Filed under: Art, Bipolar, Book Conservation, Connections, Depression, Health, Politics, Predictions, Religion, Science Fiction, Society, Survival, tech, U of Iowa Ctr for the Book, University of Iowa Center for the Book, Writing stuff | Tags: art, bipolar, blogging, book conservation, bookbinding, Cheryl Jacobsen, Communion of Dreams, creative process, darkness, depression, Glowforge, goatskin, health, jim downey, Kickstarter, laser, leather, Legacy Bookbindery, literature, manic, mental health, predictions, Robert Funk, Science Fiction, society, St. Cybi's Well, survival, The Gospel of Jesus, The Jesus Seminar, UICB, Westar Institute, writing
It’s … been a while.
And a lot has happened. Mostly good.
* * * * * * *
Many years ago, a friend got involved in something called “The Jesus Seminar“, which eventually produced (among other things) The Gospel of Jesus.
My friend commissioned Cheryl Jacobsen, well-known calligrapher and friend of mine from my UI Center for the Book days, to do a hand-lettered edition of the book as a gift for Robert Funk, the founder of the Seminar. The work was done on calligraphic vellum, and when it was completed, I did the binding. This is it, which I have used as the main image on my business homepage for at least a dozen years:
And here’s the descriptive text from my site:
The Gospel According to Jesus: Full leather contemporary case binding, shown here as tooling is being done. Collaborative work with calligrapher Cheryl Jacobsen of Iowa City. Sewn on linen tabs, cover mounted to text block using adhesive. Covered full in burgundy Chieftain Goatskin, blind tooled using a hot brass folder.
It’s a lovely, but very simple and traditional binding.
* * * * * * *
Filed under: Art, Bipolar, Book Conservation, Connections, Failure, General Musings, Health, Politics, Predictions, Publishing, Science Fiction, Society, Survival, Travel, Wales, Writing stuff | Tags: art, bipolar, blogging, book conservation, bookbinding, brick walk, calfskin, Communion of Dreams, construction, creative process, darkness, depression, goatskin, health, jim downey, Kickstarter, leather, Legacy Bookbindery, literature, manic, mental health, politics, predictions, Science Fiction, society, St. Cybi's Well, survival, Wales, writing
I sewed up a book yesterday.
* * *
It’s been a rough year.
Oh, a good one, in many ways. The delightful trip to Wales was certainly wonderful. And I was pleased to finally wrap up our two-year work on the brick walkway; I recently used it, and it was nice to see how it has settled solidly after a couple of months weather. There have been other highlights, time spent with those I love, sharing & caring.
But it’s been a rough year. Mostly, because back in early spring I started my slow bipolar descent, and then got stuck stumbling along the bottom of my personal trough for the last six weeks or so. And, while I haven’t talked about it (or anything else) much here, the political situation has been extraordinarily depressing. It’s been a weird combination of things I have long dreaded and things I was writing to warn people about in St Cybi’s Well, and after significant effort to re-write the draft of that book to reflect the new political reality I found myself without the energy or inclination to continue. I felt paralyzed.
* * *
But, as these things go if you are lucky, the wheel continued to turn.
Even if the progress is steady, and consistent with my previous personal experience, it’ll be some 4 – 6 months before I completely climb out of the depressive part of my bipolar cycle.
But I sewed up a book yesterday. This one, for the first time in at least a year and a half:
Yeah, it’s one of the premium leather bindings of Communion of Dreams.
Finally.
For whatever reason, completing those books got mixed up emotionally with completing the writing of St Cybi’s Well. I think I understand it, but I don’t think that I can explain it. Well, I understand it now. At least part of it.
That’s how you solve art, sometimes. And how you walk out of depression: one part at a time, one step at a time.
The writing wants to start again.
In the meantime, I sew books.
Happy New Year.
Jim Downey
Filed under: Art, Book Conservation, Publishing, Religion, Reproduction, tech, University of Missouri, Wales | Tags: art, book conservation, bookbinding, calligraphy, Diane M. von Arx, Donald Jackson, illumination, jim downey, Legacy Bookbindery, MU, photography, Special Collections, technology, The Saint John's Bible, University of Missouri, Wales, Wikipedia
In 1998, Saint John’s Abbey and University commissioned renowned calligrapher Donald Jackson to produce a hand-written, hand-illuminated Bible. We invite you to explore this work of art that unites an ancient Benedictine tradition with the technology and vision of today, illuminating the Word of God for a new millennium.
This was no small project. The finished bible, produced on animal skin vellum, was in seven volumes. Each volume was two feet tall, and three feet wide when opened.
Recently Special Collections and Rare Books at the University of Missouri — Columbia asked me to archivally mount special dedication pages to six of the seven volumes in their Heritage Edition set of the book. Since this very limited edition (just 299 copies) is the full-size, fine art version which very few people will ever have a chance to see in person, I thought I’d take some pics and share them here, along with some notes and observations.
Each volume comes in its own conservation clamshell box:
As you can see, these things are huge. They’re so big, I couldn’t store them in my large safe — so I picked up a pair of the books at a time, did the mounting (which takes two days to do properly), then returned them to Special Collections.
And that style of clamshell box is a work of art itself. I occasionally do (smaller) ones for clients, and they can take three or four hours of labor for me. Doing one that size would take special equipment and workspace I just don’t have.
Here’s the first volume in the set, in gorgeous hand-bound red calfskin:
And here’s the dedication page, along with the facing colophon:
The calligraphy for the dedication page was done by Diane M. von Arx, who was part of the team which worked on the St John’s Bible. If you look closely, you can see some of how I mounted the dedication pages: in the gutter there’s a slight discoloration from the Japanese Kozo tissue paper. The process of mounting the pages was easy: first mount the Kozo strip along the back of the dedication page, then allow to dry under restraint overnight; the next day, position the page and then paste out the Kozo ‘tab’, and secure it to the facing page and again allow to dry under restraint. This kind of mounting allows for a very natural movement of the page, as though it was part of the original binding, with minimal chance of the additional bulk of a page causing long-term problems. I also had to trim each dedication page to the specific dimensions of each respective book (they vary by a couple of millimeters — no surprise, given the size of the things and the fact that they were bound by hand).
And here are some additional images from the books, again available in full scale:
A fun project.
Jim Downey
If you are interested in supporting conservation work at Special Collections and Rare Books at the University of Missouri, here is their “Adopt a Book” page. And if you might be interested in sponsoring the last of the seven volumes of the St John’s Bible, you can contact MU Libraries Director of Development, Matt Gaunt.
Filed under: Art, General Musings, Humor, Man Conquers Space, Paleo-Future, Predictions, Science Fiction, Star Trek | Tags: art, blogging, flash fiction, humor, jim downey, predictions, reviews, Science Fiction, space, Star Trek, writing
“This new reboot of Star Trek: TOS succeeds on several levels, and all audiences are expected to find something they like in it. The choice to cast @@@$F%(&*&^^ in the role of Captain Kirk is not without controversy, however, as it is the first time a non-human actor has been selected to play the iconic character.”
Filed under: Religion, Science, Science Fiction, Travel, Wales, Writing stuff | Tags: art, Black Lion pub, blogging, CADW, Capel Soar y Mynydd, Cenlisinus stone, Church of Saint David, Cilgerran Castle, Dallas Dumelus stone, Elenydd, jim downey, Ogham stone, Pontrhydfendigaid, Say Something In Welsh, science, Science Fiction, St. Cybi's Well, Strata Florida, travel, Wikipedia, writing
Part 1. Part 2. Part 3. Part 4. Part 5. Part 6. Part 7. Part 8.
We were going to head north, to meet up with another of Martha’s friends from the online Welsh language community. But we decided to explore a bit along the way. Exploring, we discovered a castle we hadn’t visited previously: Cilgerran.
Here’s the nice image/intro discription from CADW:
This beautifully located castle has a romantic air. The coracle, a one-person boat native to these parts, has a history dating back thousands of years. Cilgerran Castle, which overlooks the Teifi, a river favoured by the peculiar vessel, isn’t doing too badly either. Almost 800 years young and counting.Take the wall-walk to truly appreciate why it was built here. Stunning location. Perfect for stunning attackers. The Normans first saw the potential and established an early ‘ringwork’ castle here, but the imposing masonry castle we see today was probably the work of William Marshal, earl of Pembroke.
It really is an impressive structure, and we enjoyed poking around it for a good while.

The walls were surprisingly thick — about 10′. Which is about half again what you normally see in castles of this age.
Definitely glad that we stopped to check it out.
Martha’s friend Huw lives outside Aberystwyth, and we took a room at the Black Lion pub in nearby Pontrhydfendigaid. He met us there, and we went over to Strata Florida, another Cistercian abbey which played a very important role in Welsh history, and was a major center of learning. It also plays an important role in St Cybi’s Well, with one of the chapters titled with the name. Here’s a bit of that:
He led Darnell through the gateway, onto the smooth green lawn which once had been the floor of the abbey church. To the left and right were the foundations of the original walls, less than a half meter tall, and somewhat wider than that. Beyond those were the remains of the exterior walls of the north and south aisles. Looking down the long nave, and across to the far wall of the north transept, Darnell saw a small group of people before a large slate sign. From his previous visits, he knew that this was a marker dedicated to a famous Welsh medieval poet who was buried on the grounds.
This was familiar ground, ground he had walked before. And yet, for the first time he felt something different. It was an echo of that resonance he had felt at St David’s Cathedral, of the shimmering energy of Stonehenge. Something deep. Powerful. Old.
Whether the ground was so imbued with this strange … energy … before the monks had chosen this spot for their abbey, or whether the energy was the effect of hundreds of years of worship on the location, he didn’t know. But there was something there which touched him, which opened a door he had only recently come to realize even existed.
It really does have a special feel. See for yourself (first image is from Wikipedia):
From Strata Florida, Huw took us up into Elenydd, the so-called ‘green desert of Wales’. It’s an upland plateau, a wild and largely empty place. And it is beautiful in its starkness, particularly with the clouds hanging less than 100′ above us:
Huw had one more treat in store for us that afternoon: the Church of Saint David at Llanddewi Brefi. While most of the current structure dates to the 19th century, the central tower is clearly 12th century:
The interior of the church:
But what is most impressive are the Ogham stones, probably dating back to the 6th century:
The next day the low-hanging clouds which had been threatening rain delivered on their threat. It was a good day for driving again in the Green Desert, with a visit to “the most remote chapel in all Wales”, Capel Soar y mynydd:
And while the chapel may be remote, they’re up with the times:
Jim Downey
Filed under: Architecture, Art, Humor, Mark Twain | Tags: architecture, art, cats, Greystoke, humor, jim downey, Mark Twain, Pudd'nhead Wilson, Wikipedia
“A home without a cat — and a well-fed, well-petted and properly revered cat — may be a perfect home, perhaps, but how can it prove title?”
― Mark Twain, Pudd’nhead Wilson
So, a couple weeks ago I had an idea … which, if you know me or have followed this blog for a while, can sometimes get me, well, not exactly into trouble, but can lead to things not entirely intended. Anyway, the idea was to build a climbing tree for our cats, which might take advantage of the 12′ ceilings we have in our historic home (ours is the next-to-last in that article).
Here’s the (probably) final result:
Now, for those who may be curious about the process of making this cat tree, there’s more below.
We have a huge slump of an ancient catalpa out in front of the house, near the road. Here it is:
It’s been a favorite of photographers and children for generations, and overall is doing pretty well. But one large part of it died a couple of years ago, and we’ve delayed removing it. That part is the pair of major mostly horizontal limbs which come out from the tree towards the viewer in that image.
After some discussion, my wife and I decided that the lower limb could serve as the basic structure for our cat tree. So I cut it off, and then trimmed it and started removing the bark, as seen here:
It’s a little hard to tell scale in that pic, but that limb is about 12′ from base to either tip, and about 12′ from tip to tip.
After removing most of the bark, we somehow managed to get the thing in through the front door and then into our living room. Without breaking any windows. Or bones. This was trickier than it might sound. And did require a bit of additional editing with a chainsaw on some of the various extensions. Of the tree, I mean.
So, we got it into approximate position, then braced it with a couple of chairs. Here it is, with Greystoke (our younger cat — he’s not quite two) investigating:
Next, we got it mounted to the wall securely. This required some stacked-lumber spacers in order to make sure that the branches cleared the windows and curtains safely. The way I mounted it was to mount the lumber to the wall, then I added heavy hook brackets to the lumber, and cinched the tree down with rope. That way, if it was ever necessary, we could detach the tree fairly easily. Here it is mounted, with a 12″ cardboard concrete tube I intended to use for part of the ‘furniture’:
Almost as soon as it was secured, Greystoke was wanting to explore:
I started adding elements to the tree: a couple of simple platforms, and a horizontal bridge which would support a carpeted tube. These (and all the subsequent elements) were mounted using a combination of metal shelf brackets and rope.
At this point I also started wrapping cotton rope around the branches, to make them more cat-claw friendly/safe:
The branch on the left was at enough of an angle to let the cats climb it easily. On the right, I decided to put in steps similar to a ladder, but spiraling as they went up to make it easier for the cats to climb:
Next I settled on a final design for the tube:
Then it was time to carpet it, as well as add carpet to the ladder steps and the platforms:
Covering the steps and platforms just required a rectangle of carpet the correct size and some double-sided carpet tape. To do the tube was a PITA using a combination of carpet tape, construction adhesive, and hot glue. I recommend checking YouTube for instructions. And gloves. Definitely you want gloves.
Here’s the semi-finished tree, before I added a final platform on the upper right, or some ‘interactive’ toys/elements:
The (probably) finished final result again:
Complete with a suspended ‘bird’, a dangling rope, and a couple of simple wood spinners. Note that Greystoke, instead of being on the tree, is snoozing in his favorite chair below. Typical.
But he has already started climbing on it, playing with things, looking out the windows, climbing *into* the windows …
Silly cat. But that’s why we built it.
So, all of the wood and most of the hardware used in making the tree was stuff which I already had leftover/recovered from other projects. The tree as shown in the final version (which may get tweaked a bit over time as we see how the cats use it) has about 800′ of rope on it, and that was the biggest expense. All together, had I had to buy both rope and all the wood & hardware, the out of pocket costs would have been about $200 (I actually spent about half that). And it took me a total of about 30 hours labor, in 2-3 hour sessions over the last couple of weeks.
Fun project. I was a little concerned that wrapping it with so much rope would detract from it feeling like a ‘tree’, but it has maintained that organic feeling, even with the other elements I added. I’m pretty happy with the final product.
Jim Downey