#book-making

FUCK. This is bad and it's going in the bin. It was multiple experiments and none of them worked. First off; I had to switch from a material for the paper mache that I can't get anymore and what I chose was too thin. Even after several layers the cover was still slightly spongy even after drying. I found out that you can add colorant to wallboard paste which is what I was using for texture. But because the cover was giving under pressure the wallboard medium immediately started cracking and flaking off. Also because the cover itself is just layers of cardboard I forgot that the spine only needed to be one layer. The extra 1/4 of depth was enough to keep the actual paper stations from fitting properly into the cover. [Opening it would put too much pressure on the flyleaf and rip it.] I'm also not happy with the canvas fabric I used because it was too thick and made the corners an untidy lump. I've done plenty of binding but this is only my second time binding something with this many pages and only my fourth time doing a bind with pages not sewn on the fold. [Which changes the shape of the spine a lot.] Also a friend told me it looked like old Foxy which is not what I was shooting for at all. So SCRAP. TRY AGAIN.

Sara Cwynar is a contemporary artist who works with photography, collage, installation and book-making. Cwynar was born in Vancouver, Canada in 1985 and currently lives and works in Brooklyn, New York

The Art of Making a Book Two lovely videos that explain first the traditional book-making process, then the modern one. I hope you find them as fascinating as I did! The Art of Making a Book

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