#paste papers

Decorative Sunday

We've made several posts about paste papers, but never one that explains the complete process and technique. This small accordion book (4"x4"; 10x10 cm), Making Paste Papers by noted American paper artist Diane Maurer (b, 1944), made at her home studio in Spring Mills, Pennsylvania with original paste-paper samples in 1992 signed by the artist, does just that. It offers simple, step-by-step instructions on how to make paste papers from mixing the paste to finishing the paper.

Maurer is noted for a variety of paper arts, but she writes, "Although I am known for my books and decorative papers, my focus for many years has been on creating paper collage. I begin my collages by marbling, paste painting, and dyeing paper to create the colors and textures that are essential to my artwork. Then I tear, cut and combine multiple layers of patterned papers with handmade papers to represent surrealistic landscapes and fanciful seascapes. Most have considerable dimension, approaching paper sculpture."

Recently, Maurer was invited to become part of the MET's Paper Legacy Project for which she handcrafted 40 papers, including traditional marbling, Japanese Suminagashi marbling, and paste papers.

Our copy of this book is another donation from the estate of our late friend Dennis Bayuzick.

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Paste papers are one of the earliest types of decorative paper. From the late 16th to the 18th century, these relatively easy to make decorative papers were often made and used by bookbinders as book covering material and endsheets.

The example shown here has suffered some damage especially along the spine.

In order to protect it from further damage we have placed it into a four-flap enclosure also known as a “tuxedo” box. We typically use “tux” boxes for small, lightweight items that are ¼” to 1” thick. Made with alkaline 20 point card stock, these enclosures take less than 20 minutes to make and are custom cut and folded to fit the book’s exact dimensions. This lightweight and quick-to-make design offers excellent protection for lightweight books.

All the leaves are brown....

Decorative Sunday

This Sunday we present a selection of original paste papers by New York paste-paper artist Claire Maziarczyk from Maziarcyck Paste Papers by English book-arts author and fine-press printer Claire Bolton, published in Oxford, England at Claire and David Bolton's Alembic Press in 1991. The book, printed in a limited edition of 175 copies by Claire Bolton and quarter bound in cloth with Maziarczyk's paste paper-covered boards (first image), includes nineteen samples of Claire Maziarczyk's paste papers, with descriptions of how they are made. The text also includes a history of paste papers and notes on the range of patterns used.

After varied experiences as an elementary school art teacher, a teaching technician at Cooper Union, and a bookbinder and administrator at the New York Center for Book Arts, Maziarczyk began making paste papers in 1982 to create decorative sheets for book covers. She soon began to make production paste papers to be sold to bookbinders and art supply stores. This led to a commission from Red Ozier Press to produce some custom designs for their book covers. In 1985, she began to use paints made by Golden Artist Colors that had a wider range of colors with more intense shades and a range of metallics that didn't oxidize. She kept adding more and more patterns to her repertoire and by the time this book was printed she had 48 papers of different patterns.

Our copy of this book is another donation from the estate of our late friend Dennis Bayuzick.

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View other books from the estate of Dennis Bayuzick.

Decorative Sunday: Paste Paper Edition

In 1942, Harvard University Press printed 250 copies of Decorated Book Papers: Being an Account of the Designs and Fashions by the bookbinder, author, and creator and collector of decorative papers, Rosamond Bowditch Loring. Published by the Harvard College Library Department of Printing and Graphic Arts in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the 234 sale copies of the first edition sold out within months, despite the “then considerable price of ten dollars” and the economic stressors of the war. In addition to eight plates reproducing examples of 18th century decorative papers, the first edition includes twenty-five samples tipped in, many of which are from the author’s own extensive collection. 

While Loring collected a variety of a decorative papers, the examples shown here are from the chapter on paste papers, Loring’s area of creative specialization. The sample papers included in this chapter are all Loring’s own work, or that of her student, Veronica Ruzicka, who bound the first edition (it is worthy to note that Ruzicka is the daughter of illustrator, wood engraver, and type designer Rudolph Ruzicka, whose work we have highlighted several times). Ruzicka also contributed an essay when a second edition of the book was finally published by Harvard University Press in 1952, along with Dard Hunter and Walter Muir Whitehall. 

Rosamond Loring (May 2, 1889 – September 17, 1950) studied book binding under Mary Crease Sears at the Sears School of Bookbinding in Boston. Sears, about a decade older than Loring, had had to battle to learn the trade; women were barred from the Bookbinders Union but most commercial binderies were happy to hire women for particular tasks, such as sewing sheets, but maintained a strict separation of roles, preventing employees from learning the whole binding process from start to finish. Eventually, Ms. Sears secured an apprenticeship in France to complete her studies and opened her binding school in Boston shortly after, training several generations of women binders. While studying under Sears, Loring became frustrated with the lack of options for quality endpapers and became determined to make her own, which she sold to other binders at Ms. Sears’s studio. Her first major commercial commission was for the Houghton Mifflin publication of The Antigone of Sophocles, translated by John J. Chapman (Boston, 1930).

Our copy of Decorated Book Papers is a gift of Dick Schoen. 

It’s Fine Press Friday!

This week we present The Paste Papers of the Golden Hind Press by James H. Fraser. Designed, printed, and bound by Leonard E. Seastone at The Tideline Press and co-published by the Fairleigh Dickinson University Library in an edition of 70 copies. The hand-set type is Butti & Novarese’s Nova Augustea Trump Mediaeval printed on dampened, hand-made Fabriano Pace paper. The book features tipped in examples of paste papers made in the 1930s that were used for decorative bindings by the Golden Hind Press, the private press of Arthur W. Rushmore. It is signed by the paste paper artist, Arthur’s daughter Delight Rushmore Lewis.

James H. Fraser wrote:

“The use of paste papers to cover productions of the Golden Hind Press (GHP) of Madison, New Jersey, the subject of these few pages, followed the usual pattern of discovery, experiment, and application. Arthur and Edna Rushmore and their two daughters, Delight and Elaine, shared varying degrees of responsibility in the printing activity and operation of a 24” x 36” Washington hand press and a 14” x 17” acorn hand press of indeterminate manufacture which occupied corners of the spacious kitchen of their home, Fairview. In the period from the founding of the GHP in 1927 to its closing in 1955 this team produced more than two hundred books, broadsides, and leaflets. This period was also Arthur Rushmore’s most active time with Harper & Brothers, where he was chief of production and design from 1922 and became a director of the firm in 1942. (Rushmore joined Harpers in 1904 and retired in January 1950.)”

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Fore Edge Friday

Look at these paste-paper edges!! We see a lot of gilded and marbled edges, but not that many using a paste-paper technique. Paste papers are one of the earliest methods used to decorate paper. From the late 16th century through to the 19th century paste papers were predominately used as book covers and endsheets, but you will occasionally see book edges decorated in this manner. Today, as in centuries past, we continue to find paste papers used in book covers. Unlike gilding and marbling, the paste-paper process requires little equipment or advanced skill. It is essentially just paste mixed with pigment brushed onto a paper surface, with the creation of designs of almost a 3-dimensional quality using various tools, combs, or stamps. To make paste-paper edges, the text block would need to be clamped very tightly and brushed with a thin layer of paste before patterning to avoid pasting the pages closed.  

These particular edges come from our copy of William Hayley’s An Essay on Sculpture: In a Series of Epistles to John Flaxman, printed by Andrew Strahan for Cadell and Davies in 1800. The cameo portrait shown here, engraved by Hayley’s friend and collaborator William Blake, is of Hayley’s beloved son, Thomas who had been a disciple of John Flaxman, and had died in the same year as this publication. The etching is paired with the final lines of Epistle 6, that read: “Forgive paternal pain, that wildly flings / An agitated hand across the strings, / A shade of sorrow o’er his triumph throws, / And sighing, bids th’ imperfect paean close.”