Restoring the past, bound by tradition
Connecting with history through binding methods spanning centuries
WATERLOO REGION— Patrick Miller delicately flips the waferthin pages of an old family Bible. The vintage tome came to him split in half and missing a cover.
With a pot of traditional book glue made of wheat starch, a scrap of fine leather and a few gold-embossing tools, Miller brought the old book back to life.
“It’s a simple-looking thing but it has a very complex structure,” the Waterloo bookbinder says of old books like this family Bible he is restoring for a client.
“The further back in time you go, the better the quality of the book.”
For five years, Miller has restored clients’ beloved old books using traditional restoration and bookbinding methods that go back centuries at his workshop, Miller Bookbinding.
His workspace is full of curious tools like bits of old type, a vintage book press and a refurbished hot foil machine from Hamilton. Miller has restored vintage sets of history books and tattered childhood classics. He has rebound old family recipe books and heirloom Bibles.
Sometimes Miller also makes books from scratch, but he prefers restoration work.
“It’s that connection with history that I love,” he says. “There is just something about bringing an old book back to its former glory.”
The self-professed book nerd and librarian by trade was drawn to the craft when one of his library sciences classes visited a bookbinder who worked in an archive library. His knowledge of restoring vintage book leathers and repairing damaged spines fascinated Miller.
He learned this rare art through courses taught by skilled bookbinders — craftspeople who are few and far between. There once was a time when hand-bookbinding companies were massive operations, each person working on just one part of a book. Nowadays it is a profession done alone, Miller says.
He uses leather dyes to bring colour back to faded book covers. Even the book glue he uses, made of water and wheat starch, is a recipe that goes back hundreds of years.
Miller repairs many damaged spines, including some that require sewing a book back together.
He touches up the detailed designs or text on book spines and covers with traditional hand tools and rolls of fine gold leaf. If the book is not very fragile, he uses the hot foil machine.
“It’s labour-intensive work,” he explains. “You wouldn’t think it, but it can be hard on your body as well,” he says, pointing out that a lot of the work requires standing very still for long periods of time.
Sometimes Miller finds hidden gems inside book spines or tucked under the covers of an old book. He has found scraps of sheet music from the 17th century, pieces of old maps and bits of newspaper used as layers inside the covers of antique books.
“You can really see the ingenuity of the old bookbinders,” Miller says. In the 19th century, bookbinders often used whatever materials they could find to restore books.
In the same tradition, Miller leaves little traces of himself in his work as well. He will write his name and the date tucked away inside the spine of a book he has restored.
“The only person who will ever see it is another bookbinder.”
Miller thinks that as long as people continue to cherish books, there will always be a need for bookbinders like himself, even if fewer people are picking up the craft.
“Being able to flip through a book means more to people than touching an ebook screen,” he says.
“An ebook will never have the satisfying weight of a book. You can’t put an ebook on a bookshelf.”
Miller learned his bookbinding skills through courses hosted by the The Canadian Book Arts and Bookbinders Guild, a small group of artisans dedicat- ed to book arts from bookbinding and restoration to calligraphy, letterpress printing and papermaking.
There are only 500 members across the country. New Dundee residents Audrey and Kevin Martin are two of them.
As book artists of a different kind, the Martins say there is a niche but vibrant market for handmade paper and letterpress printing. The papermaking duo has made paper by hand for nearly two decades and they have 2,000 years of papermaking knowledge behind their craft.
“I like to think of it as sort of a cross between the history of civilization and making mud pies,” Audrey says.
A large studio and shop, called The Papertrail, sits behind the Martins’ New Dundee home. It houses shelves stacked with papermaking supplies, vintage letterpress printing machines and drawers full of handmade paper.
The Martins’ handmade paper is popular for scrapbooking, letter writing and is often purchased by art school students. Many bookbinders who make books from scratch will also buy paper from the Martins.
It’s a craft that involves many traditional techniques.
The Martins, however, make paper in massive quantities so they have machines like a hydraulic press to squeeze water out of the paper and a commercial dryer to quicken drying time.
Making paper by hand is a tactile but rather messy craft. Wet cotton pulp is poured into a vat and then sheets are formed using a screen mould called a deckle. It is then layered with sheets of felt before it is laid out to dry.
Audrey says many couples will come to the studio looking for unique wedding invitations, so they get many requests for invites printed by letterpress on handmade paper.