Book Swap 2025

Keeping with our November tradition, a group of NSBAG participants gathered once again to swap handmade books. In this swap, everyone creates a handbound blank book and brings it to the meeting. The books are all wrapped in brown paper so we can't see the books right away. The packages are each assigned a number, then the participants each draw a number and receive the corresponding package. Finally, we open the packages and marvel at each other's wonderful work! As always, there was a wide range of techniques and materials and creativity in the books this year.

Have a closer look at each book:

Sally Crawford made her book with a variety of her own eco-dyed papers bound using a traditional Japanese sewing.

Larry Colwell made a traditional case binding, quarter cloth with marbled paper.

Tarika Stitt's book is a traditional codex with faux leather, handmade paper, hand-sewn endbands, and customized painted endpapers.

Mallory Kinley made a hardcover longstitch binding with her original watercolour illustrations for the pastedowns.

Heather Loney made a book using the Criss Cross Binding (also known as Secret Belgian Binding) technique with custom book cloth on the covers.

Rhynn Winstead made a book with custom linen bookcloth, decorative paper, hand-sewn endbands, and her original kitikate relief prints for the pastedowns.

Joe Landry's book is a Rubow millimetre binding with brown leather and marbled paper.

Stephanie Morley's book is a German case binding in full cloth with elephant paper endsheets.

Emily Brown made a full cloth case binding with embossed design and custom endpapers, design inspired by the Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore.

Marilynn Rudi bound a journal using the reverse piano hinge binding technique with a mixture of decorative papers.

Rhonda Miller's book is a Rubow millimetre binding with purple goatskin leather and her original hand-marbled paper.

'Land'marks on Bookmarks

Informed by Nocturne 2025's theme, "ground", the Nova Scotia Book Arts Group offered visitors an opportunity to explore how the ordinary, often overlooked elements from our natural surroundings can demonstrate how Earth makes her own artistic marks. Muted, textured, gently produced, surprising.

We prepared papers by exposing them to nature. Most were buried in the ground in various locations for different lengths of time.

A wide range of earth-marked papers ready for Nocturne.
During the Nocturne event last weekend, visitors were invited to design their own bookmark using these papers we had prepared. The bookmarks were made from watercolour paper and most of them had been buried in the ground letting Earth make the initial marks. Folks were then invited to decorate their bookmarks by using natural marking tools such as sticks, feathers, or seaweed and colourants from plants such as goldenrod, tansy, and blackberries.

Natural colourants were made from tansy, goldenrod, avocado, guelder rose, and others.
Mark-making tools included feathers, seaweed, twigs, corn husks, etc.
There was great enthusiasm from all ages at the results. Had those colours and patterns really come from paper being buried in the garden? Why did that yellow flower give such a dark green hue? So, who needs paintbrushes?! Did you see how those two colours combined to make such an interesting textured result? Look how that colour changed over time! What would happen if...


A few of the bookmarks after being embellished by our visitors.
Unlike colour and texture from the commercial or manufactured world, Earth's marks have life and vibrancy and vary across the surface and are often ephemeral. They are an invitation to look deeper, to enjoy while they last, to connect more closely to the ground beneath our feet ... then ... look wide and decide how we will show care.

A glimpse of the activity during Nocturne.
Thank you to Sally Crawford for the vision for this project and for all her work making the natural colourants, collecting tools, planning the evening, and for sharing her knowledge with everyone. We began with about 200 earth-marked papers, which were prepared in various locations over the summer, thanks to Sally, Rhonda, Marilynn, and Stephanie. Also, thank you to our other helpers who came out last weekend: Emily, Tarika, Mallory, and Heather!

Katherine Victoria Taylor: A Modern Journeymanship

When someone speaks with passion about their craft, you can't help but be excited to learn more.

At our most recent NSBAG meeting, Katherine Victoria Taylor took us on her journey of becoming a letterpress printer and press mechanic, also touching on bookbinding and papermaking.

Crediting her 'apprentice' years to Joe Landry, Katherine's journey, overcoming working with intimidating large Vandercook presses, took her to workshops, internships, and artist residencies with expert letterpress printers, designers, and press mechanics in both Canada (Ontario & Nova Scotia) and the United States (Maine, Alabama, Georgia, Wisconsin, Illinois, New York). Katherine spoke about the techniques she developed in press mechanics, the willingness to spend extra time learning new skills, the all-important networking to meet and work with the experts, like Paul Moxon, and bringing those skills back to Nova Scotia. She also explained that printing presses were not just for printing books, but that letterpress printing was often used in making posters with political statements.

Although the names of most of the experts that Katherine mentioned were unknown to me, I was pleased to realize that because of Katherine's networking and invitation, I also had the chance to work with one of them, Amos Paul Kennedy, a well-known letterpress printer who participated in some of the Gaspereau Press Wayzgoose days where we created statement posters.

The slide show and talk was informative, and Katherine’s excitement about letterpress printing and press mechanics was contagious.

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Submitted by Heather Loney

August 24, 1456

It is believed that on August 24, 1456 the first printing of the Gutenberg Bible was completed, an event which marks a significant turning point in the history of literature and printing. Also, as we have mentioned here before, August 24th is Saint Bartholomew's Day, or the Feast of Saint Bartholomew, and he is the patron saint of bookbinders and leather workers. So, it should be no surprise that August 24th came to have some significance in the book trades.

Since there was a feast already in the works, August 24th came to be a time for master printers to host a party for their journeymen and apprentices at the end of the summer season, an event which became known as a wayzgoose. The term wayzgoose is now used a bit more broadly and can refer to various types of social gatherings, open-studios, parties, etc., hosted by printshops or binderies at any time of year.

As far as I know, there were no specific wayzgoose events happening locally this weekend; however, the Halifax Art Book Fair took place here on August 22-23, and it could certainly qualify as such. There were about 35 exhibitors ranging from book artists to small presses to special libraries. An apt time for celebrating these contributions to the modern book scene!


Halifax Art Book Fair
halifaxartbookfair.ca

Visit to University of King's College Library

Fifteen bookbinding enthusiasts were delighted by Patricia Chalmers’ unique guided tour of King's College Library's Treasure Room on June 12, 2025. Patricia has been Assistant Librarian at King's for many years; the Rare Books and Special Collections have been a particular interest. She has also lectured on The History of the Book. We were given a brief history of the collection, Canada's oldest surviving colonial library. While King's College was founded in 1789, it wasn't until 1800 that a young man, John Inglis, was given a budget and sent to England to acquire books for a library. He did a superb job of purchasing a variety of valuable and rare books, and he did an even better job persuading British institutions to donate items. In the end, he acquired books valued at more than four times his original sum and more than 90% of that original collection is still at this library. Once the group descended to the Treasure Room and was seated around a large table, the show and tell began. Patricia had pulled fifteen items from the collection and she focused on unique bindings. One by one, she displayed the items and then, after ascertaining that we all had clean hands, she allowed the item to be passed around the table, so each person had a close encounter with a historical treasure. What a treat! The items included: an Ethiopian book of psalms, in parchment, with exposed binding, chain stitch, wooden boards, undated a single sheet of parchment, probably 15th France, illuminated with gold leaf two paper books bound in recycled medieval parchment covers incunabula including items that were printed but also had hand illuminated capital letters and decorations full leather bindings with elaborate gold tooling on the covers and spines an enormous Low German version of Luther’s Bible, 1578 (this book can be see in the photo at top with Patricia, and heavy enough to be a murder weapon, she mused) a leather sprinkled panel binding with holes in the cover, indicating that it had come from a chained library, probably Oxford a flora of Denmark and Norway that contained hand-coloured illustrations from engraved copper plates a book published in Halifax in 1832, that included a binder’s ticket on the inside front cover Thank you, Patricia, for sharing your rare book expertise with the group, and especially for letting us fondle all the books! You can read a bit more history of King's College and the King's College Library on their website.

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Submitted by Marilynn Rudi

Card Exchange 2025

Thirteen of our creative group members signed up to participate in our second card exchange. Each participant made a full set of cards so they could give one to each of the other participants. This exhange has no specific guidelines and everyone is free to employ whatever book arts or paper arts skills they like to use. The results include a wide range of techniques including painting, illustration, collage, stitching, letterpress, pop-ups, rubbings, stamping, paper cutting, and more.

Some participants created an edition with twelve cards that are all the same and some participants made each card unique, in which case only a few are shown here.

	Stephanie Morley A set of cards featuring a sewn fabric bunting and stamped text.
	Tabatha Cass And edition of handmade cards printed with an original lino block design in two colours.
	Sally Crawford Handmade cards each featuring a unique eco-printed paper.
	Barbara Dugas An edition of handmade cards featuring a time-themed collage and stamped text.
	Sara Davison A set of handmade cards each featuring a unique collage.
	Rhonda Miller An edition of pop-up cards with a lino print on original marbled paper and a quote, printed black on black, using hot foil.
	Marilynn Rudi A set of handmade cards featuring illustration, watercolour, and stitching patterns each with a customized envelope.
	Julie Rosvall An edition of cards featuring a debossed pattern printed from original knitted textile and a letterpress quotation inside.
	Catherine Vardy A set of handmade cards painted with watercolour washes and embellished either with embroidered landscape lines or Tree of Life rubbings.
	Emily Doucette An edition of handmade cards featuring an original lino block print on text with customized envelopes.
	Heather Loney A set of cards each with an intricately hand-cut letter customized for each recipient.
	Rowan Theakston An edition of handmade cards featuring a hand-drawn illustration on mulberry paper.
	Wanda Squire An edition of accordion booklets titled Art, Science, & Politics

Julia Landry on the Challenges and Rewards of Historic Paper Conservation

Books and paper have fascinated me for as long as I can remember. It is a source of satisfaction to be able to marry one's passion and one's vocation together to any degree.

                                                                              ~Julia Landry, The Paper Lady

Things fall apart, but if they are made of paper Julia Landry can probably fix them. 

On February 24, paper conservator Julia Landry gave a talk to a healthy crowd of NSBAG members and friends about her work on a unique restoration project at Government House that she has been involved in for the past twenty years.

The Morning Room at Government House had a problem with its wallpaper.  Installed in the 1930s, the wallpaper is a tin-foiled, handpainted mural of botanicals and birds that meander along and up the walls of this jewel of a room in the residence of Nova Scotia's Lieutenant-Governor.  Known as "tea papers", the wallpaper is made from hand-pieced rectangles of paper, transported from China in tea chests, that were glued together into panels for applying to plaster walls.  In 2004, Julia was called to Government House to assess damage to the wallpaper resulting from a leaky pipe behind the plaster wall.  And so began the twenty-year dance with the wallpaper, the walls and the various challenges to seamlessly restore their integrity.

In her talk, "Still Vertically Challenged", Julia described the diverse ways that recurring damage to the wallpaper has been painstakingly repaired over the years.  From water leaks to black mold, missing panels and "mystery goo" (the technical term), Julia and her colleague, fine art conservator Michelle Gallinger, have managed to analyse problems and devise solutions for their careful restoration.  Noting that the job is "one of those things that looks worse until it gets better", Julia and Michelle have worked to make invisible their repairs to delaminated wallpaper panels, fissures caused by cracked plaster, and damage from mold and a few decades of ill-advised cleaning products.  Describing the labour as a "huge, vertical jigsaw puzzle", the team have employed many solutions, including careful handcleaning, studied inpainting, foil application and plaster repair and all on the vertical plain, a particular challenge to the necessity to apply weight to the repairs while they stabilize.

Julia's in-depth slide show demonstrated, however, that the team's handiwork has been worth it.  The Morning Room is one of the grandest rooms in Government House; it is where the government of Nova Scotia is formed, it is where dignitaries and guests are received and it is a space that exhibits the history, grace and hospitality of our province.  And, thanks to Julia and Michelle, it does so, without peeling wallpaper.

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Submitted by Stephanie Morley

Stitching Patterns

In spite of that snow-day cancellation last week, our group met this weekend to explore some stitching patterns that could be used for making exposed bindings. Heather Loney told us how she had spent some time working out many different stitching patterns for binding. She shared her planning process and some tips for us if we want to try making new patterns in the future.
Heather had, very helpfully, prepared a few patterns for us to try. She came equipped with several pre-punched sewing cards and a dozen spools of thread for us to use. Everyone made at least three of these following her instructions.
Heather and others also brought along a variety of handmade books that demonstrated a wide range of exposed binding styles for discussion, comparison, and inspiration.
Thank you, Heather, for sharing this with the group!