In This Issue:

The Page Illuminates: Book Highlights from the Internet - Valeria Kremser Highly Recommended, at the Philadelphia Museum of Art - Nancy H. Nitzberg Marking Time Exhibit at Lafayette College, Easton, PA Delaware Valley Chapter Fall Calendar Upcoming Nag Hammadi Workshop with Julia Miller

Pressing Matter
September, 2010

The Publication of the Delaware Valley Chapter of the Guild of Book Workers

From our Chair: JenniFer rosner

We have been thinking for some time of resuming our newsletter and I hope you are enjoying this one. Feel free print it out to read on the bus, at your favorite coffee shop, or even in the bathtub! We know that some of our members will be happy to have something a little more tangible rather than virtual! We plan to publish the newsletter six times a year. Please let Sharon Hildebrand know if you would like to contribute in any way. Curated by Peacay (Paul) in Sydney, BibliOdyssey has been in existence since September of 2005 and has over 1050 posts. Updated regularly and easy to navigate the homepage contains links to recent bookmarks, archives, and towards the bottom snippets of images from previous posts. There has been a ridiculous amount of inspiring material featured on BibliOdyssey, but the one recent post that sticks out in my mind is the post Hecho a Mano: Book Arts of Latin America, posted on August 21, 2010. Hecho a Mano: Book Arts of Latin America contains striking images from The University of North Carolina Librarys collection of the same name.

The Delaware Valley Chapter is always a bit quiet during the summer. It is difficult to schedule much of anything because so many of us are away. So I shouldnt be surprised that we will be practically swamped with chapter events this fall. Please take a look at the calendar and watch the blog for announcements. If you havent signed up to get emails each time we update the And if you really need it in print, there is a book. BibliOdyssey: blog, please do so. The blog is often the first place where we will Amazing Archival Images from the Internet. broadcast information. Go to http://dvc-gbw.blogspot.com. Valeria Kremser Jennifer Rosner Box Turtle Press Chair, Delaware Valley Chapter boxturtlepress.com

The Page IllumInaTes:

book highlights From the internet

According to worldwidewebsize.com as of September 2, 2010, the indexed web contains at least 15.1 billion pages. Being obsessed with books has led me to end my day curled up with my iBook looking at pictures of books and reading other peoples stories of love, creation, and obsession online. I have not made a dent in the 15.1 billions pages, but I have found some pages worthy of note and each newsletter I will focus on blogs/websites that I have found inspiring. To start our exploration of book blogs and websites, we go to BibliOdyssey at http://bibliodyssey.blogspot.com. BibliOdyssey taglined as, Books - Illustrations - Science - History - Visual Materia Obscura - Eclectic Bookart, is an amazing collection of images from/of books gleaned from all over the web.
Images from: bibliodyssey.blogspot.com

highly reCommended,

at the

PhiladelPhia museum oF art:

elsewhere are enhanced by settings and architecture obtained from Western publications that the Japanese accessed and interpreted. A number of Japanese printmakers are represented and their styles are distinctive. As noted in the extensive information provided by the curator, Shelley R. Langdale, it is interesting to see how, for example, Western textiles with qualities previously unknown to the Japanese are rendered. That is but one example of many that make this a fascinating show. In regard to the books arts, trade with Japan allowed for the export of these and other Japanese prints which by the 1870s had a clear impact on Western book design.

Picturing the West: Yokohama Prints 1859-1870s. Berman and Stieglitz Galleries, Ground Floor (across from the Gift Shop). Through November 14, 2010. http://www.philamuseum.org/exhibitions/407.html An impromptu stop at the Philadelphia Museum of Art earlier this week resulted in a now cherished visit to this dazzling, refreshing visual feast of color, composition and content.

Although made with the same traditional techniques used in creating the genre of lovely Japanese woodcuts with which many of us are familiar, the works on exhibition contain images that are vastly different than those of the eighteenth and nineteenth There are many images of these prints on the PMA website, but centuries depicting Japanese life and culture. as those of us who work with and appreciate actual artifacts, Historical events of the 1850s took Japan out of its two centuries I strongly recommend you try to see the originals while on of isolation. Westerners, newly involved in trade with Japan, display, transformed a small fishing village, Yokohama, into districts associated with their origins. And finally, there is always an exhibition in the library located in the Perelman Building. Currently, Revisiting the Centennial: While trade between the West and Japan was the emphasis, Resources from the Library and Archives, curated by Linda there were other repercussions of this coexistence. Japanese Martin-Schaff and Susan Anderson, recreates the historical print publishers sent artists to Yokohama to make sketches of context which serves to enhance another PMA exhibition, An Westerners and were eager to sell prints to this new market. Eakins Masterpiece Restored: Seeing the Gross Clinic Anew. This accounts for the multi-cultural subject matter and http://www.philamuseum.org/exhibitions/441.html fascinating interpretation of Western life and cultural from a http://www.philamuseum.org/exhibitions/400.html Japanese perspective, in more ways than one. Images of people from America, The Netherlands, England, France, Russia and Nancy H. Nitzberg Book Conservator

guild oF book Workers traveling exhibit marks time at skillman library, laFayette College, sePtember 5 oCtober 24
In September and October, the Skillman Library at Lafayette College is host to the triennial traveling exhibition of the Guild of Book Workers, a national organization for practitioners of the arts of the book founded in 1906. The exhibit, Marking Time, showcases the diverse talents of Guild members, who include bookbinders, conservators, calligraphers, and other book artists. Curated by Guild Exhibitions Chair Karen Hanmer and juried by Jeffrey Altepeter, Melissa Jay Craig, and Peter Verheyen, the show opened at the Minnesota Center for Book Arts in Minneapolis in May 2009 and will have traveled to nine venues across the country before closing at Emory University in March 2011. The show features 50 works interpreting the theme of time, ranging from contemporary books of hours to celebrations of natures cycles to considerations of the end of time. Stunning leather bindings stand alongside edgy contemporary bindings that have been dyed, collaged, or incorporate photographs or handwriting. The show includes work in the codex format, complex folded structures, wooden constructions, hand-held toys, and sculptural objects. Text and imagery is produced by the most ancient and the most modern mark-marking methodscalligraphy, painting, woodcut, letterpress, and digital output. An opening reception will be held on Sunday, September 26, from 2-4 pm in Skillman Library. At 3 pm in the Gendebien Room, exhibit curator Karen Hanmer will give a presentation. Hanmer is a Chicago book and installation artist, whose work is included in the collections of the Tate Britain, the National Museum of Women in the Arts, the Library of Congress, Graceland, and a number of college and university libraries, including Lafayette. Questions: 610-330-5148 or archives@lafayette.edu Directions: http://www.lafayette.edu/visit/maps-directions/ Also on exhibit: Quilts in Glorious Color by Liza Prior Lucy of New Hope

delaWare valley ChaPter Fall Calendar

oCtober:

10/14 10/16 Standards of Excellence 2010, National Meeting in Tucson, AZ. Space still available! 10/29 Nag Hamadi Talk by Julia Miller co-sponsored by the Library Company. Free. 10/30 Nag Hamadi Workshop with Julia Miller held at the Library Company. Registration form is included in this Newsletter. Register Today!

november:
11/13 11/14 Scaleboard Binding Workshop with Julia Miller held at the Library Company. Registration opens in September.

deCember:
Fast, Friendly, Free TBA. Maybe Eriko Takahashi will do a folding project. Elections! We will ask for nominations and then have mail-in ballots. And dont forget Book, Paper, Scissors, sponsored by the Philadelphia Center for the Book, is December 4th!

THE NAG HAMMADI CODICES: Single Quire Bindings A workshop with Julia Miller Saturday, October 30, 2010 9:00 am to 5:00 pm Hosted by the Library Company of Philadelphia 1314 Locust St., Philadelphia Members: $100 Non-Members: $125 Materials Fee: $35 The purpose of the class is to learn about early single quire structures, understand their importance to the early history of the codex, and touch on the use of such structures up to the present. The class will make a small replica binding of one of the Nag Hammadi Codices, which date from the 4th century C.E., using a variety of materials, including paper, leather and papyrus. The class will study the history of the find and learn about the structural variations among the 10 most intact extant covers. Leather paring skills are not necessary. Time permitting, participants will also make a sampler of the variety of tie and wrapping band attachment systems used on the Nag Hammadi codices. Images of eleven covers and models of several of the extant 11 covers will be available for examination. Handouts will include a reading list and other information on the Nag Hammadi bindings. Julia Miller is now a book conservator in private practice after being a senior conservator on the staff of the University of Michigan conservation lab for ten years. Her focus has shifted from bench conservation to researching and teaching models of historical bindings. For several years she has volunteered her time to describe historical binding structures for two rare book collections at the University of Michigan. She has taught the Nag Hammadi workshop many times, including at the Paper and Book Intensive (2006), the Montefiascone School in Italy (2007), the University of the Arts (2008), and the Delaware and NY Chapters of GBW. She has traveled to Egypt twice in order to study the original covers of the NHC and to work on a conservation survey at the Coptic Museum, Cairo. She received aconservation publication fellowship from the Kress Foundation and FAIC in 2008 and has completed her handbook on identifying and describing historical bindings, to be published by The Legacy Press in November, 2010. Julia has received a fellowship at The Library Company to study and develop a typology of American scaleboard bindings based on examples in the collection. SPACE IS LIMITED - SEND A CHECK TO HOLD YOUR PLACE Questions? dvcgbw@verizon.net THE NAG HAMMADI CODICES WORKSHOP REGISTRATION FORM Name: Address: Phone: Cell Phone: Member: Non-Member: E-mail:

Please make your checks payable to: The Guild of Book Workers Mail your check with this form to: Jennifer Rosner The Library Company of Philadelphia 1314 Locust Street Philadelphia, PA 19107