Quarto Book Arts: October 2019

Our Autumn meeting took place on Saturday October 26th at the University of Sunderland, with ten attendees braving the October rain. We were lucky enough to have three projects taught by Margaret Beech and a lovely shared lunch to celebrate Quarto’s 18^th birthday.

The day's projects

To begin, following Margaret’s instructions, we created a ‘Surprising Circles’ book which was decorative, interactive and very tactile. The ‘surprising’ part comes in the way the pages fold out from a quarter of a circle into full circles and then refold themselves with a clever twist.

After a delicious lunch – we do put on a good spread for these occasions! - we were fortunate to have a visit from Susan Moor with her current work in progress - a facsimile on vellum of the opening page of St John from the ‘Durham Gospel’ fragments. Although not nearly as well known as the famous Lindisfarne Gospels, this page of the Durham Gospels has recently been on display at the British Library.

The design is breathtaking in its complexity and detail, with complex interlacing and some fascinating zoomorphic creatures. We were all in awe of Susan’s skill at re-creating the work of the anonymous scribe who created the original on Lindisfarne in the 7^th century and really appreciated the chance to have a close look at such a fabulous piece of art. Susan also very generously allowed us to photograph the piece, which is a commission.

A few details from Susan Moor's work-in-progress

Our book-swap theme was ‘Herbs’ and green was the colour of choice for many as a result. Structures included concertinas, a border book, a star book with swivel panels and some interesting open spine binding. Although most members had taken the title at face value and concentrated on herbal plants, their medicinal qualities and the history of herbal use, there were some creative ‘off-piste’ books as well.

We learn so much from each other at this part of the day – and not just about bookbinding. By the end of the swap we’d discovered the ‘Nine Herb Spell’, William Turner, Greek mountain oregano, a much-loved 1960s children’s TV programme, the automotive film star ‘Herbie’ and several famous people called ‘Herb’! (Hopefully all of the swap books are shown: apologies to anyone whose book I’ve accidentally missed out!)

Following Margaret’s instructions, everyone had brought multiple copies of the haiku they had written at the last meeting to be bound into a collaborative ‘Herringbone’ book. A very simple but effective structure: we bound ours with double-sided tape, but Margaret showed two others she had made using pamphlet stitch and Japanese stab-binding. The books were quick to make and looked very effective with our words inside.

Right at the end of the day, Margaret completed her ‘hat-trick’ of projects with a very simple origami fold which turns two squares of paper into an interesting box – a disphenoid (or isosceles) tetrahedron! - perfect for small Christmas presents and table favours. We left totally inspired to glorious Autumn sunshine!