Upcoming Talk with Jeff Peachey // Harvard University – November 19

Please join us for our upcoming lecture with Jeff Peachey:

The Conservation of Dante’s 1477 La Commedia
Jeffrey S. Peachey, Independent Book Conservator, New York City, jeffpeachey.com

The conservation treatment of Dante’s 1477 La Commedia will be detailed in this profusely illustrated lecture. An examination of the remains of earlier binding structures, and decisions that lead to its resewing and rebinding in an alum tawed goatskin conservation binding will be discussed. During the treatment, evidence was found suggesting that the Inferno and Purgatorio cantiche may have circulated separately at one point. Differences between historic 15th century binding practices and modern conservation binding techniques will be highlighted, as will the difficulties of achieving a sympathetic relationship between original and new binding materials. Observations on the history, nature and idea of conservation rebinding will conclude the lecture, followed by an audience discussion. Conservators, bibliophiles, bookbinders, librarians, Italian scholars, and anyone curious about the physical structure of books will find this lecture of interest.

Where: Schlesinger Library, Harvard University, 3 James Street, Cambridge, MA
When: 6:00 – 8:00pm

​Jeff Peachey Bio:
Peachey is an independent book conservator and toolmaker based in New York City. For more than 25 years, he has specialized in the conservation of books for institutions and individuals. He is a Professional Associate in the American Institute for Conservation, has taught book conservation workshops internationally, and was awarded fellowships from the Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Center (Italy) and the University of Toronto’s Fischer Library (Toronto). He is a Visiting Instructor for the Library and Archives Conservation Education Consortium (LACE) of Buffalo State University, New York University, and the Winterthur/University of Delaware. “Ausbund 1564: The History and Conservation of an Anabaptist Icon” is his latest publication.

Hope to see you there!

Tackets, Overbands, Lacings and Buckles

Tackets, Overbands, Lacings and Buckles: a lecture by Katherine Beaty on early Italian stationery bindings of Harvard’s Baker Library

When: Friday November 17th, 4-5pm
Where: 90 Mt. Auburn St., Cambridge, MA 02138

This lecture is free and open to the public. Seating in limited, so please arrive early!

The Harvard Business School’s Baker Library houses the largest collection of early Italian business records outside of Italy. It includes 150 account books and day books of the Medici Family, 81 volumes from the Barberini Family, and many more. Presenter Katherine Beaty will talk about the use and structure of early Italian stationery bindings that were observed during recent conservation projects of the Medici and Barberini collections. These unique limp vellum bindings include unusual structural features, such as overbands, decorative alum-tawed lacings, spine and endband tackets, and different fastenings types, including ties, loop and toggle, and buckles. This lecture is presented in conjunction with a workshop on Italian tacketed stationery bindings hosted by the New England Chapter of the Guild of Bookworkers. For more information on the workshop and to register for one of the few spots remaining in the workshop, click here.

Presenter Katherine Beaty is a rare book conservator in the Weissman Preservation Center for the Harvard Libraries. For the past 10 years, Katherine has been treating rare books from the Harvard library collection, with a special interest in parchment, Islamic and non-western books, and investigating historical book structures. Over the last four years, she has been conserving early Italian account books from the Harvard’s Business School’s Baker Library Historical Collections. Katherine earned her M.A. from the Buffalo State College Art Conservation program with a specialization in book conservation.

 

40 Years of Work: Peter and Donna Thomas

Peter and Donna are book artists from Santa Cruz, California who started their business in 1977. They completed their first book, “The Three Cedars,” in 1978. 2017-18 marks their 40th anniversary, which will be celebrated in libraries across the country with retrospective shows displaying from those libraries own holdings.

Beginning in August of 2017 Donna and Peter will be traveling to visit those shows as “Wandering Book Artists”. They will also be meeting with community-based and academic book arts classes, teaching book arts workshops, and working with fellow book and paper artists to create collaborative artworks.

Donna and Peter will be coming to Boston!
Where: North Bennet Street School, 150 North Street, Boston, MA
When: Wednesday, October, 11 at noon

For those unfamiliar with their artistic practice, Donna and Peter make their own paper, letterpress print or hand render the texts, illustrate, and hand-bind their books themselves. They make both edition and one-of-a-kind books that combine the precision of the fine press aesthetic with the structural exploration and artistic creativity found in contemporary artists’ books.

Peter and Donna have written this about their past trips:

“We drive a pickup truck pulling a “Tiny Home on Wheels” (which is featured in a book by the same name published in 2014 by Shelter Books). Our tiny rolling home is a finely crafted wooden travel trailer, built in 2009 using local sustainably harvested woods, and decorated with Donna’s colorful folk art painted designs. Although the trailer is our home while on the road, more esoterically it is a physical artwork, and metaphorically it embodies our ideas about the changing nature of the physical book in the digital age.

People always stop us, wondering what it is, and if they can look inside. When conversation turns to what we are doing and what exactly is an artists’ book, we use our rolling home as a metaphor saying, “When people see, or look inside regular RV what do they think? Usually nothing, or, “How practical.” But when people see our caravan they get excited, curious, inspired – something magical always happens. Commercially produced books are like regular RVs, practical and full of information. Artists’ books are like our tiny home on wheels. They inspire imagination, wonder, excitement and do the many wonderful things that art works do.

On campuses we open the door and invite in visitors. The conversations often are about living in small spaces and making do with less, what it means and takes to live a creative life, what or who is an artist, and what is a “book artist”? We keep a blog documenting our travels and conversations as wandering book artists which you can find at: http://www.wanderingbookartists.blogspot.com/

 

Workshop: Italian Tacketed Stationery Bindings with Katherine Beaty

Workshop: Italian Tacketed Stationery Bindings with Katherine Beaty

During this workshop, we will explore the structure of early Italian tacketed stationery bindings based on the Medici family account book collection at Harvard Business School’s Baker Library. From the 14th through the 19th centuries, tacketed stationery books were used for day, letter, and account books. These books were designed for daily use and had to live up to the task. In this 2-day workshop, we will construct the most common style of tacketed stationery binding: a limp vellum binding with laced overbands and a fore-edge flap. The textblock will be sewn over split thongs, which will lace through the front cover and be secured under the overbands. The cover will be reinforced with stiff leather overbands, secured to the cover with decorative alum tawed lacings. During this workshop, we will discuss terminology, binding variations, and examine images from the Medici collection.

Participants should have previous bookbinding experience, and be comfortable using paper, parchment, and leather.

When: Saturday – Sunday, November 18th and 19th
Where: Third Year Studios, 369 Congress Street, Floor 6, Boston, MA 02210

Cost: $125 for GBW members, $175 for non-members

Additional materials fee of $65 due to Katherine on the first day of the workshop.

Katherine Beaty is a rare book conservator in the Weissman Preservation Center, Harvard Library’s special collection conservation facility, where she has worked for the past 10 years. Prior to her appointment at Harvard, Katherine interned at the Library of Congress, the Folger Shakespeare Library, the New York Academy of Medicine, and the Harry Ransom Center. Katherine received an MA in art conservation with a specialization book from the Art Conservation department at Buffalo State College. She has taught workshops for the North Bennett Street School, for local chapters of the Guild of Bookworkers in New England and New York, and presented at the Guild of Bookworkers Standards of Excellence. Katherine has spent the last four years working on collections of early Italian account books at Harvard Business School’s Baker Library.

The workshop will be accompanied by a lecture given by Katherine: Tackets, Overbands, Lacings and Buckles: early Italian stationery bindings of Harvard’s Baker Library. The lecture will be open to the public.

Friday, November 17th. Location and time TBD.

Any questions regarding the workshop can be directed to Kate Levy at newgbwprograms@gmail.com.

For registration click here: https://gbw.formstack.com/forms/italian_tacketed_stationery_bindings_with_katherine_beaty

Gray Parrot

Two non-guild events that may be of interest to members:

Exhibition: January 30 – April 30, 2017
Bookbinding and the Pursuit of the Human Touch: The Work of Gray Parrot
curated by Britta Konau

University of Southern Maine
Great Reading Room, 7th Floor
Glickman Family Library

Free and Open to the Public

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Lecture: Wednesday, April 5, 2017 at 7:00pm
Bound to be together: Gray Parrot, Leonard Baskin and the Gehanna Press
presented by Richard Ovenden, Bodley’s Librarian, University of Oxford, England

University of Southern Maine
University Events Room, 7th Floor
Glickman Family Library

Free and Open to the Public