The Book of the Erinyes

Just got back from seeing Romilly Saumarez Smith: Bookbindings for Eileen Hogan at the V&A.
It’s a small exhibition, just outside the National Art Library, but it’s definitely worth a visit.

Obviously I was on the look-out for inspiration for binding the Book of the Erinyes, and Romilly Saumarez Smith didn’t let me down.

Romilly Saumarez Smith studied book binding and paper conservation at Camberwell School of Art and Crafts and went on to become the first female forwarder at Zaehnsdorf’s Bindery (Zaehnsdorf’s Bindery was taken over by Shepherds in 1998 and the bindery now trades under the single name of Sangorski & Sutcliffe.).  In the 1990s she began increasingly to use metal in her bindings, and gradually moved to making jewellery.

One of the innovative materials Saumarez Smith uses for binding is pillow ticking (the strong cotton fabric used to cover pillows and mattresses). The ticking is coloured with multi-layered washes of leather dye, backed with Japanese paper and rubbed with beeswax.  She also uses dye and wax resist techniques to great effect.

The exhibition at the V&A is on until 2^nd August 2009.  More details on the V&A website.

One of the things I’ve started considering is how to bind the 30 to 50 copies of the Book of the Erinyes.

I decided right from the start that they’d all be individually hand-bound and I would try different binding materials across the limited edition.

I’ve been on holiday on the Greek island of Naxos for the past couple of weeks and, while touring the souvenir shops I spotted some sketch books/journals for sale that were bound with dried vine leaves.

This seemed like a great idea to steal — especially for a Greek subject like the Erinyes.  So I quickly collected and pressed a dozen vine leaves and brought them back with me.  I like the idea of some of the copies of the Book of the Erinyes being bound in dried Vine Leaves—a particularly Greek motif—is particularly appealing, especially since the vine leaves were specially collected on a Greek island by the artist (no expense is spared scouring the world for materials for my art!).