Packing and Shipping Art - An Adventure

 Martha Edgerton, book conservator and artist, was one of my first supervisors and mentors when I was a wet behind the ears and ahead of myself work-study student in the Department of Conservation and Preservation (1981-84) at Johns Hopkins. I've always admired her work so was happy to give Human Enclosure II, a powerful statement on the parallels of slavery and mass incarceration here in the United States, a home. It's been wonderful to keep the connection with her all this time. 

The work is part of a larger series about the Atlantic slave trade titled The Amazing Race: The Atlantic Slave Trade Through the Pages of Book Art acquired in part by Special Collections at Johns Hopkins' Sheridan Libraries along with other works by Martha. Back in 2017, I was able to see many of those works as part of a larger exhibit at the Libraries titled Freedom Where I Stand that included many historic documents along with works of art that spoke to those themes.

Josephine Baker in Freedom Where I Stand

In the online catalog for the exhibit. 
"The theater box represents the barracoons used to temporarily jail
captured Africans until enslavement and mid-Atlantic transport.
It also speaks to the subject of mass incarceration."

I purchased the piece from a large exhibit held in Baltimore at the Creative Alliance back in July. After the close of the exhibit it took a long time to get the work shipped, and then when it arrived it was damaged in transit. Talking with Martha, she asked to complete the needed conservation treatment and shipped it back to me. That was November 30th, and it took over 6 weeks to make it back to Syracuse. 

COVID is real! USPS is everywhere and its employees very exposed.
Value them, they are essential!

Martha had her assistant LuLu help secure the elements and pack it up. The two of them did a great job (Martha is a very good teacher). LuLu's small fingers were no doubt an asset and really able to get in there.

LuLu preparing it for its journey.
Little did we know how long.

So, for the same reason I asked Fritz Otto to unpack. No damage this time. 

It was nice to see everything supported and secured so well.

Big supports, but very light.

The right tools for the job.

Even little supports where they were needed.

Everybody needs a hand, sometimes.

Almost done.

All done. So glad there was no damage. Thank YOU LuLu.
Perhaps we'll have a chance to meet someday.

The work really makes you think about the Black lives destroyed by slavery and mass incarceration. We can and must do so much better.

Bookbinders from Meinholds Handwerkerbilder

Below the image for bookbinding from Meinholds Handwerkerbilder. This was number 15 in the series illustrating trades. They were produced by Meinhold und Söhne, Dresden primarily as "posters" that were suspended between wooden rods for classroom use in 1924. The scan below is from a postcard series that was also issued.

Meinholds Handwerkerbild Nr. 15, Buchbinder

The Series:

Nr 1. Der Schmied / Blacksmith, Nr 2. Der Tischler / Cabinetmaker, Nr 3. Der Schuhmacher / Shoemaker, Nr 4. Der Schneider / Tailor, Nr 5. Der Bäcker / Baker, Nr 6. Der Töpfer / Potter, Nr 7. Der Klempner / Plumber, Nr 8. Der Böttcher / Barrelmaker, Nr 9. Der Bauhandwerker / Construction worker, Nr 10. Weber / Weaver, Nr 11. Der Flußfischer / River fisherman, Nr 12. Der Sattler / Saddlemaker, Nr 13/14. Schriftsetzer und Buchdrucker / Typesetter and printer, Nr 15. Der Buchbinder / Bookbinder, Nr 16. Der Fleischer / Butcher, Nr 17. Der Korbmacher / Basketmaker, Nr 18. Der Gerber / Tanner, Nr 19. Der Maschinenschlosser / Machinist, Nr 20. Der Gärtner / Gardner

Eliminate Paste Clumps

 Important for every bookbinder and bookbinder's spouse that wants to spare the other aggravation!

New [Wilhelm] Leo's Paste Clump Eliminator

Solid construction, won't rust, easy to use.

Turn the handle with knob and all the paste clumps will be eliminated and your paste will become beautifully smooth. Tested and recommended by professionals. No workshop should be without.

From the Allgemeiner Anzeiger für Buchbindereien, 1900.

Can't find one, get an applesauce mill.

Fritz Otto Starts His Own 'Insta'

 Well, he done and did it. Fritz Otto started his own 'Insta' to take control of his own identity and manage his own 'reputation'... Thought there might have been some clause in his contract about social media..., but nope. So, here he is. Welcome Fritz Otto!

To see what he's up to, follow @fritzottobuchbinder. 

To see more of his labours and personal projects at the Pressbengel Project, in addition to some silliness, click on the "Fritz Otto" label.

Tanning Steelhead Trout in Green Tea

I was recently graced with a gift of two nice-sized steelhead trout skins by the fishmonger's wife. For a change they were a matched pair, i.e. they could have been both sides of the same fish, a nice bonus when thinking about binding designs.

Decided to tan these using green tea. I had seen wonderful examples by Janey Chang and Abigail Bainbridge in which much of the natural coloring had been preserved. It would have largely been lost had I used black tea, or made parchment.

Cleaning and other preparations the same as before, lots of changes of cold water with unscented/undyed dish detergent kept in the fridge. Next...

The skins in the first bath of 5 bags of tea. I used about 60 bags
total of Tetley's Green Tea.
It is important to start with a dilute tannin mixture
to ensure the skin tans through to the center.

The second bath had 10 bags of tea.
This went on with changes every day and half in
which the amount of bags increased each time. 
The last was about 25 bags for 2 days.
I snipped into the skin during changes to make sure
the center was getting tannins.

After taking the skins out, dripped-dried them, then started working by stretching and massaging. When starting to feel like they were drying worked them over a stake, in my case a c-clamp that was smooth and had a rounded shape. Benefit of the c-clamp was that it didn't move...

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A post shared by Peter D. Verheyen (@pdverheyen)

Got tired after a while and had Fritz Otto take over. He had a few things to say, but did a good job...

"Making parchment from fish is nothing...
This softening after tanning is brutal hard work.
Working on oversized books was bad enough."

As he felt them drying he added some olive oil to his hands
to help lubricate the skins and finish them.

Team-work and a good week's work.

In the first step of the process, cleaning the fish, we decided to filter out the shinies (aka scales)... A few stubborn ones went through the tanning process and ended up yellowish. For kicks we threw them on the flatbed scanner (4800 dpi and downscaled for web).

A sampling...

Untanned, note the growth rings, just like tree-rings
 said the dendrochronologist's daughter...

This was one of the stubborn ones that wanted to be tanned...

These skins will be used on Life-history and Habits of the Salmon, Sea-trout, Trout, and other Freshwater Fish (1910). 

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)

Fritz Otto makes The New Bookbinder

When Designer Bookbinders' latest issue of The New Bookbinder, volume 40 arrived, the one with my article "Fish Tales: Experiments with fish skin for bookbinding", Fritz Otto was blown away to find himself and the salmon parchment/shark leather box he made included in the "Lockdown" section of the issue. It's a fantastic issue, that carries the subtitle/theme of "Creative covering; the clothes on our books." Fish skin certainly fits that theme. 

"Lockdown" was a two-page spread of images from each of the issue's contributors with a brief blurb about what they had been doing during the COVID-induced lockdown we have all lived with since March. Lots of different projects, most binding related, some not such as mask making, gardening, and painting. It was a wonderful recognition that the work we do does not exist in a vacuum.

Checking out the cover with Nadine Werner's
fantastically photographed paper folding.

Hey, look, that's me! How'd that happen?
You can't see it, but that's the picture from when I made that box.
The Meister shot it on b/w film, something he has been getting back into.

Here's the description on the back.
Even mentioned my guide, the Bone Folder.

Hmmmm, a sign of the world of total information control
we live in. Instagram added this when the image was uploaded.
Better watch what I upload, or not! ✊

Dark Archives – Anthropodermic Bibliopegy

 Megan Rosenbloom's Dark Archives is out! Read the review from the New York Times and elsewhere. Dark Archives is a wonderfully conversational dive into this subfield of bibliopegy. It also connects to topics here because of articles on the subject by Ernst Collin and Paul Kersten, the latter also the focus of part of one of the chapters.

Should Fritz Otto be worried? First fish, now this.
The Meister knows about Paul Kersten and others, also Pergamena... 
Time to .

To learn more, listen to this great conversation. There are others online as well. Just check out #DarkArchives on Twitter.

Anthropodermic Biocodicology (HUMAN LEATHER BOOKS) with Megan Rosenbloom & Daniel Kirby 
Listen on Ologies with Alie Ward

Anthropodermic bibliopegy is a long, fancy way of saying “HUMAN SKIN BOOKS” and the study of confirming or debunking them is … Anthropodermic Biocodicology. For this skin-crawling, history-trawling Spooktober episode, we chat with the absolutely wonderful and charming medical librarian and expert of books bound in human skin, Megan Rosenbloom. Also, on the line: analytical chemist Dr. Daniel Kirby, who discusses how books are tested to confirm if they are, in fact, human leather. Why would someone make these? What’s in between the covers? Whose skin is it? What do they smell like? And what can they tell us about our culture and our past? Rosenbloom has just released her book “Dark Archives” and gives us a peek into the world she’s come to know so well. Listen under a blanket or with a nightlight on, though. It’ll give you goosebumps.