BOOK BINDING AND MARBLED PAPER                                                                           Home   Gallery   History   Japanese                                                                                   

The craft of bookbinding originated in India.  It was the early Coptic Christians of Egypt,

however, who discovered that by folding sheets of vellum or parchment in half and sewing

them through the fold, they could produce a book that could be written on both sides.

Wooden boards held it together, and the whole book was slipped into a goatskin leather 

bag to be carried.

This age old concept is reinterpreted here combining the original Coptic sewing technique

with silk  book covers and hand marbled end sheets.  A clamshell box may be added to

provide a high degree of protection and beauty to a book, album or both.

Paper marbling, discovered in Turkey over 500 years ago, is a classical surface design

achieved by floating specially prepared  watercolor ink on paper. After the inks are

combed into delicate patterns, paper is lowered onto the floating image producing

a unique and unrepeatable print.                                              

 -  Mary Carol Koester   AZALEA BINDERY, LLC 

AZALEA BINDERY, LLC | mckoester@bellsouth.net |+1.828.545.6219        

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