Filed under: Book Conservation
(While I’m off to the East Coast for a few days, thought I’d schedule some stuff that I hadn’t shared here before. This is from my professional website. JD)
* * * * * * *
16th Century Breviary Project
Recently I did a rebinding project for a private client, and thought I would share a little of the process (with the permission of the client). This is not intended to be a formal instruction of the process, and my descriptions use common terms rather than more accurate technical terms.
The book was dated 1568, and was in its original binding. Overall size was about 5″ x 3″ x 2″. The sewing structure of the book was breaking down, the covers were badly worn, the pages rubbed but in good condition overall. In discussion with the client, he elected to have a new cover of full calf with blind tooling similar to the tooling on the original cover. I also resewed the book in the late medieval style, onto double cords which were later laced into the new boards for the cover.
(The full piece and photos can be found here.)
Filed under: Alzheimer's, Art, Bipolar, Book Conservation, Depression, Health, Survival, Travel
“Say, while you’re here, maybe you can take a look at this piece of artwork I have. It was given to me by the artist, a friend, but it seems to be coming away from the frame.”
This is part of the price of having owned an art gallery and having done framing. Friends and family ask these questions. But it could be worse – I could be a doctor.
“Sure, be glad to.”
* * * * * * *
Email from a friend, following my post about depression:
I hope you’ve turned the corner on the inertia and are getting back into it. Got meds?
My reply:
Lets see – yeah, a couple of different ones for my bp. For the depression? Nope – the state of treatment there is still less than a crap shoot, in terms of finding something that works. And since I am not paralyzed by it, and know how to work my way out of it over time, I’d rather spend the time doing that than mucking around with random chemicals on a “try this for six weeks” basis.
* * * * * * *
I sat in the recliner, just enjoying the picture created by the fair-sized window on the wall across from me. All I could see were trees – no sky, no landscape beyond – just trees.
But what trees!
Coastal redwoods. And only three or four of them. About 25 feet outside the window, so I was only getting a partial view, mostly of that rough, somewhat shabby but oversized bark. With a couple of horizontal branches to make the composition more interesting visually.
“Nice view out this window.”
“Yeah, we sited the house to do that.”
My wife designed this house. It was good to be staying there.
* * * * * * *
On the flight out I sat and thought. For a long time. Listening to music, eyes closed. The Southwest jet was only about 2/3 full, so my wife and I had plenty of room in our three-seat row. I could just relax, spread out a bit, and think.
I don’t do that often enough. Usually, I am reading, blogging, watching something, having conversation. Or I am working – whether at my conservation bench, or playing house elf, or doing something else. But I seldom sit and just think.
Or listen to music. I got out of the habit while caring for Martha Sr. It was difficult to do, since so often I had to be listening to the baby monitor we used to make sure she was OK.
I used to really enjoy listening to music. Just listening, thinking.
* * * * * * *
“See, it’s pulled away from the frame.”
I looked at the piece. We’d hung it off an open door so that I could examine it easily while it was suspended. Abstract, large pieces of torn paper, colored in pastel tones of blues and greens and beiges. The pieces had been heavily gessoed then painted with a thinned-down acrylic. To add some surface effects, the mounted pieces of paper were rolled and folded such that they created a high relief of some five or six inches. All this tied onto the base sheet (also gessoed and painted), which was adhered to a piece of foamcore. This was then mounted by construction adhesive to a strong boxed-“H” wooden frame which you couldn’t see from the front. The whole effect was pretty good, if you like abstract art. Overall, the piece was about 3′ wide by 5′ tall.
“Yeah, I see what you mean. The top part has curled away from the frame, peeling away.”
“You can do whatever you need to. I’ve got some Gorilla Glue – maybe that’s strong enough. Or, if you want to screw the piece back onto the frame, I can get some paint to blend in and mask the screws. Whatever you think it needs.”
I looked at the piece again, hanging there. Pulled a bit, knocked off a chunk of the bead of adhesive. “Let me think about it.”
* * * * * * *
They tell you to expect it to take a year to recover. You don’t believe them.
But they’re right.
Oh, that doesn’t relieve you of the duty to try and get your shit together more quickly. To try and get past the soul-aching exhaustion that comes with having fought the good fight for so very, very long. You have to do that. It is absolutely necessary.
But it isn’t sufficient. It will still take a year. Or longer.
* * * * * * *
I sat in the chair, looking out the window. I had changed my position ever so slightly – now, on the extreme right, I could see about half of the large birdfeeder. We had filled it and hoisted it up that morning. Now maybe a dozen Steller’s Jays were mobbing, taking turns at the feeder, flicking in and out of my picture.
If you know Bluejays, you know these guys. Smart. Stubborn. Survivors.
Sometimes, being a little stubborn is what’s needed. Stubborn in a smart way. While several of their number kept some larger crows away, the others would eat. Then they’d swap. Smart.
* * * * * * *
“We’ll get what we need when we’re out. Is there an art supply store in Ft. Bragg?”
“Yeah, Racine’s. Downtown.” My sister-in-law looked at me, a little quizzical. “I’ll be happy to talk with the artist and get some paints and do the touch-up, if you just want to remount the piece with screws or something. There’s no reason you have to try and match what she used.”
“I won’t need any paints. Nor any screws.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Well, the problem isn’t the adhesive. The problem is the lamination.”
“Sorry?”
“See,” I pointed at the back of the piece. “There’s just this piece of foamcore. There’s nothing to balance the force of the paper mounted to the other side. Rather than trying to force the whole thing back, which will probably result in snapping the foamcore backing, we’re going to dismount it entirely. Then I will put a layer of stiff cloth on the back, using an adhesive similar to the gesso on the front. I want to go to the art supply store, since they’ll either have the PVA I want, or I can get some gesso and use that.”
“Will that work?”
“Yup. It’s a basic process from book conservation, just applied on a larger scale than I usually do it. Same thing as getting the balance right on the cover of a book – cloth on the outside, paper on the inside. It stops the bookboard from warping.”
* * * * * * *
It’s been a year. Or it will have been next week, when I’m on the east coast.
On the day I’ll meet my co-author for the care-giving book, as it happens. Talk about serendipity.
Nothing magical about that. But anniversaries have meaning.
* * * * * * *
I can’t quite explain how it changed. But somewhere along the way out to California I found something. Whether it was in the music, or the thinking, or just the quiet place in my head that resulted from an enforced relaxation for several hours, it was there.
Stubbornness.
Not the stubbornness which saw me through the long years of care-giving. That was different. Defiance in the face of the disease ravaging Martha Sr.
No, this was less about simple survival, and more about . . . well, joy, I guess.
I wasn’t swept away with feelings of overwhelming happiness or anything. But there was a sense that joy could once again be mine. Not just satisfaction in work. Not just enjoyment of life. But joy in being able to create. Maybe not yet. But the possibility was there for the future.
A smart kind of stubbornness.
* * * * * * *
We turned the dining room table into a workbench. I laid down newspapers, then we positioned large jars to support the artwork from the front without damaging the high-relief rolls and folds of paper. I needed access to the back of the piece, and this was the only way to do it.
First, I cut away the frame. Some of the facing of the foamcore came off with the frame, but not much. Then I removed all the remaining old adhesive from both the foamcore and the frame itself. I set the frame aside.
Then I mixed up the straight PVA I’d found at the art supply store with water, 50-50. Set that aside.
I took the piece of light cotton duckcloth I’d gotten, and cut it into three strips, each about 2′ tall and as wide as the foamcore. I laid out more newspaper on the floor. I laid a strip of cloth on the newspaper. And using a 4″ plastic putty knife, I poured/spread the PVA across the cloth. It was necessary for it to be completely saturated, the fibers completely relaxed. I waited for a minute for this to happen. Then I picked up the cloth by one edge, and took it to the table. I draped it across the foamcore, and spread it out smoothly, making sure to have good adhesion.
I repeated the process with the other two strips of cloth, overlapping them a few inches.
“Now we wait,” I told my SIL.
“For what?”
“For it to dry overnight. If the cloth shrinks the right amount as the PVA dries, it will cause a balancing force to the gessoed paper on the other side, and the foamcore will flatten out. If it is not enough, another application of PVA in the morning will help get the balance right. If it is too much, I can spray it with water and let the adhesive relax. It’s just a matter of finding the right balance.”
She looked at the contraption sitting on the table. She said nothing, but it was clear she was skeptical.
* * * * * * *
I had been waiting around for something to happen.
Well, no, I had been trying to figure out how to force something to happen. And being very depressed that I couldn’t do it.
I was being stupid stubborn. Forcing myself to work. To write. To try and find some happiness in this or that.
It was, perhaps, a necessary stage. Just to show myself that I had the stubbornness I needed, even if it was applied ineptly.
But there was a better path. A smarter path. Just relax, and start walking.
* * * * * * *
I poured myself a cup of coffee, walked over to the table.
The foamcore was almost perfectly flat. A slight rise on one corner where the cloth was stronger than the minimal amount of paper on the other side, but that would flatten out just fine.
I sipped my coffee, glanced out the window. From that vantage point I could see the whole bird feeder. There were crows there now, arguing with one another.
Sometimes you just need to understand your way out of problems.
Jim Downey
Filed under: Art, Ballistics, Book Conservation, Failure, Feedback, General Musings, Guns, Marketing, RKBA, Science Fiction, Writing stuff
One afternoon last week I was delivering a batch of work to a client here in town. Everything went fine, and after we had gone over the work I had done and the charges, the person I was meeting with asked whether I knew anyone in the area from whom they could learn a particular skill.
“Sure. Contact Professor X in the art department at the University. They should be able to help you out – either get you into a workshop or tell you who you can get private lessons from here locally.”
“Wow, thanks.”
“No worries. Tell them I sent you – I used to represent Professor X at my gallery.”
“Gallery?”
“Yeah, I ran an art gallery downtown for 8 years.”
“Huh. I didn’t know that.”
* * * * * * *
I got copied in on a note from Jim K to a magazine editor he is working with for an article about our ballistics project. It was discussing the reaction that people have had to the whole thing, and it reminded me of this passage from a post last year:
Well, from that discussion emerged an idea: conduct the necessary tests ourselves, compile all the data, then make it freely available to all on a dedicated website. Sounds like one of those great ideas which no one will ever get around to doing, because of the time and expense involved, right?
Well, as you know, we did do the whole project, and it has indeed been a pretty phenomenal success. But 18 months ago, it really was just one of those ideas that people would dismiss. That specifically happened to me at my favorite local gun shop, when I told the sales guy I usually chat with about the upcoming project.
“Oh, they did that,” he said, “back in the 30’s. Guy chopped down a rifle, measured the velocity drop-off.”
“But no one has done it with modern handgun calibers,” I said.
He laughed. “Yeah, true. So, when you going to get it all done?
“We’ll probably do it next spring.”
“Yeah, right.” It wasn’t said sarcastically. Well, not completely so.
* * * * * * *
The last few days have been filled with the news of the Madoff debacle, the latest in a long string of examples of poor judgment and questionable ethics in the financial sector, all of which have played a major part in the economic collapse that we are experiencing. This one meant losses of some $50 billion last I heard, though of course there is still a lot of uncertainty about the actual numbers.
It’s weird, but it actually makes me feel somewhat better about the losses I caused my investors with the gallery.
See, for 8 years we struggled to make a go of it. Most of that time I (and my business partner) did without a salary, scrimping and saving to make the most of the capital we had. Still, when the end came I felt really guilty about having cost my friends and family members the thousands of dollars they had invested in the business, because I couldn’t make my dream work out exactly the way I wanted. In spite of their disappointment, I don’t think any of my investors agreed with my sense of guilt – they knew they were taking a risk and that I had done all that was possible to make the business succeed.
But still, I have continued to feel guilty about it. Blame my Catholic upbringing.
Now, that sense of guilt has been blunted a bit. I wasn’t running some Ponzi scheme, violating the law and the trust of my investors. I wasn’t living high on the hog, bilking people of their entire life’s savings. I was doing my level best, and we just failed (financially – the gallery was a success by about any other measure). That’s life. I still have debts to pay, and will be getting to that this next year if my bookbinding business holds steady.
* * * * * * *
In spite of my (mock) complaining about resenting the success of the ballistics project, I c0ntinue to be very pleased with the ongoing (though slowing) spread of my novel. The ‘official’ tally on the website is 12,500 but this last week alone almost another 150 people have downloaded the book. Yeah, I’d still love to see it conventionally published, with a “Bestseller” table at the local bookstore featuring the book – but given the broken nature of the publishing industry at present, that is pretty unlikely.
And I’m looking forward to getting more serious writing done this next year. First, a book on being a care-provider, then the long-delayed prequel to Communion. Something to look forward to.
* * * * * * *
Tomorrow I deliver another 104 volumes to a client, as I mentioned on Monday. I have confidence that the client will be quite pleased with the work, and consider my fee for doing it more than fair.
And as I have worked on these books the last couple of weeks, I have been doing a lot of thinking. Some of that has peeped out here on this blog, but a lot of it has just been simmering. The comment from the client I mentioned in the first section of this post sort of gelled a number of things for me. That client, and the one tomorrow, consider me to be a talented and successful craftsman. And that is a good feeling.
But it is also only one aspect of who I am.
On gun forums around the world people now know me as one of the guys involved in the ballistics project that almost everyone praises.
Over 12 thousand people have downloaded my novel. It’s just a guess how many have actually read it, or how many of those found it interesting, but I do get some positive feedback about it on a regular basis.
My art gallery was something of an institution here in my community for almost a decade. Now there is a used CD store where it used to be.
My Paint the Moon project captivated the imaginations of many around the world – but also gave plenty of fodder to those who wanted a good laugh.
Things change. Most people know you for only one slice of time, from seldom more than one perspective. What does it all add up to?
I dunno. But the common thread for me through it all is passion. Coming up with an idea, evaluating it, then attempting to do it whole-heartedly. Being passionate enough to be willing to risk failure.
I don’t care if people don’t know something about me. But I do hope that what they do know about me reflects my passion about that one thing.
Jim Downey
Sorry – been busy, trying to get a bunch (like, 104) volumes finished up for delivery this Thursday. It’s a nice set of 18th century books, a collection of publications which came out over a period of several decades. All nicely bound with leather spines, marbled paper covers, and small vellum corners. For the most part they’re in fairly good condition, and I’m just doing some stabilization work on them, cleaning and redying the leather, that sort of thing.
Curiously, the vellum corners were all dyed dark blue originally – to compliment the marbled paper, I believe. It’s a small detail which takes a little attention to get right. And as I work on them, I notice the imperfections – the places where the previous binder had made a mistake and missed a spot, or was overly enthusiastic with his brush and got some of the dye on the paper. There is an honesty there, and I feel connected to that unknown bookbinder from centuries past.
This is another reason why I love what I do.
Back to it.
Jim Downey
Filed under: Amazon, Book Conservation, Harry Potter, J. K. Rowling, Marketing, Music, NYT, Promotion, Publishing
Here comes the latest round of this generation’s British Invasion:
‘Beedle the Bard,’ on View at the Library
Illustrations by J. K. Rowling accompany one of seven handmade copies of “The Tales of Beedle the Bard,” the latest book by the best-selling children’s author. The copy is on view at the New York Public Library. The skull above accompanies one of the stories, “The Tale of the Three Brothers.” (Photo: Scholastic)
The wizard book is now available for muggle eyes. A hand-written and hand-illustrated copy of J. K. Rowling’s newest book, “The Tales of Beedle the Bard” was unveiled on Wednesday at the New York Public Library, an event to garner publicity for the commercial release of the book Thursday.
I’ve written about these custom bindings before, as well as the collector’s edition. But still, it is rather exciting that this book is available. And as I am currently listening to Deathly Hallows as I work in the bindery, I’ve been thinking about the (still?) unknown bookbinder who did the custom volumes, and understand the desire of fans of the series to have their own copy of Beedle. But as I said before, if anyone spends the money for a “collector’s edition” for me as a gift, I will kick them. Get a trade edition and donate the balance of what you would have spent to a charity, instead.
Jim Downey
If you would like a small insight into why I love doing what I do for a living, be sure to check out this delightful feature which was on NPR’s Weekend Edition this morning:
Paging Through History’s Beautiful Science
Listen Now [6 min 13 sec]
What makes something beautiful?
Is it exquisite colors? Elegant form or striking style? Or can something be beautiful simply for the ideas it contains?
The answer to that last question is a resounding “yes,” according Dan Lewis, Dibner senior curator of the History of Science and Technology at the Huntington Library in San Marino, Calif. He’s the man responsible for a new exhibition at the library called “Beautiful Science: Ideas That Changed the World.”
* * *
The exhibition focuses on four areas of science: astronomy, natural history, medicine and light. Some of the books featured are Isaac Newton’s Principia Mathematica, the book where Newton codified the laws of motion and gravity; Nicolaus Copernicus’ De Revolutionibus, the description of a solar system which had the sun, not the Earth, at its center; and Petrus Apianus’ Astronomicum Caesarium, a collection of strikingly beautiful, hand-illustrated star charts published in 1540.
And be sure to take a few minutes to listen to the audio link embedded there, where you will hear this comment from Lewis:
That’s probably the question I get asked the most: ‘why aren’t you wearing gloves?’ People will gasp audibly when they see that I am handling this stuff. We found that the lack of sensitivity you suddenly get when you’re wearing gloves is is far worse than anything you might have on your hands. Well, almost anything you might have on your hands. It’s always my premise that rare book librarians and archivists and doctors are the people who wash their hands more than anyone else.
I love it. I get this question/response from people all the time. They assume that I must always wear gloves when working on books – and this is exactly what I tell them. I lose count how many times a day I will wash my hands – it’s just automatic that I do so after this or that operation, or between handling books, and certainly after I have eaten or touched any food. It’s not a compulsion, just a job requirement.
Anyway, check out the story, and be sure to look at the different images/multi-media components, as well. Some great stuff there – the sort of things I get to work on and handle regularly!
11/17 UPDATE: Thanks to Lisa, here’s a link to an article from the NYT recently, on the same topic:
Handle This Book!
Jim Downey
Filed under: Art, Artificial Intelligence, BoingBoing, Book Conservation, General Musings, movies, Science, tech
An earlier version of Communion of Dreams had one of the minor characters with an interesting hobby: building his own computer entirely by hand, from making the integrated circuits on up. The point for him wasn’t to get a more powerful computer (remember, by the time of the novel, there is functional AI using tech which is several generations ahead of our current level). Rather, he just wanted to see whether it was possible to build a 1990’s-era desktop computer on his own. I cut that bit out in the final editing, since it was a bit of a distraction and did nothing to advance the story. But I did so reluctantly.
Well, this is something along those lines: video of a French artisan who makes his own vacuum tubes (triodes) for his amateur radio habit:
It’s a full 17 minutes long, and worth watching from start to finish. Being a craftsman myself, I love watching other people work with their hands performing complex operations with skill and grace. I have no need or real desire to make my own vacuum tubes, but this video almost makes me want to try. Wow.
Jim Downey
(Via BoingBoing.)
My wife teared-up as we went over the statement from the auction house.
* * * * * * *
I’ve mentioned previously the chaos of the last few months, as we went through distributing Martha Sr’s household items between family members and then packed things up to go to a local auction. Well, things are starting to get sorted out and put away now. And we gave away my old computer on Freecycle to someone who needed it. So, while it still feels like we’re knee-deep in boxes, we’ve been making real progress.
But as I said, it has come at a price: tapping into my energy reserves. Another component of that is that I think I have developed a respiratory infection. I’ve had awful problems with allergies all this year, but in the last couple of weeks things have compounded. I’m scheduled to see a doctor tomorrow for a general check-up (since I just turned 50 and haven’t had one for a while), so we’ll see if there is something else going on.
* * * * * * *
I charge $100 per hour for my conservation services. Oh, I usually don’t bill for all my time – there’s prep, and clean-up, and distractions, and breaks – but that is my rate. So I use that as a rough rule-of-thumb when considering whether it makes economic sense for me to do this or that thing myself (like working on my car). Now, a lot of times I do decide to do things like yardwork or gardening, because they get me out of the house or give me pleasure. But still, that calculation is there, running in the background.
And so it was as we packed up things for the auction last week. I knew that it would probably be more financially sensible to let someone else do it (the auction house will have their people wrap, box, and load things at a flat rate less than mine), or just not bother taking the time to individually wrap up glasses and old dinnerware. I knew that it was unlikely that most of the stuff we were sending to auction would generate much. But I just hate to waste things, to see them damaged, when they are perfectly good and serviceable.
* * * * * * *
My wife teared-up as we went over the statement from the auction house. After all the costs were factored in, and the split with her siblings, our share would come to less than one hour’s worth of my time doing conservation work or her doing architecture work.
But that wasn’t why she was ready to cry. The money didn’t matter, not really. It was because the memories associated with those things were still so strong. Yeah, even the silly chipped dishes and the aging salmon-colored loveseat. And holding the statement and check from the auction house in her hand, it was one more bit of her mom she had lost, along with all the others which had slipped away over the years.
Letting go is hard.
Jim Downey
Filed under: Alzheimer's, Book Conservation, General Musings, Health, Sleep, Weather
I’m afraid that Hillary will need to continue to cope with chaos here on the homefront. This morning we did have the people from the auction company come and haul away the better part of a truckload of furniture and boxes – boxes which we’d been working the last couple of days to fill with various kitchen items, dishes, silverware, china and glass. The place is a lot less piled high with boxes, but now we need to move into the next phase of rearranging furniture into its more-or-less final configuration.
Gods, I am so ready to be done with this. Between moving my wife’s office here home and getting things ready for the auction, I’ve not accomplished any conservation work in too long. And I’ve tapped into my reserves too much – now I am feeling tired, worn out. It shows in my uninspired writing, too. In spite of the desire to just get things done, I may well take a long nap today. With the remnants of Gustav rolling through here for the next couple of days, it feels like a good time to nap.
So, more, later. Hopefully stuff more interesting than reports on how chaotic my life is.
Jim Downey
Quick update to this post: I did finally get payment for the conservation work, and on Wednesday we finished getting my wife moved out of her office. By next Wednesday the bulk of the estate stuff will be gone for the auction, so things will eventually settle out here at home. This is good.
And my wife and I are getting ready to leave for the weekend. All weekend. Just going. Sure, we’ve made arrangements for someone to check in on the pets regularly, but that is all the arrangements we needed to make in order to be gone. Which is rather a substantial change from how my life had been the last five or six years. Wow.
Have a good weekend.
Jim Downey
Communion Of Dreams 
