The impressive diversity of contemporary Norwegian work is being showcased by Flow

Contemporary bookbinding is an exciting medium with a potential that relatively few collectors have fully recognised.

The exhibition at the Flow Gallery (15 - 23 April 2005) offers a rare opportunity to discover the work of Designer Bookbinders - an internationally known and respected society devoted to the maintenance and improvement of standards of design and craft in hand bookbinding.

It was formed under the title 'The Guild of
Contemporary Bookbinders', fifty years ago, a time when the craft was at a low ebb in this country, and collectors of twentieth century bindings looked only to France. But by 1968, when the Guild became 'Designer Bookbinders', it had established the worth of British fine binding, with its publications and exhibitions across Europe and North America. The Southern Hemisphere has since been added and work can now be found in many private and public collections worldwide.

Within its membership are the most highly regarded of makers in the field of fine book-binding, book arts, and artists' books in Britain today, each with a passion for creating unique art objects, whose inspiration is the book in all its aspects - the text, structure, illustration, print and paper, book art and artists' books - as diverse as the individuals who create them. The participating artists including fellows, licentiates and invited guests are:

Kathy Abbott, Susan Allix, Jan Ascoli, Glenn Bartley, James Brockman, Stuart Brockman, Andrew Brown, Lester Capon, Jeff Clements, Mark Cockram, Stephen Conway, Paul Delrue, Eri Funazaki, Flora Ginn, Jenni Grey, Angela James, Peter Jones, Jeanette Koch, Midori Kunikata-Cockram, Mia Leijonstedt, Bernard Middleton, Tracey Rowledge, Faith Shannon, Lori Sauer, David Sellars, Christopher Shaw, Philip Smith, Ann Thornton, Ann Tout, Adam Watson, Stella Wrightson and Annabelle Zinovieff.

.

.

These fascinating works are examples of a rare and as yet insufficiently appreciated art form that requires expertise in many distinct operations, - (a writer in 1747 listed more than 'three score') - which are essential to the making of a finely finished book that has the potential to last for hundreds of years. It is possible to commission a unique object of lasting value.

Many of the methods, materials, tools and equipment used today originated more than a thousand years ago, yet can be recognised in today's studios. They were developed and refined in monastic workshops, and survived to be combined with twenty-first century
technology and tomorrow's ideas.

You will find in the exhibits a range of materials - paper, cloth, wood, plastics, metal, leather and vellum, gold leaf - and a correspondingly wide range of design approaches: from literary texts bound in creative and imaginative ways, to notebooks, albums, visitors' books and simpler one-off bindings.

A hand-made fine binding is constructed in such a way as to create a balance between the tensions generated in the various parts of the binding. This requires a knowledge of the properties of the materials used; which of the many adhesives is best for which task and best able to prolong rather than shorten the life of the book. The craftsman/woman must know which materials are acid-free. He/she must know the way the direction of the grain in wood, board or paper runs, as this dictates how that material will pull as it dries after adhesive is applied, likewise the more unpredictable forces in leather and vellum
(parchment) which always strain to return to their original three-dimensional form!

All the books will be for sale but we will also advise you on how to commission a designer binding. What could be more lovely than to give a gift of a favourite book in a unique binding to a special person on that special occasion - a birthday, anniversary, retirement something that will be a treasure for years, indeed for generations, to come.