I’ve done a fair bit in the studio recently, but almost all of it is prep work for books yet to be finished: the boards are cut and the sections laid out, punched and/or sewn onto tapes, all in preparation for a bunch of books-to-be, but there is not much interesting to show you. I like to do this sometimes, get all the production work out of the way, or enjoy the meditative repetition of tearing down paper sheets or sewing sections onto linen tapes. But then sometimes I want something to be done.

The cover for II is handmade Lokta bark paper from Nepal, which I purchased from Hollander’s. It’s made from two pieces: the off-white piece is folded over the red one, so the cover is three layers thick and the cut-outs show the red underneath. The covers and pages are all secured in place by the sewing, so this is a true non-adhesive book.

The sewing is from Keith Smith’s Non-Adhesive Binding I: Books Without Paste or Glue.

l like the simplicity of this little book (only 4-1/2″ wide by 5-3/4″ high by 1/4″ thick). The texture of the paper makes it pleasurable to hold and, along with the contrast of the stitching and the strong graphic cut-outs, interesting to look at. The cover is delicate (this is not a book to be tossed in a bag) but still solid enough to provide structure. I often forget about these paper-covered books, but I come back to them again and again. I think there are 10 more of them in my near future.