Leaf by Leaf: Hi, I'm Niko and I'm a Bibliophile
August 13, 2009 | By
I'm a new writer here at Handmade News, so I thought I should start out my new column with an introduction. My name, as you can see from the byline, is Niko Silvester, and I make books. I also write, take photographs and make prints, but pretty much all of my interests are in the service of book-making. You could say I'm a bibliophile. That could also be an understatement!
A lot of artists and crafters get really fired up by beautiful books or rich paper and want to make their own but don't know where to begin. I know exactly what that's like - when I first started bookbinding, I couldn't seem to get registered for the few classes that were offered, and I didn't know anyone who did bookbinding.
So, I ended up teaching myself out of books, which was both a good thing and a bad thing. It was good because I didn't have any notions of the limitations of the craft; I just made what I wanted to make with the materials I had at hand. It was bad because I ended up doing a lot of things wrong, and some things poorly.
In the years that followed, I was finally able to find good teachers and gain a more formal education in bookbinding. There is a lot to be said for "proper" training in a venerable craft like bookbinding, and I have become a better craftsperson because of it. On the other hand, the lack of a good teacher or a class to take should not stop you if the idea of making your own books is an exciting prospect.
One of the things I'm going to cover in this column, starting next week in fact, is how to get started when you're full of inspiration for bookbinding, but don't know where to begin. I'll talk a bit more about my own experiences in the hopes that you readers can benefit from my mistakes and successes.
I'll also look at where to find good tutorials both online and off, and how to know which ones are going to help, and what's just going to drive you batty. And, since the department I'm writing for is Craft Inspiration, we'll look at how to find inspiration when you're looking for a new project, when you're stuck, or when you just want something nice to look at.
I expect if you're reading this column, you probably like books and paper, and maybe you're even ready to start on a project. And maybe you've got questions. So, if there's something in particular you really need to know, of something you'd like to see covered here, send me an email. I might just find that your questions and ideas become the inspiration for an article.
Photo by Niko Silvester.
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