Fritz Otto Goes Fishing

Thanks to Fritz Otto, I'm able to dive into another round of making fish skin parchment and leather. Have three skins in this batch, one coho salmon, and two haddocks. He'll make parchment from one of the haddocks, and then "we'' egg-tan the other and the coho following Nienke Hoogvliet's instructions from her book Fish Leather, a by-product of her RE-SEA ME project. Will be nice to have two identical species to compare.

A few weeks ago, Fritz Otto skinned the fillets we got,
freezing the skins until we're ready. This is the coho.

Back at it, again, with haddock and cohoe salmon. Will try egg tanning with some. Added research for an article on #fishskinbinding. pic.twitter.com/crrhbVUlYf

— Peter D. Verheyen (@PressbengelProj) August 31, 2019

The skins were rinsed in unscented/un-dyed dish detergent to help remove oils.
This process was repeated a few times, the skins kept in the refrigerator in-between
to prevent decay.

Next I showed him how to remove any remaining fleshy bits
from the skin. 

He used a scalpel and scrapped away...

Tiring work he just wanted to hide after.
He said it was kind-of gross.
I gave him some space...

Reading up from Nienke Hoogvliet's instructions from her book Fish Leather

The skins are soaking in a Mason jar with the dish detergent again. Tomorrow we stake out the one haddock to make parchment, and then start the egg-tanning. Looks straight forward.

See Fritz Otto Goes Fishing 2 for the next steps.

See also:
"Fips" and His Eels: Fish Skin in Bookbinding

Book Arts arts du livre Canada (Vol 10., Nr. 2, 2019)

"Fish Tales, experiments with fish skin for bookbinding

The New Bookbinder: Journal of Designer Bookbinders (2020)

Bookbinding Supplies | Buchbinderei-Bedarf, 1928

Below the 1928 Braunwarth & Lüthke catalog that gives a wonderful sense of the all the expendable supplies (paper, cloth, leather), hand tools, and equipment that a bookbinder of that time would have had available to them. Schmedt in Hamburg acquired Braunwarth & Lüthke 1990[ish] to give them a branch in Munich.

While not all items are depicted, where they are they can be a great aid to understanding terminology in foreign language manuals, especially in tandem with a resource like the Multi-lingual Bookbinding/Conservation Dictionary, https://bookbindingdictionary.com .

Braunwarth & Lüthke, München,
Braunwarth & Lüthke - Preis-Liste über Materialien, Werkzeuge, Beschläge,
Apparate und Maschinen für Buchbindereien und verwandte Branchen.1928.

Scanning all 138 pages with Fritz Otto's help.
No worries, the signatures were all loosely sew and the wrapper off, so no damage.

Complete tool sets for apprentices just starting out, and those more advanced.
Included were a bone folder, bookbinding knife, paring knife, scissors,
sewing needles, keys for securing raised cords in the sewing frame, a green linen apron.
The advanced included more of some of the tools and a divider.
Mk 14 and 17 respectively. (Page 42)

Everything needed to equip a small hand bindery.
Mk 1620 (Page 125)

View below or download here.

Syracuse Book Bindery

Something a bit closer to home from Syracuse's golden industrial past...

Thanks to a friend and colleague I got this great advertisement for the Syracuse Book Bindery of Jacob H. Miller. The ad is from 1867 and promotes services of all kinds in the "best manner, on short notice, and at low rates." I wonder how they managed it.

Syracuse Book Bindery of Jacob H. Miller, ca. 1867.

Good, cheap, or fast. You can really only have 2 of those.

I'm looking for a contemporary photo of the location at 23 & 24 Washington St, here in Syracuse, but nothing yet. This is what that location looks like now. While the current building is old, it in all likelihood looked more like the one below the Google Street View image.

Below a view of another bindery... from the 1850s, the site of the Jerry Rescue that was part  of Syracuse's abolitionist past. The location of this building is about 2 blocks away and more typical of the architecture of the time. The buildings name gives pause - perhaps an earlier location of our bindery?

The Jerry Rescue Building was located in Clinton Square
on the corner of Clinton Street and Water Street.
From the Syracuse Historic Walking Tour pages.

Fritz Otto Buchbinder

Needed a little help, alright a lot of help, in the studio, something that was very evident during Bookbinder Barbie's visit. We had fun, worked well together, and I was able to teach her about some of my favorite weird bookbinding proclivities like making parchment from fish skin. Most of what I learned from that experience was that working alone can be hard for any number of reasons.

That got me talking to some old connections in Germany, and through them learned about a very motivated and well-versed binder, Fritz Otto Buchbinder, who was looking for some new experiences. He's a Journeyman (Geselle) working towards his Meister, learned from some very good (and not so good) binders in the trade, and spent time at one of the few remaining art academies teaching binding. There are also a lot of under- and unemployed bookbinders around...

He arrived recently on the friendly skies of Lusthansa. They even managed to lose all his tools, save one. Ouch! To the rescue. the New World's best tool maker, Jeff Peachey who was able to outfit him with some of his finest tools. I was able to scare up some bone folders and Berlin-style brushes with the metal handle that he likes so much. The one tool he managed to save was the bone folder his Meister gave him as an apprentice. This Meister had gotten from the Meister of his Meisterin. Apparently it had guided a certain Franz through his career as a binder. There it is grinning from the pocket of his lab coat.

Fritz Otto Buchbinder with his Peachey Swiss paring knife.

The tool starter set, more will appear as they are needed and made.

Looking at paring knifes in the 1928 Braunwarth & Lüthke catalog.
Fritz prefers the Swiss and French styles of knives to the traditional German kind.
This is the result of bad experiences he had with the knife his Meister gave him –
Said it was a stumpfe Gurke... (dull cucumber).

Fritz is already getting lost in the Fachbibliothek. He's glad to find his familiar
German manuals, but is also very interested in what he can learn from the
English (and other) ones. I'm sure his English will improve quickly.

Fritz was blown away to see this binding from the "golden age" of German binding,
the period between the World Wars.

Examining a "Dorfner-style" open joint binding on the print-on-demand version of
Ernst Collin's The Bone Folder (Der Pressbengel).

I look forward to having Fritz Otto in the studio with me, teaching him things as well as learning from him. He's curious, loves exploring the old binding manuals and trade publications. Mostly, I'm sure he'll get me binding more. I'll also be glad for his help working on the layout and running the trains.

A Fish Skin Rug

I was recently made aware of Studio Nienke Hoogvliet, "a design studio for material research, experimental and conceptual design based in The Hague, The Netherlands. The studio was founded in 2013 with a focus on "raising awareness of social and environmental problems in the textile, leather and food industry."

In her project SEA ME she researches how seaweed can contribute to a more sustainable textile industry. RE-SEA ME focuses on the applications of fish skin. She also published a book describing her method of preparing skins without chemicals. Based on the video this looks like she is making parchment, a topic dear to my heart. The book costs $75 including shipping to the US. Can't wait to get my copy and wish I had a rug like she made. Perhaps I need to make my own.

RE-SEA ME is the continuation of SEA ME. To show the duality between plastic waste in the oceans and the sustainable materials the oceans have to offer, Nienke continued her search for materials out of the sea. She discovered that fish skins are a waste product of the fishing industry, while you can also make them into beautiful leather.

She went to fish shops to collect their waste and discovered a way of tanning the skins without any chemicals. By using an old technique, that requires a lot of manual labour, she created a strong, sustainable and beautiful material that can be used like regular leather. To show the abilities of the leather, Nienke designed a small stool with fish leather seating. To continue the SEA ME collection, she also designed a conceptual rug where the fish leather is sown into a discarded fishing net.

RE-SEA ME from Studio Nienke Hoogvliet on Vimeo.

Bookbinder Barbie Visits Syracuse

So, @BookbinderBarbie is a real thing. In some ways she is becoming an "influencer" and a meme for the bookbinding and book arts set online, at least I hope she will become. We could all use a lighthearted ambassador that makes what we do accessible to the "masses," at least I think so.

She was started by North Bennet Street School Bookbinding (NBSS) students a year ago, and has been sharing her experiences in that program and during her travels ever since. This summer she is visiting binders, conservators, printers, artists, and many others throughout the US, before heading back to start her second year at NBSS. Think of it as a series of intense, short-term internships.

Bookbinderbarbie on Instagram
https://www.instagram.com/bookbinderbarbie/

I was fortunate to have her visit this past week, and we had some great experiences in a few short days. She got here late because Air USPS "lost her," then decompressed for an evening by looking at some books including one about her in a past life, and playing with the trains. Next day we headed across Syracuse to see some sights and visit Boxcar Press and the great people there. That evening, I taught her the stiffened paper binding (Steifbroschure) and we made a 1/4 fish leather binding with sides covered in hand printed cloth made by an artist in Venice. This was a prelude to making her own parchment from salmon the next day. That next day she got to go to work with me, and while I was doing my thing with spreadsheets (she wasn't interested) she received a personal tour of Syracuse University Libraries' amazing Plastics Collection from Courtney, the curator. She was an instant fan!

After we got home it was time to make that parchment. Below a few photos, embedded posts from with links to the others from Syracuse. To see all her adventures, you know you want to, scroll through her Insta feed, better yet follow for there is much more to come.

Richard Minsky Nice to see Barbara Slate's Marvel Barbie comic.
It's been 25 years since Barbie taught at the Center for Book Arts.
Looks like a new bookbinder Barbie may take that position ❣️
Barbie #43, July, 1994.

Making a 1/4 fishskin case binding with printed cloth sides.
Barbie came with her own tools.

The stiffened paper binding (Steifbroschure)
More under https://pressbengel.blogspot.com/search/label/steifbroschure

View this post on Instagram

Got to see some right-sized (for me) books made by @pattisonpaperworks for the last GBW show. Also got to finish some books Peter started for me due to my compressed schedule. One is my first and hopefully not last #fishskinbinding with beautiful Venetian printed cloth and a rock bass parchment spine. The other is a stiffened paper binding with some beautiful pastepaper. The last is a really simple and easy to "fancy up" structure. Tonight we make parchment from the big fish in the pond. Not sure Peter's kidding - hard to read sometimes with a twisted sense of humor.

A post shared by Barbie M. Roberts (@bookbinderbarbie) on Jul 26, 2019 at 3:11am PDT

Syracuse's own Niagara Mohawk building, an art deco gem.

I got to go shopping for a delicious meal in advance of Barbie's visit. Yum!

Stretching out the salmon parchment.

Inspecting the stretched out skin.

A full step-by-step description of the process can be
found under 
https://pressbengel.blogspot.com/2018/05/
more-fish-parchment-mehr-fisch-pergament.html

View this post on Instagram

So, #fishskinbinding time, or more precisely parchment making. Rinsed skin, was not the koi, but rather salmon. Next staked it to dry under tension. Gonna be big, almost as tall as me. More in the next post.

A post shared by Barbie M. Roberts (@bookbinderbarbie) on Jul 26, 2019 at 3:40pm PDT

Finally, looking at some books, here the Boss Dog Press edition
of Ernst Collin's Pressbengel that was translated
by Peter D. Verheyen as The Bone Folder. 
Download the text laid out for binding in the left sidebar,
make some fish parchment, and bind your own copy.
Make sure to share pictures.

Links to all the posts from Syracuse:

• Arrival and Relaxation
• Trains and Tour of Bindery
• Tour of Syracuse
• Boxcar Press 1 | Boxcar Press 2
• Bookbinding
• Syracuse University Libraries Plastics Collection | Link to collection online
• Parchment 1 | Parchment 2

I can't wait to see what Barbie does next and how she grows as an emerging professional. Perhaps she'll tell her story in a journal article or blog post somewhere. I know I had a wonderful time hosting her, and know all the others she visited did as well. What a great way to spend the summer. Made me feel young again.

Related, perhaps other programs and individual book artists could adopt this concept with their own Avatars, and then they could all converse and grow together as practicing binders and book arts professionals.

Oh, Twitter seems to be enjoying her, too.

Some tweet reactions!

Sprayed and Stenciled Papers

Decorated papers from the Hübel & Denck Monatsblätter 1924 & 1925, as well as a photo showing process from Praktische Winke für den Verkehr zwischen Verlag und Buchbinderei published by the Leipziger Buchbinderei A.G., 1926. The decorated papers are created with sprayed colors using stencils and other techniques. See also pochoir, schabloniertes Papier. Paul Klein wrote an article on the topic, "Das Spritzverfahren in der Buchbinderei" for Der Buchbinderlehrling, vol 2, nr 8, 1928.

End- and covering paper Pekapapier Nr. 84 made in our own workshop
from a design by Paul Klein.
Hübel & Denck Monatsblätter, Nr. 2, 1924.

End- and covering paper Pekapapier Nr. 96 made in our own workshop.
Hübel & Denck Monatsblätter, Nr. 3, 1924.

Peka sprayed paper made in our own workshop using light-fast colors,
a new development that has man advantages in addition to the attractive soft-toned colors.
Hübel & Denck Monatsblätter, Nr. 1, 1925.

Photo showing process of making sprayed and stenciled papers
from Praktische Winke published by the Leipziger Buchbinderei A.G., 1926.