Gerritt VanDerwerker

The Book of Origins

I imagined that Le Livre des Origines was published in Québec 300 years ago as a contemporary account of a Huron youth's vision quest. A priest who was about to travel to the Great Lakes purchased a copy and commissioned a local bookbinder to create a lightweight yet protective binding so he could safely carry the book on his journey. This might be the result. The text block is sewn on five deerskin thongs, rounded and backed, and laced into an unsupported deerskin cover that has integral flaps to enclose the text. The marbled endpapers by Karli Frigge are in the 18th-century style; the endbands are of patterned cotton cloth; and the front cover has a brown goatskin onlay in the form of a turtle. The book is housed in a sewn linen carrying bag that has brown goatskin onlays in a tortoiseshell pattern on the flap. 9 x 5-3/4 x 1-1/8 inches. Bound 2005.

M J Hyland

Carry Me Down

Sewn on four tapes, the edges coloured using acrylics, colours of browns, white, red and touches of green. Silk sewn headbands of matching colours to tone with the marked brown leather wrapped around the boards in the ‘Tudor’ style completing with the face looking towards a misunderstood future life. The face is in natural colour leather and onlaid onto the brown marked strips of goatskin. The blind lines are a kind of imprisonment, this effect also hints from the inside covers, which are covered in mid green leather. The book is housed in a protective up and over box coloured in cream buckram and lined inside with suede. Bound by Paul C Delrue.

Winner of Man Booker Prize.