Tomorrow, Saturday, August 7 is the last Pop-Up Book Academy at 7pm in the FlatPak House. Half of the Pop-Up Book Academy is a discussion group that has met Wednesdays and Fridays to explore contemporary socio-political issues and countercultures. The other half of the Pop-Up Book Academy is an ongoing bookmaking workshop. Integral to the bookmaking process is the idea of surplus: Red76 promotes making books (that contain surplus ideas) out of surplus materials. All of the paper for bookmaking was donated and repurposed.
As Surplus Seminar and Pop-Up Book Academy wind to a close, I would like to detail the process of bookmaking. Sam Gould of Red76 recently taught me the art of making a perfect-bound surplus book in the FlatPak House.
Yesterday, Red76 hosted a book-making workshop in the FlatPak House and we bound an illustrated copy of Ulysses, Okakura’s meditative The Book of Tea, and a small drawing pad among other things. I made several “perfect-bound” versions of The Book of Tea. As you can see, we reused old Walker letterhead.
While the text is printed on discarded paper, the cover of the book is made from re-used manila folders. I chose a floral manila folder for The Book of Tea. The manila folder (or book cover) must be measured and folded to fit the book.
Then, all of the pages need to be perfectly aligned and placed in the book-binder.
The all-in-one binding machine roughs up the edges of the pages and glues the cover to the pages.
Once the book is perfectly bound, the book must be cut down to its proper measurements.
The only thing left to do after making one perfect-bound book is to make more!
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