May 20, 2018 We recommend — The Book Restructured: Wire-Edge Binding

“Everything corresponds. Sweet is easy: happiness. Tanginess is trickier: people going the wrong way and calling it right; the tendency not to complain while harboring envious and covetous feelings. Sourness is things you like and don’t like — woven together. Smokiness is slow vision, seeing gradually the good things in life. What we find distasteful? That’s bitterness.”

Tea: Time in Korea
Greta Sibley
Easthampton, MA: Small Offering Press, 1994
DS904 S53 1994

Text and photographs based on three trips to Sonam Temple, South Cholla Province, Korea. Binding and box designed and produced by Daniel Kelm, Wide Awake Garage. Edition of twenty-five copies. Rare Books copy no. 14, signed by the author and the binder.

“The Book Restructured: Wire-Edge Binding”
A Book Arts Program workshop by Daniel Kelm

June 1 & 2, 2018
Friday & Saturday, 10:00 – 5:00
Book Arts Studio, J. Willard Marriott Library, Level 4

$215, register here

Wire-edge binding utilizes a thin metal wire along the hinging edge of each page. The metal wire is exposed at regular intervals, creating knotting stations where thread attaches one page to the next. The result is a binding that opens exceptionally well and provides the option of producing unusual shapes. This workshop presents various wire-edge structures useful for books, enclosures, and articulated sculpture. Participants produce both a simple codex and an accordion model that forms a tetrahedron. All levels of experience are welcome.

Daniel E. Kelm is a book artist who enjoys expanding the concept of the book. He is known for his innovative structures as well as his traditional work. In the mid-1980s, Daniel invented a style of bookbinding called wire-edge binding in order to explore the nature of the book as articulated sculpture. His expression as an artist emerges from the integration of work in science and the arts. Alchemy is a common theme in his bookwork. Daniel received formal training in chemistry and taught at the University of Minnesota and is known for his extensive knowledge of materials. Daniel teaches widely, and founded the Garage Annex School for Book Arts (GAS) in 1990. Most recently, with long-time collaborator Timothy Ely, Daniel co-delivered a lecture on The Alchemy of the Handmade Book at the Getty Center as a complement to the exhibition The Alchemy of Color in Medieval Manuscripts.

Rare Books is pleased to support the Book Arts Program with its collections.

“Decadence is sophistication severed from genuine feeling.”

Synesthesia
Terence K. McKenna (1946-2000)
New York City: Granary Books, 1992
N7433.4 M4285 S95 1992

Drawn and painted images by Timothy Ely. Typography and printing by Philip Gallo at The Hermetic Press. Paper is Rives BFK. Bookbinding by Daniel Kelm and staff, Wide Awake Garage. Edition of seventy five copies, twenty hors commerce. Rare Books copy is no. 47, signed by the author, printer and binder.

“I decide to go down the mountain to get a jar of fig sugar. The houses below feel very flimsy. I am greeted in one, by a cat that chases me barking like a dog back up the hill with an empty peanut butter jar.”

Venus Unbound
Jane Sherry
New York City: Granary Books, 1993
N7433.4 S418 V46 1993

The writer dreams. From the colophon: “The images were printed from metal plates made from the artist’s original paintings then treated with extensive hand-work: gouache, pen & ink, rubber stamps and collage…” Typography and printing by Philip Gallo at The Hermetic Press. Binding designed by Daniel Kelm. Box made by Jill Jevne. Edition of forty-one copies, eleven lettered. Rare Books copy is “A/P 2/2, signed by the author.

“The moon empties of light and is called new.”

Four Chambers, Five Nights
Greta Sibley
Easthampton, MA: Small Offerings Press, 1999
N7433.4 S5453 F68 1999

Text designed and composed by the author. Imagery created by Joseph A. Osina. Letterpress printed by Arthur Larson of Horton Tank Graphics. Binding and folders designed by Daniel E. Kelm at The Wide Awake Garage. Edition of twenty copies. Rare Books copy is no. 14.

— Photographs by Scott Beadles

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