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Creating Handmade Books and Writing Fiction in Kanazawa, Japan 金沢市
Episodes
Saturday Mar 06, 2021
Saturday Mar 06, 2021
Bookbinder of the Week:
Sol Rébora
Ms Rébora is a bookbinder out of Buenos Aires, Argentina where bookbinders are few. She has some excellent work – French style, multi-leather, and fascinating designs – that can be seen on her website: Estudio Rebora.
Here’s an interview with her at Herringbone Bindery which has two more interviews with her.
There’s an interview with Ms Rébora in the Pamela Train Leutz tome The Threads That Bind. She is also on Facebook here.
Bookbinding
I worked on a cellphone-sized schedule that took me way too long; days and days of arranging, rearranging, and manipulating days, dates, and weeks to fit in the smaller size. I didn’t want to make the numbers so small they were invisible, but I didn’t have all that much room to work with either.
It was a challenge that came at a time when I either didn’t need a challenge or it was exactly what I needed. Last week I said a family member was taken to the hospital; they are still in the hospital so my area of concentration is not on bookbinding (or fiction). However, a distraction away from the medical might just be the medicine I require.
In any case, it worked. I fudged yearly, monthly, and weekly calendars around until everything fit nicely. I eliminated some decorations and reduced the number of fonts to make it smoother and more elegant (?). I printed out five copies until I finally got a copy that was good. I cut them out of the B5 page they were printed on. I folded them up to make sure everything matched (they did). I checked them and, of course, found four copies had mistakes and had to be discarded.
Fiction
I didn't so much as write much as read and consider. I tweaked. I added to the outline. I thought about it some more. This has already been designated as My Long Novel but how slow should it develop?
One thing I considered was the sun. I had an entire section where the three main characters are facing the sunrise. One minor problem: They were facing the wrong way. They are on surfboards and facing land. The sun comes up in the east in Japan and they were facing west. Oops. Decided to have them watch the sun’s rays hit the land instead of watch the sun rise.
By the way, this happened to me in real life, too. I sat at a train station to wait for the sun to rise up over the city I was facing only to have the sun rise up behind the station.
Monday Feb 22, 2021
Monday Feb 22, 2021
Bookbinder of the Week
Emily Martin
Emily Martin is a bookbinder, artist, printer, and teacher. Her works are spread across the globe in museums and universities. She teaches at Bookbinding and Book Arts at the University of Iowa and runs Naughty Dog Press. She has a wide variety of techniques and styles from pop-up to sculptural books, artist books, and types of printing.
Bookbinding
I changed the size of a schedule and totally messed up everything. I’m starting over and working fast. Kind of. Other than that? Nothing.
Fiction
Nothing. Well, not nothing. Simple thinking mostly. As always, nearly finishing Growing Slurry.
Thursday Feb 11, 2021
Thursday Feb 11, 2021
Bookbinder of the Week
Dennis Yuen
Dennis Yuen is a bookbinder/artist, photographer, and videographer. I ran across him while looking for information about Cai Lun, the inventor of paper back in 105 CE. Mr Yuen ran a blog called Cai Lun until 2012 and it was through that blog that I learned Mr Yuen is from Hong Kong, has an MFA from Parsons, and makes magnificent books:
• Duotone (two books of two opposite colors), and
• Sculpture Books (more sculpture than book).
Aside from being on a variety of social media places, his website is DennisYuen.com
Bookbinding
I’ve spent the last week trying to create a schedule that fits in a jacket pocket but also isn’t a ‘normal’ size aka A5 (5.8 x 8.3 in), B7 (5 x 3.5 in) or one of the many other sizes.
I finally made one 85 x 155 mm (3.34 x 6.1 in) and it only took me way too long to figure out how to print the calendars — this calendar will have a yearly calendar, 13 monthly calendars, and a weekly calendar (one week per page). Printing requires me to waste too much A4 paper.
I print everything in the middle and trim off the edges before folding them over. Fortunately, I have access to a semi-automatic electronic paper cutting machine; one that slices through reams of paper in well fell swoop. I just have to be quick and surreptitious about using it.
Fiction
I’ve written a bit more on Molly Bright and Growing Slurry. Neither are finished although I had hoped the latter would be done by now.
A thought flew across my mind as to how I can end the particular story I’m in at the moment. It looks promising and I’m going to see where it takes me. The mysterious woman who is stealing money from the main character’s employee pretends to be a man in certain situations.
I have, however, managed to read more of Don Quixote. Nearly 80% finished, according to my iPad. For you youngsters we used to eyeball the number of pages read in a real book and say something like, I’m almost finished instead of 82.5% complete.
Tuesday Feb 02, 2021
Tuesday Feb 02, 2021
Bookbinder of the Week:
Hedi Kyle
A giant among bookbinders, Ms Kyle has, among many other things, a wikipedia page: here. She co-founded the Paper and Book Intensive (with Timothy Barrett and Gary Frost) way back in 1983, she has influenced hundreds if not thousands of bookbinders, and she has taught at a number of schools and book centers.
Bookbinding
Continuing learning by attaching the endpapers completely onto the page rather than just an edge for the text block side and completely on the cover side. This time A5 in size (8 1/2 x 5 1/2 inches for the one country that doesn’t understand the metric system) sewed on cords (just to see what happens).
In the last three weeks I made four books. One graphic notebook (A5), two small blank notebooks using this new (for me) technique, and, just yesterday, an A5 blank notebook using this new technique.
All leading up to me making an A5 2021 schedule for a client who requested a soft cover. I’ve been looking for material for a soft book board but this new (for me) technique is perfect for it; that’s why I practiced making it.
Fiction
In the works and hopefully coming soon are Growing Slurry and Molly Bright (well, maybe not so soon).
Growing Slurry is about Gina and Sliven. Gina is a hardworking woman who dragged herself up from an abusive childhood, homelessness, and murder. Sliven is a forensic accountant who pulls out of the consumer economy to enjoy life.
Both enjoy reading Moby Dick and meet in a Starbucks (of course) when Gina notices Sliven reading the novel. As they converse, we learn about their lives through flashbacks. Yes, flashbacks.
Molly Bright is about Early Mather, Sawako Kado, and Molly who meet by chance while surfing off the coast of Japan. Sawako is kidnapped by a murderous religious cult. Molly and Early find out the police don’t care, so they work to save her.
In the process they run into illegal immigrants, homeless workers, and bartenders who both help and hinder them.
Wednesday Jan 27, 2021
Wednesday Jan 27, 2021
Bookbinder of the Week:
Karen Hanmer
A most famous bookbinder and educator who even the most beginning binders probably know about, have taken classes from, or at least heard about as she was prominent in the periodical Bonefolder. Her website is KarenHanmer.com. She has amazingly artistic covers and a wide variety of classes.
Bookbinding
I made three books this week. The first one is a repeat of the notebook from last week: a A6-size, 100-page blank notebook with 25 doodles of animals with their Japanese and English equivalents. But with a different cover, of course, and, I think at least, better.
Second two are different in two different ways. First, they’re blank. Nothing fancy on the inside. Plus, they are small. They’re A6 (4 x 6 inches for our American brethren) and four signatures of four folios each (64 pages).
Second, they were inspired by Sage Reynolds’ video A Book In Less than An Hour. For me, a new way to adhere endpapers and the cover. The video also taught me a better way to glue on the spine paper without pain: glue the paper on the spine, fold it over, glue it again, and fold it over again.
Fiction
Continuing to work on a whole bunch of lies i.e. fiction.
First, Growing Slurry. The main character is a forensic accountant who makes a life-changing discovery and abandons the consumer lifestyle for one of acceptance and positivity. He cute-meets a woman who has lived a hard life; on her own in the big city by age 10, killed two men who tried to rape her, surrounded by alcoholics and drug addicts, abandoned by her mother. Both are lovers of Moby Dick.
Second, Molly Bright. The three main characters get trapped in a kidnapping. The kidnappers are after one of the three because she can McGyver bombs out nearly anything. The kidnappers are also working for a religious doomsday cult that is planning to wreak havoc on Tokyo. As planned, this is going to be a long novel. Most of mine are about 250 ~280 pages but this looks like it could be closer to 400.
Third, The Posthumous Biography of Agnes Grout, Death Weaver. (which I think I will re-title: The Agonizing Biography of Agnes Grout, Death Weaver). Agnes is a widowed mother of three in 18th century New England struggling to raise her family by working as a weaver in a textile mill; a job usually done by young, single women in need of a husband.
One of her children has autism and epilepsy (obvious signs of being a witch), one has what the neighbors call “the evil eye,” and one is sensitive to the needs of others.
Agnes sees the when, how, and where people die one year before they shuffle off.
And fourth, but not really, is Caraculiambro. Started a long time ago, it is a detective investigating the murders of two seemingly innocent people caught in a land developers squabble. The detective is a giant and named after a giant in Don Quixote.
Hopes? To finish Growing Slurry soon.
Wednesday Jan 20, 2021
Wednesday Jan 20, 2021
Bookbinder of the Week:
Robert Wu
A Toronto-based bookbinder, marbler, and architecture graduate. His specialty is French-style design fine art leather bookbinding but he marbles, makes miniature books, boxes, and plays the cello. He has studied design for decades and bookbinding since the 1990s. His works are in a lot of different collections. His covers are intricate, delicate, colorful, and amazing to look at. He can be stalked at his website (studiorobertwu.com), Facebook, and Instagram.
(Webiste)
https://www.facebook.com/StudioRobertWu/
https://www.instagram.com/studio_robert_wu/
Bookbinding
I finished casing in three books in the last three days.
Book 1: the purplish A6-size, 100-page blank notebook with 25 doodles of animals with their Japanese and English equivalents.
Book 2: the bluish 2021 schedule for the Japan islands with two yearly calendars (2021 & 2022), thirteen monthly calendars, and a weekly calendar with photos of the Tokyo area.
Book 3: the brick-colored 2021 schedule for Belgium with the same details as the Japan schedule but with different pictures gleaned from free sites on the web.
I learned a bit about calculating the width of the book cover while taking into account the spine and space between the spine and the cover. What I learned was what I think is too big, isn’t.
Fiction
This has a little to do with my fiction. I finished reading for the first time Herman Melville’s Moby Dick. It has a little to do with me because the two main characters in Growing Slurry meet when one notices that the other is reading Moby Dick. And a couple of chapters of my book mimic and/or copy Melville’s style or construction in his book.
A bit sad to say I read it on my iPad rather than purchase a Real Book as I hope others do with my books (buy a real book And an ebook). Now I am nearly finished reading Cervantes’ Don Quixote. Book 2, by the way, is much better than Book 1 when it comes to writing (or at least translating).
Also in fiction I am writing what I have planned to be about a 500-page novel. This will necessarily include a lot of observations about life and living plus have a strong plot and characters. If I pull it off.
I’m continuing to write Growing Slurry and am sneaking up on the end where the two main characters decide to have a relationship (based on their mutual love of Moby Dick).
I am also re-reading one of my unfinished novels that I really want to finish: Caraculiambro, a detective novel about land speculators and murder. The main character slash detective is a giant and yes, since you ask, his name did come from Don Quixote; he is the giant Don Quixote imagines he will defeat if he ever runs across him, which he doesn’t (spoiler alert).
Wednesday Nov 04, 2020
Wednesday Nov 04, 2020
Bookbinder of the Week: (今週の製本者 )
Bookbinding
This week I cased in a book of my fiction (Tristram’s Printer) in A-5 size, 260 pages. I used two different papers for the cover for two reasons: first, I’m cheap and didn’t want to run out and buy more and two, I’m trying to use up the papers I’ve got so I can run out and buy more.
The backboards themselves are thick paper; not as thick as cardboard, more like card stock. I’m experimenting with them because a client wants a thin, flexible cover for their project and I want to make sure this is up to the test and that I am up to the task of using it properly.
Last week, hahahahahaha, I made a B6-sized book of Tristram’s Printer, like I said. This morning I checked how many pages it had and discovered the final page has No Page Number written on it. Odd, methinks. I check a few pages back and the recto page claims to be 263 but Mr Verso says 260. Yes, the final signature was miss-printed. But at least the book looks mostly pretty.
I also discarded my template for book covers idea. Since each book, for me at least, is different, a template didn’t make much sense. I was making two covers instead of one. I did, however, make a spacer. I was bemoaning the fact that I couldn’t find a good spacer for the hinge gap space bit between the spine and the covers. Then it dawned on me, thank’s to the coronavirus pandemic, that I could make my own out of book board. So I did.
Fiction
Writing more on Growing Slurry and The Posthumous Biography of Agnes Grout.
Both seem to be episodic meaning the main characters have adventures that illuminate their characters, histories, and philosophies (except without the philosophical asides – I hope I’m showing and not telling).
In Growing Slurry, Sliven is investigating some wholesale fraud in his past while Gina is starting to – beginning to – trust him. I’m wrapping this novel up within the next 30, 50 pages, I hope.
In The Posthumous Biography of Agnes Grout: Death Weaver, Agnes is forcing one of her adversaries to accept one of her children so she (Agnes) can work in one of the weaving mills of Lowell, Massachusetts. Agnes suspects she may have some scary ability to slip back in time to warn people of their impending demise. She’s not sure she had it or is just losing her mind; time will tell.
As always, if anyone knows of a good (and cheap) cover designer, let me know.
Wednesday Oct 28, 2020
Wednesday Oct 28, 2020
Bookbinder of the Week: （今週の製本者)
Yo Yamazaki (山崎曜)
Mr Yamazaki is a Tokyo bookbinder who has traveled the world teaching book-making and has won prizes, had many exhibitions of his work, displayed in galleries, and worked for a time in advertising. There’s a Vimeo video available to watch his unique work style but, on top of all that, he’s an excellent teacher. Check out his website at yoyamazaki.jp
Bookbinding ( 手作り製本)
This is an A5-size schedule with 100 pages. It contains two yearly calendars for 2021 and 2022; it has 13 monthly calendars from April to April; it has a weekly calendar for the same period.
If requested by the customer, I can insert 13 photos of the customer’s choosing or leave them blank. The endpapers for the one on the right is a map of the city where the customer lives; the endpapers on the right are Colorful! Like this one:
This was the first book I used my template cover builder on. I made a paper replica of an A5 cover for a book with 100 pages. Just like this book. I worked on it until it fit the book nicely. I prayed and then built the real book cover and yes! The cover fit it! I used the same template on the second book and it fit well as well. It relieved me of much stress (and diminished my skill in book cover making, some might say; and probably be right, but I’m all for reducing stress levels in my workshop.)
Fiction (作り話 • フィクション)
I wrote this tale many moons ago but only recently discovered that I don't have what is currently called a Hard Copy, i.e. a Real Book. So I made one. Two. I made two.
It is, depending on the size of the book, about 250 pages of knowledge, sex, drugs, marriage, divorce, and art.
Rie the protagonist gets fired from her waitressing job, marries a guy on the rebound, meets one of his artsy-friends, and starts working for him. Her husband objects, she meets a printer. And falls in love... Oh, ain’t that sweet? Yes, yes, it is.
It’s a typographical love story because the other protagonist, Harvey, is the printer – a fine letterpress printer – who creates one-off books, including one of Laurence Sterne’s Tristram Shandy.
Wednesday Aug 05, 2020
Wednesday Aug 05, 2020
Bookbinder of the Week: （今週の製本者)
Kaija Rantakari, at Paperiaarre, lives in Helsinki, Finland where she is a bookbinder, poet, and mixed media artist. I know nothing about her personally, but her books and art are elegant, unique, and fill one with creative thoughts. Casually exploring her blog might inspire all who do to be more creative! More often!
Bookbinding (手作り製本)
Before I cased in two books (at left; left is Heart of November, right is The Priests of Hiroshima) this last week, I did something I’ve never done before. Last week my envelope-pushing event was learning to use a sewing machine.
This week it was making methyl-cellulose glue using powder I picked up in San Francisco about three years ago. The first bit was way too watery and barely kept two pieces of scrap paper together. Eventually I made it thick enough and used it on the two books I cased in.
A5 in size, 184 (Priests) and 230 (Heart) pages, soft cover, with Japanese-y book cloth. The spine on one is the cover on the other.
I just wish I had printed the titles on the front cover and spine (probably difficult on the spine with the black.) as they seem fairly anonymous as they stand now. I’ve made books with titles on the spine before – sometimes successfully, sometimes not – but from now on novels require a front cover that identifies it.
Fiction (作り話 • フィクション)
(Just as an aside, fiction in Japanese is フィクション - pronounced fikushon - but is also related to lies, fabrication, and falsehoods. Look at the kanji: 作り話. It literally means Making a Story. As a fiction author I am a liar, yes? Of course.)
I wrote a bunch on Growing Slurry, Sister Amelia: Assassin, and another book I haven’t titled yet. It might be called Kanazawa Monogatari which means Kanazawa Story but that’s a pretty presumptuous name so I’m looking for something Better. And, of course, I have to finish The Sound of Fear (Book three in the Fear Trilogy); a trilogy that should have been finished long before the coronavirus urged everyone to stay home.
Wednesday Jul 22, 2020
Wednesday Jul 22, 2020
Bookbinder of the Week:
Matthew Reinhart at matthewreinhart.com is an extraodinary pop-up book artist. He has a dozens of videos up on his site and on youtube. He’s enthusiastic about making pop-up books and exploring the possibilities of pop-up books. His instructions are clear and clearly aimed at novice artist.
Bookbinding
Nothing! Not entirely true, I’ve designed a few covers for novels I’ve completed. I’ve learned how to use a sewing maching — something my mother tried to teach me in the last century, but I wasn’t interested in sewing then. She was a child of the Great Depression where everyone was DIYing what they could in order to save money. I was not. Now, in the post-2008 current Coronavirus Depression of 2020, I am. She’d be proud. (Plus, I can mend my ripped and torn jeans now instead of forking out for a new pair.)
Fiction
I have written on two incomplete novels: Growing Slurry, and Saint Amelia: Assassin; I have also worked on two textbooks. One textbook is for medical students and one is for learning to speak (or read) Japanese.
I plan (famous last words!) to finish Growing Slurry soon so I can start the fourth book in my trilogy Fear the Dead! So I can upload it to Draft2Digital and offer the trilogy (and free introductory novel: Fear Zero) for sale.
It would be fun beach reading material if people were silly enough to go to the beach to read books and share the coronavirus; hopefully they are not and will download the intergalactic war story to read in the comfort of their own homes. With popcorn and the beverage of their choice!