A few weeks ago I had a fabulous opportunity to go on a bookbinding course in Sussex. The workshop, which had been built in a large, converted garage, was full of all sorts of gadgets and tools you simply don’t see anymore, as you can tell from the picture above.
Not that the bindery was stuck in the past. Far from it. I shared a desk with an apprentice who was editing an online bookbinding course and, if you look at the picture below, you’ll see not just books and workbenches but a camera suspended from the ceiling and a laptop in the foreground.
However, it wasn’t the tech that stood out. It was the paper…
the hand tools…
and the beautifully bound books which really caught the eye.
And I was there to learn the craft. Or, at least, to begin to learn it.
I was particularly interested in Japanese bookbinding, so bought myself some beautiful chiyogami, screen-printed paper and set to work. Here’s my work in progress:
Now, why does any of this matter?
It matters, I think because it is a reminder of the way of beauty, the via pulchritudinis.
To simplify an enormously complex reality, we could say that artists from many different disciplines abandoned the way of beauty after the shock of World War I. Instead they revelled in the shock of the new, embracing everything from brutalism in architecture to atonality in music to straightforward depravity in literature. This was a terrible dead end. But in recent years, beauty - one of the three transcendentals, along with truth and goodness - has made something of a comeback. And, increasingly, artists - especially Christian artists - have emphasised the importance of making beautiful things by hand.
Paradoxically, Covid lockdowns may have had a beneficial effect in this area by reminding us of the importance of the real. That was certainly my experience during the first lockdown. Stuck inside, I longed to be out in the natural world. Forced online, I longed to get away from screens. With unexpected time on my hands, I made some surprising discoveries.
An early decision was to map the trees on our street using Treezilla. To be honest, we didn’t spend long uploading our discoveries (because that meant yet more time online) but we did get out and look. We looked at what we’d seen hundreds of times before, but, for the first time, we saw what was there. We saw sweet chestnut, alder, lime, laburnum, Colorado blue spruce and much more besides.
Then we really got into nature journalling, a huge topic in its own right. (But if you want to know more, or would like some practical tips, this site looks very interesting.) Then, after the lockdowns ended, I found I couldn’t simply return to the virtual world that had now become de rigeur. That’s when I started taking iconography lessons. I’m still working - very, very slowly - on my icon, and there are few activities I have ever enjoyed more. Here’s where I’ve got to so far:
The eyes, by the way, are pretty much the last to be painted, which is why this still looks slightly odd.
The next stage is gilding. There are several ways of doing this. One way involves beer. Another way involves using brown bread to dab gold onto the icon. A third way - the way, sadly, I think I will be using as a beginner - involves painting with shell gold.
I love the slowness of iconography. I love the intensity of concentration that’s required. I love the prayerful atmosphere in which the work happens. I love the quiet camaraderie, as a group of us work together in the studio. Above all, I love creating something beautiful with my own hands.
So, bookbinding seemed a logical next step. It too rejects speed, uniformity and mass production. It too requires great concentration. It too is an individual activity that’s best done with others. It too can be beautiful.
But prayerful?
The bookbinding tradition does not emerge out of prayer in the same way the iconographic tradition does, but the bookbinder’s way of working is eminently suited to meditative prayer. Nothing is rushed. Finding a rhythm matters. Beauty leads to God because God is the source of all beauty.
After the course finished, I started teaching some of my students how to create simple, but beautiful, books of their own. They love it too, which is fascinating. Digital natives they may be, but they appreciate the way of beauty as well, which gives me a lot of hope for the future.
That’s probably enough for one post, but do let me know if you’d like to know any more and I’ll provide some information about useful books, courses, shops and other material.
P. S. On another note entirely, you are all very welcome to join me for a book launch of my new children’s book, Meg and the Great British History Mystery, on Saturday 8th July in the St Thomas Hall, Sacred Heart Church, Essendene Rd, Caterham, CR3 5PB. I’m having two sessions, one at 11am and one at 4pm. Come and hear more about the book and the stories of Britain which inspired it.