Bookbinding Anatomy 101

Pass me the scalpel whilst I make an incision across the spine…through which to insert the needle…keep the bone folder on standby to ensure nice clean precision along the joints….

Bookbinding, I have come to appreciate, is a delicate operation. What better place perhaps, to learn about this skill for first time within the context of a medical library in a hospital?!

During two-hour sessions over a period of four consecutive Tuesday evenings, staff at Musgrove Park Hospital participated in making four different books under the tuition of professional bookbinder, Megan Stallworthy. The workshop, programmed by Emma Quick for Art for Life (the Trust’s art and wellbeing initiative), was part of a series of artist-led workshops for NHS staff taking place at Musgrove Park Hospital.

As a member of the Library Service team and a complete novice bookbinder it was my pleasure to help facilitate and attend these evenings! We were keen for the workshop to take place within the library as a way of promoting and encouraging the space as a place for wellbeing-based activities and thinking that learning book-binding in the context of books themselves was an appealingly romanticised place to do so. This was a context that had previously worked well in the bookshop from my prior experiences as a bookseller. By necessity the hospital site is largely a functional, sterilised or clerical-based place, so I would like to think for many staff that there is something contrastingly comforting about being in an environment surrounded by books. 

Despite my art background and years spent stacking, selling, displaying and shelving books, I confess to having never attempted making one. I know very little about the origins of how the physical part of a book is produced; like many perhaps, knowing slightly more about what is involved in writing the words and content. Fortunately for me, I was not alone! The nine of us taking part also had no prior or limited experience and Megan, the ever-patient tutor was highly organised in breaking down the steps needed to make each book so what at first felt like it could be a complicated task became manageably enjoyable.

Over the sessions we managed to make four books:  two variations of an accordion book, a single section case binding and a long stitch binding. All four involved various different techniques, each new skill demonstrated under Megan’s precision and expertise along with being equipped with the proper tools like the bone-fold, bradawl, waxed-thread, grey board, glue and papers that make a significant difference from being shown how to make something and actually producing an object that is something one will keep and is proud of. It was the opportunity to learn the meaning of terms such as ‘creep’ and which direction to cut/fold based on the grain of the paper to how to measure cover paper and spine widths, different techniques to apply glue (who knew?) and how to make a sewing template for stitching pages together. For the second time this year, I the reluctant sewer attempted to thread needles as I stitched the cartridge paper into my pre-measured casing holes. My resulting long stitch binding was rather shaky, but I had still managed to produce something that held itself together. My favourite to make though were the accordion books as these involved no stitching whatsoever and were more involved with gluing and folding techniques. With these books in particular I found myself planning what might go inside them and ideas for things I could write or draw.

I enjoyed conversations about the ‘hand of the maker’ involved in each of the individual books that we were making; how our own ‘imperfections’ of how we may have cut the paper or bound the pages together are not necessarily faults but characteristics or quirks of their handmade origins. Something of an anti-perfectionist myself, I like to celebrate those traces of hand and uniqueness that come from the handmade object that can never be recreated in the mass produced. I think there is a Japanese word, ‘wabi sabi’, which succinctly encapsulates what I am referring to here- an ‘acceptance of imperfection’.

Apart from learning a new skill, these sessions were also a chance to talk and meet new people, all of whom have different roles/responsibilities throughout the hospital from nursing to managerial and clerical. It was good to come together for a shared experience at the end of the busy working day as a group of people who were all eager to learn something new. We all had four books to show for our efforts and I for one can now say I’ve made my own book -in a library! Though I do not expect to be something of an expert when it comes to any future book repairs…

More information about Megan Stallworthy's workshops and beautiful handmade books can be found here: http://www.perfectbindings.co.uk/

A Stitch in Time

Cross-stitch, if you had asked me a month ago, would have definitely been on the unwritten and unimaginatively-named list of ‘things I thought I’d never do’. Nothing against cross-stitch, just that it was never something that I had time, reason or compulsion of any sort to commit my time towards. The list of ‘things that need doing’ always taking the priority and well, cross-stitch just never made it on there…until now! 

'A Day in the Life of a Nurse' 1938 Nursing Illustrated

To coincide with 70 years of the NHS this year, the library manager for the Library Service, where I work for the Taunton and Somerset NHS Foundation Trust showed me with the library’s copy of ‘Nursing Illustrated’. Published as a series of magazines in 1938 (that’s right, 10 years before the NHS), it features research articles, news stories, letters, advertisements, tips and activities relevant to the nursing profession of the time. Coming from an art background I was drawn to a feature it published inviting nursing staff to produce a sampler, titled ‘A Day in the Life of a Nurse’. The sampler, serialised in eight parts gave pattern designs for cross-stitch scenes depicting nursing activities such as ‘an interview with matron’ and ‘visitors’ hour’. The sampler also ran as a competition in which the winning first prize sampler could win 10 guineas*!

The seed of an idea has been planted and I thought it would be really interesting if these designs could be seen and brought to life again, made by the next generation of nursing professionals and even opening it up wider to everyone who works within the NHS today (even patients potentially), reflecting the breadth and diversity of the roles within the organisation. These patterns are likely to have been unmade by anyone for quite some years and so it is exciting to reveal something from the past.

The pattern for 'Up with the Lark' scene in 'A Day in the Life of a Nurse'

Inevitably times change and what was in 1938 a sampler design inside a nursing journal, perhaps intended as something to be made in-between caring for patients on wards, is now something that is more likely to be regarded as a spare-time leisure activity. In-part it reflects just how time-pressures and ‘the role’ of nursing has changed over the years. How many nurses still find time to create and make things whilst at work? And, what are the benefits to creative projects on wellbeing in relation to current day working within the NHS? It raises important questions and discussions around these issues as well as more broad ones in getting people to talk about ‘how things have changed’ and what the future may hold in store. If I have time I would like to talk to nursing staff and create new scenes that depict the modern-day counterpart to the 1938 one! What would be similar? What would have changed?

My efforts thus far at recreating 'Up with the Lark' sampler.

Under the current and topical NHS initiative of ‘Wellbeing through Creativity’, earlier this month we sent a call-out to employees at the trust I work for inviting them to participate in the challenge of recreating this sampler. I have so far been met with a positive response! As someone who artistically has mostly ever worked alone in the ‘making’ of art work it is humbling and encouraging to be working on a project collaboratively with a variety of people whose individual professions and experiences will hopefully add to the ‘story-telling’ element of how the whole sampler comes together. In some cases, parts of the sampler will have been made by employees in different parts of the hospital, the trust (Somerset Partnership) and possibly even by patients; I am hoping that the remote ways people now work within the NHS but come together as a team for the combined whole (visualised in the sampler through a variety of different sizes and colours) will celebrate the variety within the organisation that shares the same overall cause and values. That’s the bigger ambition, but I mean it when I say that I am genuinely inspired by the enthusiasm of those taking-part which has led to even me being encouraged to having a go at cross-stitch! Something, as I said, I thought I would never really try. 

At the very least if this project gets people making, talking and feeling good through doing so, then it will have achieved what I hope it set out to do. I will keep you posted how things materialise!


*Disclaimer -No prizes, other than the saccharin satisfaction of taking part, will be awarded to entrants participating in the 2018 version.