It's been several years since I made
Piano Hinge Books
This winter I really wanted to work with my hands on several different book binding projects.  The piano hinge is a very unique design that I learned from a book.  Your paper is notched (this is the hardest part of the work) to allow skewers to be woven in and out of the different signatures of the book

It's a satisfying book to make because it is so unusual and people in the gallery are always curious about it.

It isn't something that I can really make money with, because of the time involved in creating the work as opposed to what you can reasonably get paid for it.  I'm selling them for $40.00 and that's for about an hour, maybe longer of my time involved in every aspect of the book.

The process of binding this book is very satisfying as well, weaving the pages together using the skewers adds a nice sculptural feeling to the book.

I feel there will be 18 lucky people this summer who buy one of these books.

The cover paper is paste paint decorated by me, glued to binders board but with a hinge area left loose
so that notches can be cut out and the board can be woven into the paper signatures.

In this series I am preparing the covers, first by gluing the paste paper to it
and then using a template to cut out the notches.

I initially made 18 books, and I'm planning on doing another dozen.  I need to get some more twigs from the woods and I'm going to make a display for Studio Tour Day showing how the progress of the making of the book.

 Return to Eating Art Spring 2008