Re: [BKARTS] How to become an artisan bookbinder, from soup to nuts

[Don Rash <studior@xxxxxxxx>]

Hi Dan,

I think you need to refine your criteria a bit. Is it that you want to 
be self-employed or a binder or a printer? If self-employment implies 
good money to you, you really don't want to become a bookbinder. Really. 
Letterpress, on the other hand is hot right now and there seem to be a 
number of successful letterpress shops doing quite a bit of work. On the 
third hand, if you're not dead set on working for yourself, 
institutional book conservators make pretty good salaries these days. 
With benefits.

As for education, if you're looking for a degree program other than an 
MFA there's North Bennett, as you noted, and the American Academy in 
Telluride. The thing you'd get from North Bennett is two years at the 
bench, which you won't get anywhere else. As you say, it's expensive. 
You mention working assistantships; other than Arion, that just ain't 
gonna happen. At the paltry $10/hr that Arion pays, over four years 
you're going to cost them about $80 grand. Do you think you'll be 
producing over $100,000 of value for them? Andrew Hoyem deserves a lot 
of credit for offering such an opportunity.

I see you're in San Francisco. I suspect there's a book arts community 
there and that there are classes available. I'd suggest taking as many 
classes and workshops as you can, to get a feel for the work and whether 
it really is for you. In doing that you'll also be meeting people who 
might be able to help and advise you.

If you do decide to go out on your own as a binder you should be able to 
do the following things well:

-Case bindings in cloth and paper from scratch and
-Quarter and full leather bindings from scratch (not that there's a 
large market for the above, but that these things teach you about the 
structures that you'll be working on)
-Simple paper repairs
-Simple cloth rebackings and repairs
-Leather rebackings
-Clamshell boxes and slipcases
-Stamp labels with a Kensol or Quikprint
-Simple hand tooling with foil
-Run a business
That's for starters, and you need to always be trying to better your own 
work. It's a serious commitment if you want to get really good.

Lastly, regarding your final question. If you're not daft, you probably 
shouldn't be doing this stuff.

Hope this helps a little.

Good luck.

Don Rash



Dan Kappus wrote:
> Howdy.
>
> I have a  question.
>
> Context: I'm exploring jobs and careers for self-employment. I have 
> taken a couple of bookbinding workshops. I find books to be fascinating. 
> I have thought about working towards the skills I would need to create 
> artisan blank books, restore old books, and provide production services 
> like proofreading and indexing for publishers. So far, I've run into the 
> internship program at Arion Press in San Francisco, several MFA 
> programs, and the two-year program at the North Bennett Street School in 
> Boston. My feeling is that the internship at Arion is too poorly-paid 
> relative to living costs in SF (four years at $10/hr), the MFA programs 
> require more artistry than I currently profess, and the two-year program 
> at NBSS would leave me $60k in debt.
>
> Questions: How does one develop bookbinding and letterpress printing as 
> a career-track craft? Are there working assistantships for this? Am I daft?

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