![[bound for success]](boundforsuccess.jpg)
Out of Print
Water
the Book: the Competition: the Exhibition
Eighteen months after we posted sheets of Water to binders who had entered Designer Bookbinders International Competition 2009, the winning bindings were announced at the opening of The Bodleian Library's Summer 2009 Binding Exhibition. Bound for Success displayed over one hundred competition bindings alongside historic bindings from the Bodleian's collections. With the closure of the Bodleian exhibition, the bindings were sent to the US, for exhibitions around the country.
Our own edition of Water is bound in stunning paste papers specifically designed for the book by Mark Walmsley, making each copy unique. Inside a pleasing mix of poetry and illustrations all around this same theme. With illustrations from Rigby Graham, Paul Kershaw, Clare Curtis, Bert Eastman, a Suminagashi executed by Victoria Hall, and this stunning wave created by Ann Muir as the title page. Printed on archival Zerkall paper in Garamond type, Water is 96 pages, 10 x 7 1/2 inches, and bound in quarter-cloth with paste-paper over boards. The binding on each book is different, but the three shown below are typical examples.
![[copies of Water]](water.tiny.jpg)
![[Jenna Pullman's binding]](jenna.jpg)
The Art of Binding
Jana Pullman is a book conservator, bookbinder and book artist. She is also proprietor of Western Slope Bindery in Minneapolis, Minnesota. On her blog, About the Binding, Jana has written a detailed account of designing and binding her copy of Water. The text and illustrations reveal her design process, including fore-edge painting, covering the boards, and foil stamping.
Although we are out of sheets of Water, our Books in Sheets section can provide several ideas for books you may bind yourself. Or if you fancy having a designer-bound book, we will be happy to provide some names of binders who specialize in such things.
Marja Wilgenkamp is the winner of the
Incline Press Award
We chose Marja's book for the Incline Press Award because of all the bindings in the exhibition, it came closest to a binding we would have wanted for our own edition.
Marja tells us she bound the book during endless days of rain last November, inspired by the colours beyond the window when seen fractured by rivulets of rain on the glass. The cover is built up of paper and museum boards, using a collage of small torn Arches paper strips, edges painted in watery colours, and strips from monoprints. Five water drops appear in relief on the front cover. The photo does not do full justice to this beautiful example of a designer binding.
'Bound for Success'
19 September-13 December 2009 Boston Public Library
12 February-6 March 2010 Bonhams & Butterfields, San Francisco
19 May-31 July 2010 The Grolier Club
of New York