What's is like starting a paper company? This blog series gives you the highs, the lows and everything in between as my Mom Mary and I start and grow our company Botanical PaperWorks. Today's post is continued from Part 11 of starting a paper company - Getting messy in Brooklyn. Enjoy!
Going back a few weeks to the post that I wrote about our trip to New York, I was very excited that the two-week intensive at Carriage House Paper included several days at Robbin Ami Silverberg's Dobbin Mill studio. While preparing this post, I reconnected with Robbin Ami online; her bio is impressive and gives you a sense of why I was so happy to be spending time with this artist (click to enlarge):
When we arrived at Dobbin Mill, Robbin Ami took us on a tour. One area of the studio was dedicated to papermaking and another area was solely for bookmaking. The stacks of paper waiting to be used, the books partially-assembled and completed, the tools, the rich cover stock, it was all amazing.
Robbin Ami shared this amazing alphabet book with us. We were inspired!
At this point, it was our turn to try bookmaking. We had full reign of the studio and could pick and choose any materials that we wanted. Here's my Mom Mary with her project and an expression of "I don't know what I'm doing here!". Luckily, bookmaking is such a personal thing that anything and everything goes. There is no right or wrong, no marks handed out or judgements made.
In this photo, Mary is explaining the inspiration behind her book to Robbin Ami Silverberg and Carriage House's Donna Koretsky:
It was because of this time at Dobbin Mill that I became interested in bookmaking and bookbinding, eventually going on to co-author The Encyclopedia of Papermaking and Bookbinding with my Mom Mary. My biggest contribution to the book was the bookbinding half and I loved every minute of it! You can see photos of us in London doing the photography for that book here.
If you like bookmaking and want to see more, check out this Flikr group for Minnesota Center for Book Arts for more projects from Robbin Ami and other artists.
Bookmaking came to a close and we had just one workshop left in our two-week adventure in New York. Next Wednesday, join me for Part 13 of this series featuring the cyanotype printmaking workshop with artist Dean Ebben. Please join us by visiting stationery.blogs.com.
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Just joining us? Catch up by starting with Part 1: "Maybe we could make a business out of this" or How I Became An Entrepreneur
Want to see where my company is today? Go to Botanical PaperWorks to see and while you're there, check out the Father's Day tribute that we posted on the weekend.