Category: Biblio Files

Introducing: Delaine Leonard

What is your musical background?

We had a close family friend who was a harpist, so I decided that was my calling while still in elementary school. My parents attempted to distract me with piano lessons and finally capitulated when my school obtained a harp. I was able to begin lessons in the 5th grade.

My undergraduate and graduate degrees are in harp performance, and I’ve been fortunate to make a living as a performing (and now teaching) artist. Early in my career I performed with many of the touring shows in Central Texas—A Chorus Line, Cats, Evita, The King and I, Dave Brubeck, Ray Charles, Natalie Cole, Bernadette Peters, Doc Severinson, Florence Henderson, and Philip Bailey. In the 80s and 90s in Austin, I performed regularly at the University Club, Ricco’s, The Austin, Headliners, and Metropolitan Clubs, Barton Creek and Austin Country Clubs, The Driskill, and Stephen F Austin Hotels.

At some point, I began looking for new challenges and was fortunate to win auditions to perform as principal with the Waco Symphony (20 years) and second harp with the Dallas Opera Orchestra (16 years). I’ve also been an extra with the Austin and San Antonio Symphonies since the early 1980s. Currently I am the harp professor at the University of Texas Butler School of Music. Formerly I taught at Baylor and Southwestern Universities, Texas A&M in College Station, and Winthrop University in Rock Hill, SC.

Have you performed in different parts of the country?

I was part of a flute and harp duo recognized as “Texas Touring Artists” for a time, and we toured Texas, New Mexico, Illinois, and Wisconsin. As a member of the Austin Chamber Ensemble, I toured The Hague, Lyons and LeMans, France, and Cologne, Germany.

Since becoming a teacher, part of my career trajectory has been to become a Suzuki harp teacher and specialize in teaching very young children. That has given me the opportunity to travel to teach and perform in Canada, Italy, Utah, Washington D.C., California, Wisconsin, Virginia, Tennessee, North Carolina, and Colorado.

How and when did you become interested in book arts?

On one of the studio tours, I found information about classes, and signed up for the introductory ABAC course for teachers. Then Amanda Stevenson contacted me to perform for an ABAC fundraiser and I saw how beautiful and varied the book arts are! Since then, I’ve had the opportunity to study long stitch leather journals, photo transfer to watercolor paper, watercolor sketch books with Amanda Stevenson, case bound books, Secret Belgian Binding and Medieval Bookbinding with Kevin Auer. Our Medieval class was just ending and we were scheduled to start paper marbling as the pandemic shut things down. When ABAC pivoted to offer online classes, I kept busy with those and my own inventions.

I have a jewelry studio at home and I’m taking baby steps into making book furniture for the Medieval books we made in Kevin’s class.

What do you enjoy about book arts as opposed to other art forms?

I suppose that I enjoy first that book arts are art of a more permanent nature. You can see and hold it. Music is temporal. You play it and it’s gone. Yes, it’s possible to record music, but it doesn’t have the same energy and magic as the interaction with a live audience.

Then, I like that my skills as a jeweler seem to transfer to the book arts. Careful measuring and cutting straight lines is second nature. Originally I thought that working with paper would be less expensive than precious metals. Hah! Little did I know how easy it is to go down the rabbit hole of finding beautiful paper. I’ve just ordered some beautiful marbled paper from Canadian Robert Wu.

I like the tactile aspect of making something with my hands and being able to show it to others when it is finished. And, I like finding ways to upcycle materials by making my own paper from random bits, making book cloth from fabric, and finding recycled materials at ACR to use as book board.

Introducing: Susan Gaylord

Please tell us about your work as a book artist and teacher.

For about twenty years, making books was everything to me. I made them, I taught them, I wrote about them. From the beginning, I was only interested in the book as a vessel for content. I made books with calligraphic texts, photocopier imagery, and then natural materials.

I continue to make handmade books with natural materials but also use technology through amazon’s KDP Publishing to support my bookmaking. My recent books have included Words For Our Time in response to the 2016 election, Suffragists Speak commemorating the 100th anniversary of women’s right to vote, an illustrated memoir titled Calligraphy: How I Fell In, Out, and In Love Again, and and the upcoming Naming The Garden: Fifty Flowers And Their Latin Names.

My teaching grew out of the books I began making when my first child was two. I wrote this about my motivation:

As our world becomes smaller, it is easy to get the feeling that all the important things are happening somewhere else. Making books is a way of reminding ourselves that the family is the center and affirming our value as parents and children. 

I began working with schools and tailored my approach to what would be most useful to teachers. I created books that connected with curriculum, used accessible materials, and were easy to make. I applied what I knew of bookmaking techniques, but always put simplicity first. My goal was to have teachers be able to duplicate what I did with students. I wanted my visit to the school to inspire continued bookmaking and often taught teacher workshops and family workshops. I retired from teaching workshops some years ago but continue to share my knowledge of teaching simple books on my website (makingbooks.com) and youtube channel (susangaylord).

 

How has your art evolved over the course of your career?

I began my work as a visual artist with calligraphy when I was in my late twenties. My love of words (English literature major) was the foundation that grew into a fascination with letterform, design, and expressive mark-making. A series created after the birth of my first child led me to the handmade book as I sought a more personal and intimate home for my thoughts and images. My early books with calligraphy and text transitioned to wordless ones, first with photocopier imagery and then with natural materials. The Spirit Books, ongoing since 1992, express my reverence for both the book and nature. They are my primary bookwork as an artist now. https://www.susangaylord.com/spirit-books.html

Over the past ten years I have reconnected with calligraphy with a renewed energy and freer spirit. I find that words give me a chance to more directly respond to the state of the world.

 

What is special about book and other paper related arts?

I wrote this a few years after I had discovered making books. I think it says it:

Books are intimate; they welcome personal encounters.

Books are humble; they fulfill their potential closed as well as open.

Books have depth; even the simplest forms are rich with the possibilities of endless variation.

Books have spirit; they are dwelling places for our thoughts and dreams.

 

What inspires you?

The specific answer is: the spirit of nature and the beauty and power of words. The broader answer is everything and anything. After 40 plus years in the arts, I feel that my world gets wider and richer everyday.

 

Can you think of a specific moment or memory that best captures what it’s like to work as an artist?

In 1992 I made the first Spirit Book. The seeds had been planted four years earlier when we did a massive pruning in our yard. As I handled the cut pieces of grape and blackberry vines, lilac roots, and rose branches, I felt that they were communicating with me. I brought them into the studio and tried to make art that spoke to the reverence and gratitude I felt for these messengers from the larger interconnected world of nature. I tried handmade boxes and stacking bundles of binder’s board and twigs. I experimented and I struggled. I remember all that clearly. What I have no memory of is what led me, one fall day in 1992, to make a book and place it on a cradle of grape vines. It just happened. I think Lewis Hyde in his book The Gift describes the moment perfectly: “The process is always a bit mysterious. You work at a task, you work and work and still it won’t come out right. Then, when you’re not even thinking about it, while spading the garden, or stepping into the bus, the whole thing pops into your head, the missing grace is bestowed.”

In Memory of Mary-Margaret A. Gallaway, August 21, 1941 – June 13, 2020

 A Bookish Memoir

When I think of Mary-Margaret Gallaway, I think of long phone calls. Full of energy, Mary-Margaret would detail recent events, travels, or amusing stories, at a fast pace in her south Texas, Kingsville accent. Usually, I would put on my headphones so I could continue to do bindery work at the bench while we talked. We had a tradition of calling each other on our birthdays.

Mary-Margaret first worked at Jensen Bindery around 1986 when Craig Jensen moved his home bindery to the building where W. Thomas Taylor ran his rare book and publishing operation on Miriam Avenue, now the site of Slugfest studios. She was primarily trained to make boxes in the Jensen style, famous for the air press that allowed the bindery to make what one client described as the largest boxes in North America.

By summer 1987, Jensen Bindery had moved to larger space in the Walnut Creek Business Park with a crew of about six, including Mary-Margaret. I joined the bindery that July after attending a two-month master class in fine binding held at Harry Ransom Center. Within a year, Jensen Bindery expanded further and became BookLab, Inc., growing to a staff of thirty plus employees over the next nine years. Mary-Margaret worked on both book and box editions, and trained staff in box-making. After her departure from BookLab in the mid 1990s, she worked for a while in book repair at the Handbridge Bindery on south Congress Avenue. She assisted me from time to time on edition projects when I established my own Hands On Bookbinding studio in 1995, first in Austin, and later in Smithville.

In the 1980s, Austin had become a center for binding and letterpress printing, which inspired Mary Baughman and others to establish a local Austin Book Workers group. Mary-Margaret attended meetings, served as Treasurer, and was a regular demonstrator at the annual Austin Book Arts Fair held each July in the classrooms of Laguna Gloria Art Museum, now part of the Austin Museum of Art. In 1991 Mary Baughman and I worked together to establish a Texas chapter of the national Guild of Book Workers and Mary-Margaret became a charter member. She exhibited a unique artist book and box work in the Lone Star Chapter’s first exhibit in 1993.    

I will miss making my annual call to Mary-Margaret for her birthday this August 21. She would have been 79.  

Priscilla Spitler

Truth or Consequences, New Mexico

 

Mary-Margaret was a founding donor and active supporter of Austin Book Arts Center. Mary-Margaret very kindly gave Austin Book Arts Center a board shears, tabletop cutters, and the tables to hold them, a nipping press, drawers of book binding tools, leather, book cloth, and decorative paper. The tools and equipment that she donated to ABAC are “monogramed” and I think of her each time I make use of one of her donations. We miss her humor, intellect, and skills. ABAC is grateful for Mary-Margaret’s continuing contribution to book arts in Austin. 

Mary Baughman

Austin, Texas

https://beyondthedash.com/obituary/marymargaret-gallaway-1079394256?fbclid=IwAR01LEMasemOCm_uaVzh7AJ_CDt_-Qeu0m0Pl9Y6erEydPQbfPr768oV1oQ

Mary-Margaret sewing a book at BookLab

Guild of Book Workers Lone Star Chapter meeting in Dallas, (from left to right) Gayle Young, Gary Frost, Barbara Brown, Mary-Margaret Gallaway, Mary Baughman, Olivia Primanis, Jan Sobota

Mary-Margaret 1996

Introducing: Adam Robinson

1.What is your background?

My background, well I started getting serious about my interest in art in high school when I took an advanced placement art course that started an hour earlier than normal school hours. I then went to college at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) where I received a BFA in 2001. While studying there I focused in graphic design, photography, and printmaking. I have had an interest for a while in the connections among these three disciplines, so when I saw there was a letterpress course offered at SAIC I signed up for it. The course was taught at the letterpress studio at Columbia College, since at the time SAIC didn’t have a letterpress studio (they do now). This course was taught by Catherine Ruggie-Saunders. A few years ago when I wanted to find a way to start doing some letterpress printing again I found out about the Rob Roy Kelley Collection and the Design Lab at The University of Texas at Austin. I spoke to Kevin Auer, who ran the studio there at that time about possibly using the studio there outside of class time. He agreed to let me do so after a refresher class on letterpress printing. He also told me about the ABAC, and I contacted them about possibly volunteering in exchange for access to their equipment.

2.What do you enjoy about letterpress?

I enjoy a lot of things about letterpress. I enjoy the physicality of it; when hand setting type you are physically rearranging the type and leading and spacing and the furniture when it comes time to lock up the type. I also appreciate the connection to history all the way back to Gutenberg (many folks don’t know there’s a copy of the Gutenberg Bible here in Austin at The Harry Ransom Center that is always on exhibit). I like that letterpress is both a technical and a creative process which compels you to slow down when you’re doing it.

3.Do you prefer to work with a  particular letterpress machine or type face? Why?

I prefer working with the cylinder presses especially the Vandercooks; there is a lot more control available with them. I also really like working with wood type, which I first worked with at UT. The wood type makes one slow down even more because most of it is old and in turn requires you do some make ready work in order to get good results. Of course there is also chromatic wood type, a wonderful trick that allows for printing with two colors to look like printing with three.

4.When did you begin volunteering at ABAC?

I started volunteering at ABAC around six years ago.

 

Introducing: Beatrice Baldwin

  1. What is your artistic background?

Encouraged by my mother, I’ve been interested in art my entire life and earned a BFA and MFA in studio art.  Over the past two decades or so I’ve been learning watercolor painting.  I’m also using acrylic paints.

  1. Are you active in other formal or informal Austin arts organizations?

I am a member of The Waterloo Watercolor Group, The Hive at The Galleria, and a neighborhood art group in addition to ABAC.

  1. What do you enjoy about the book arts?

Again, my mother loved books, children’s illustrations, and reading.  She took my siblings and me to the library often, and I still remember the curious library smells, tall shelves filled with far more books than anyone could ever read, and lovely library garden in Palo Alto, CA where I grew up.  My mother also wrote a few children’s stories that were published in the Jack and Jill Magazine when I was a child.  Eventually she returned to school and became a children’s librarian.  These experiences and memories eventually led to my interest in making books, and I began teaching myself.   As an art teacher I also had my students make books.  I joined the Austin Book Workers after moving here in 2003 and began to explore ideas and techniques for artist’s books and unusual bindings.

  1. Why do you volunteer at ABAC?

I want to learn more about book making, and I just like to hang out with the many talented book artists that come to ABAC.  Little by little I’m learning techniques and interesting book-facts.  The more I learn, the more I grow increasingly in awe of the people I meet at ABAC who are filled with knowledge that they willingly and patiently share.

Frog Fable, watercolor by Beatrice Baldwin

Introducing: Julie Sullivan

Here’s another one from the Biblio Files, a periodic profile of a community member, highlighting what makes ABAC an awesome place to work and to learn!

  1. What drew you to study book arts?

In the early 90s I discovered Paper Arts in Dallas (in its first incarnation as Paper Routes). I started making greeting cards with the fabulous paper I found there. When I asked the proprietor where I could learn more about what to do with paper, she suggested the Craft Guild of Dallas. There I found my first teacher and mentor, Catherine Burkhard. After a few classes I was hooked! I studied there with Catherine and then in her home studio for well over a decade.

In the late 90s I began performing repair work on Catherine’s projects under her supervision. Eventually, I began building my own book repair business that continues today.

I’ve been quoted a few times saying about becoming a bookbinder: “It’s a hobby that got out of control!”

2. What are your favorite book structure to make? Why?

My favorite structure is usually the most recent one I’ve learned. Although I rarely have time to make them, I’m drawn to exposed spine sewing. Why keep all that work under cover?

Also, I think I could sew link stitch books forever. It’s a very Zen activity. In fact, I find a lot about bookbinding and book repair meditative. So, for me, it’s not so much a favorite structure, but the ability to become hyper-focused on the task in front of me and toss aside whatever is worrying me that day.

3. Who are your biggest influences?

I’ve attended about a dozen Guild of Book Workers’ Annual Standards of Excellence Seminars around the country; all but the first Helen Warren DeGoyler Triennial Exhibition and Competition in Dallas. I traveled across the pond in 2001 to attend a Society of Bookbinders conference in Oxford, England. Additionally, I’ve had several opportunities to study with some of the best binders of our time through workshops. I even got to study with Monique Lallier—one of the best fine binders of our time—for two weeks in her North Carolina home studio.

Each time I’m in the presence of the talented individuals I’ve been lucky enough to encounter, I try to soak up every morsel of information that is tossed out. Being around the masters of any craft can only improve one, no matter if you’re a beginner, experienced or a pro.

I count all the talented binders that I was lucky enough to experience in the first decade or so of my learning curve as huge influences on what I do each day. I guess it takes a village to train a bookbinder!

4. What do you enjoy about teaching at ABAC?

It’s fun to meet people with diverse backgrounds and interests. I remember how proud I was of the first pamphlet stitch book I made, and hope that every student has a similar experience at ABAC. 

Introducing: Greg Ciotti

Here’s another one from the Biblio Files, a periodic profile of a community member, highlighting what makes ABAC an awesome place to work and to learn!

Greg has a radio show on KOOP and has served as Master of Ceremonies at each of ABAC’s annual fundraisers.

  1. How did you become involved at ABAC?

I believe that Dave Sullivan suggested that I needed to talk with his better half [ABAC Board Chairperson Mary Baughman] on my KOOP radio program.

  1. What would you like ABAC fans to know about you?

That ABAC opened a new world of expression for me.

  1. What forms of book arts do you study?

Currently I am drawn to the use of type face for design, specifically P22.

  1. Why do you think the arts and art education are important?

The Arts are second in importance only to reading in that they help us both learn and express.

Greg Ciotti and Rick Kegler

Introducing: Lee Steiner

1.  Who are you and what do you do?

 I’m a native Texan, with a book arts studio in Houston’s East End called Domestic Papers.

The name Domestic Papers comes from my love of everything paper and my love of travel in search of cool finds for my studio, always with the promise of returning to my home.  I make map/travel journals, sketchbooks from library discards, and the one-of-a-kind, blank paper-filled journals that writers love to get their hands on.  I also teach bookbinding at local museums and in my own Domestic Papers studio.

When I travel, I search flea markets, junk shops, and antiquarian stores for vintage or foreign-language ephemera to further distinguish my one-of-a-kind work from something mass-produced and to assure my customers they are getting a book like no other.

I see my role as a Rescuer, giving forgotten images and techniques from the Past a fresh Future with a new audience. Plus, each book makes a good Present!

2. Why do you enjoy book arts?

I enjoy every step in the process of making a book! From the selecting of materials to cutting and folding pages (a soothing repetition) to stitching it all together and adding the final touches, each of these actions gives me satisfaction as I see a whole, one-of-a-kind book appear in my hands.  I also love to share my love of bookmaking with others, telling my students they can now make the book of their dreams!

3.  How do you work?

Surrounded by stacks of old book materials in my studio, I select a vintage image—a book illustration, a postcard, an atlas map or other ephemera- that attracts me and I’ll design the complete book around it.  I love mixing rescued book parts with acid-free papers to create a unique and unexpected, but useful, blank journal or sketchbook.  My goal is a nod to its history, a use for today, made to last for years to come.

4.  What’s your background?

I’m a life-long artist/maker with a love of everything paper.  

I grew up in a creative family of hand makers and antique junk collectors always on the look-out for new/old inspiration.  Family trips through the Midwest to visit our grandmother instilled an appreciation for everyday objects and ephemera.

After earning a BFA in art history, I worked in the art business in Houston before I became a painter full time.  After steady years of painting first on paper, then on canvas to create commissioned works for art consultants and galleries throughout the U.S., I decided to return to my true love—paper.  From hand papermaking to handmade books was a fairly swift transition and from there everything fell into place.  Every part of my artistic, and family, history came together to bring me to this most satisfying craft that I find fresh with possibilities every day.

5.  What’s integral to the work of an artist?

I would have to say community with other creative people.  Anyone with a separate studio space knows it can be lonely working in solitude day after day.  While we need alone-time to focus and produce what we see in our heads, we also need the companionship of other artists or makers, those fellow souls who really “get” you.  No matter the medium, we can always feel a spark of inspiration seeing what our friends are making.

Introducing: Max Koch 

1.What is your role at Austin Book Arts Center?

I am the resident polymer plate maker, California wash dealer, and Intro to Polymer class teacher. I volunteer to print the stationary and announcements, and I volunteer for events now and then.

2. What is a special memory of teaching at the center?

Watching students working together on their projects.

3. What do you enjoy about letterpress?

I think letterpress is just the most perfect form of printing. Reading a book printed letterpress is an absolute pleasure. The words seem to take up actual physical space.

4. What is your background?

My parents were letterpress printers. When I was a baby they had a warehouse in San Francisco that was the printshop, and we lived in the loft. I began my career as a printer working for master printer Russell Maret in New York City.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Introducing: Natalie Freed

1. What is your role at Austin Book Arts Center? 

I teach a class on Paper Circuits, where we add lights and interactivity to handmade books using electronics techniques adapted to work especially well with papercraft. 

2. What is a special memory of teaching at Austin Book Arts Center?

I love how welcoming and friendly the culture of ABAC is. One lovely moment from a class was when we paused for lunch and realized that one student had forgotten to bring something to eat (this was at the old ABAC location that didn’t have many food options nearby), so everyone else decided to pool theirs and turn our lunch break into an impromptu potluck. Then we all sat down and chatted about everything from bread baking to books. These are the kind of people it is wonderful to make things alongside.

3. What distinguishes book arts from other art forms? 

There are exceptions to any definition of what is a book (or what is art!) but I personally enjoy the sense of sequence and flow that is built into experiencing an artist book. As someone who remembers being told off as a child in museums for getting too close to the art, I also rather like the idea that to really experience an artist book, you need to be able to touch it. Finally, I think that book arts are something you can pick up and enjoy at many different levels, and the distinction between “art” and “craft” feels more blended to me than with some other art forms.

4. What is your background?

I would say I’m a lifelong maker and crafter. I love beautiful materials and making things with my hands, but I also really enjoy some of the things you can do with computers and electronics, so I’ve spent a lot of time experimenting in the space between the two. My formal studies were in computer science and new media.

5. What drew you to study book arts?

 I’m not sure I can explain why I think books are so magical, but I’ve always loved being around them. When I was a kid I loved making origami books, the tinier the better. My first job in college was in special collections at my university’s library, and I still remember the day I first discovered the artist books section. And I keep discovering new and interesting things that fall under book arts.There are people who specifically make and collect miniature books! This is amazing and delightful. And zines are wonderful, and also technically books! So I suppose it just continues to draw me in. 

6. What are you working on now? 

I’m working on a level two version of the Paper Circuits class, and a possible new class about designing custom patterns for stab bound books.