2004: september 13
Tickling the Ivories
This book reminds me of the keys on a piano. It is sewn onto packed hemp cords with linen thread. The heavy weight pages make it an ideal book for small sketches and creative note taking. It will also hold a number of pasted treasures without the pages splaying open at the front.
There are two available for sale: one green and one in black. Shown here is the green book. They are $35 each.
2004: march 29
Morning Glory
A packed cord binding. This beauty is covered on the outside with Japanese paper and on the inside with Italian paper. The pages are Italian as well. The cover features a morning glory from my garden. These flowers are delicate when they're alive and even more so when they've been pressed. The pressed flower repels water, making it difficult to add a protective coating to the surface (although it adheres well to the paper).
2004: march 20
Forked
The cover of this hand bound volume was decorated using corn starch paste and Speedball inks. The horizontal lines were created with a brush while the vertical lines are from the tines of a fork. The inside front and back covers are decorated with paper that was made by the bookbinder using old recycled course notes. The book is handsewn using red linen thread.
Urban Birds
The book was bound in the Coptic style using two sewing stations (two pieces of linen thread are used--the middle of each piece of thread is hooked into the first signature). The end of each piece of thread uses its own needle meaning that this book was sewn with four needles.
The image from this book was taken at dusk on the shore of Lake Ontario at the west end of Toronto. That day there were Canada geese, buffleheads, mallards, ring-billed gulls, black-backed gulls, and two trumpeter swans.
Red Linen
A red linen cover to match the red linen thread. This book was bound in the Coptic style with two sewing stations (two pieces of linen thread are used--the middle of each piece of thread is hooked into the first signature). The end of each piece of thread uses its own needle meaning that this book was sewn with four needles.
The inside front and back covers are decorated with paper that was hand marbled by my mom, Maryann Thomas, some 30 or so years ago.
2004: march 07
Electrophoresis
The first in a series of paste paper books. I'm completely enamoured by this book. Each of the signatures are decorated with "paste paper." The book is then bound in the Coptic style using three sewing stations (three pieces of thread are used--the middle of each piece of thread is hooked into the first signature). The end of each piece of thread uses its own needle meaning that this book was sewn with six needles.
The title for the book, Electrophoresis, is a technique used by labs to compare strands of DNA. In very simple terms (and probably not entirely correct): DNA is put onto a gel medium and an electric current is run through the gel. The lightest pieces of DNA move the furthest across the plate while the heaviest pieces stay close to where they were dropped. Bands that are at the same location indicate a genetic match, while bands at different locations are not a match. Two identical lanes (i.e. two identical strips from top to bottom) are from a single individual, two similar lanes that have many bands matching, but not all, suggest a genetic relationship between two individuals, and few or no bands matching suggests there is no relationship between the two individuals.
For pictures showing The Real Thing, check out Gel electrophoresis. Feel free to ignore their lab instructions and just look at the pictures. The lab is looking at the impacts of time and gel media on results. They're not actually doing a comparison of different DNA samples.
