I've always felt moved by them. But these three got me thinking so I finally shaped an idea that was going through my head since a while now. I don't want to make just books, but to restore pieces of history and create books with a story to tell. Books that have character, that have soul. Books with memory.

It's not just a matter of incorporating old photos into my books - I played with this idea before and liked it very much, but this is more than that. It's about everything, the materials I use and have a story to tell, even the design itself. 

And so I embark in a new journey. A slightly different concept, not necessarily new but rather an evolved one. "Books with Memory" - another project,  perhaps another book shop. This is a big fear for any business, especially among the Etsy shops, but why not? I like to think that this is only the beginning. For me this might be just the right time.
 

The Trio

These are the three books that came out of my last paper staining session. Monday we will fill the garden with paper again, probably for the last time this summer.

My personal favorite book of the Trio is the one below. We call it scarface :-)

A new approach, definitely something I will want to play with again later on.

 Thanks to my friend Liviu who bought it fresh out of the press.

 

The making of a book

A quick sneak peek :)

It all starts with the paper... tearing it into pages, staining it and folding it into signatures.

Then comes the sewing of the book block. 

Followed by the gluing of the spine and rounding of the back. Like so it goes into the press over the night. Meanwhile all attention is directed to the making and the tooling of the cover.

 

For this hollow back binding the raised bands are attached directly onto the spine.

 

Then one of my favorite steps, selecting the endpages... Gluing them will attach
the book block to the cover.

 

And finally, the last touches. The decoration of the cover with black and gold leather paints.

And look, how wonderful it shows its tea stained pages when it's open.