| ||||||||||||||||
|
 | |
 |
|
|
Bind over matter Book maker finds ancient craft a kind of meditation By Jennifer Fong December 13, 2008 "Do you want to cut a phone book?" It's an irresistible offer, and the reason why bookbinder and papermaker Sam Motyka's garage studio is littered with thick strips of names and addresses. Visitors rarely turn down her invitation to try her fancy parlour trick. Two months ago, Motyka landed on a near-century-old Chandler and Price paper cutter. The monstrous black guillotine arrived at her home on two trucks, and can slice two-inch-thick phone books as if they were single sheets of newsprint. "When you find a piece of equipment like this ,you don't even think about it," Motyka says. "You buy it because you will never see it again in your lifetime." The 46-year-old's enthusiasm for just about anything and everything book-related is unmistakable. It's why she got into bookbinding and why the ancient paper-cutter has ended up here, to help Motyka explore her craft even further. In the past, the sizes and shapes of Motyka's handmade journals, photo albums, and greeting cards were dictated by pre-cut paper she bought from suppliers. "When I got this thing I thought, 'Wow! Now I can do that, too!' " Motyka makes books the way they were made hundreds of years ago. Her recycled paper covers are pulped, pulled, and pressed in her basement. Once everything is cut to size, she sews pages together with a needle and linen thread. It's a long, painstaking process -- to create a book from start to finish can take up to a month. "There's no magic," she says. "Each step in bookbinding is actually fairly simple. But the trouble is there's, like, 80 steps and you have to be exact within a millimetre of every step." But that's what she loves about it. "I find it very meditative," says Motyka, a full-time graphic designer. "I work eight hours, I come home, and then I work three to four hours a night and when I start bookbinding, I get energy." Motyka has been papermaking for about 10 years and bookbinding for six. One of the best parts about having a home workshop, she says, is the freedom to bring her visions to life. "If I decide I want a certain look for a book, I'm not stuck going to a store," she says. "I can actually make the paper to create the bookcover." And what she gets is a one-of-a-kind keepsake that lasts. "One of the things about the custom book is that they'll never get other books like it." Motyka sells her handmade books and greeting cards every other Saturday at the Old Strathcona Farmers Market. Catch her next on Dec. 20. Copyright Edmonton Journal. Reproduced with permission. |
| My name is Sam Motyka. I hand bind books. I also make paper by hand and am a graphic designer by trade. I love books and working with paper and images and words. Using plants from my garden to make paper and hand binding that paper into books is my way of finding "a Heaven in a Wild Flower." |
| Graduate of Grant McEwan College, Edmonton, Alberta ,
Canada and Canadian School of Art, Florence, Italy (affiliate of Lakefield College, Ontario) | |
|
Completed several papermaking and marbling courses with City Arts Centre, Edmonton | |
|
Completed 'Historical bookbinding structures'; with Reg Beatty of The Canadian Bookbinders and Book Artists Guild, CBBAG, at Red Deer College, Series Program | |
|
Successfully completed 6 month apprenticeship with the Ars Libri Bookbinding and Restoration Studio | |
|
Apprenticeship certificate and final restoration report ( PDF document: low resolution or high resolution.) |
| |
|
home | ideas | gallery | travel & treasure | about the binder
|