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Katie's books are available in various styles and binding and most are customizable. Even for vegans, there are leather alternatives!
Japanese Stab Bound Books - Great for sketch books and ink pen. Fully customizable with choice of cover paper, interior paper, thread colors. Choose from four traditional bindings: 1) Four Hole Binding; 2) Tortoise Shell; 3) Hemp Leaf; 4) Noble Binding.
Sewn Spine Limp Leather Binding - A modern adapation of a more ancient limp leather binding. 100% leather cover.
Coptics
Traditional Ethiopian Coptic - With wood cover; sewn on cords or with chain stitching.
Cloth Covered Book Board Cover - Open back hard bound book with chain stitching in kettle stitch.
Limp Leather Binding with Tacket - A traditional binding used since Roman era, often for archives, information storage or journals.
Here are a few images to tempt you. These beautiful books make wonderful gifts - for yourself or for others! Treat someone today to a new adventure.
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Katie Vota - Fibers/Sculpture/Book Arts
Within my art practice, I always find I begin with craft—the right making of the thing to be made. Otherwise, I don’t feel like I’d have the ability or experience with my materials to follow through with the execution of my ideas. The teaching of bookmaking tends to follow this approach across the board. We’re always taught to make a dummy book (blank) of a new structure before applying it. At some point I realized making the blank books was as satisfying to my artistic sensibilities as making artist books. The books were beautiful, individual art objects all on their own. I approach them now as I approach much of my other work—through the use or exploitation of traditions of making. When confronted with an unknown structure I can either work with it and its histories and traditions, or I can subvert it and exploit it, changing it into something that is both a known quantity and an outsider.
Books themselves are versatile, multi-functioning. Blanks can become journals and diaries, scrap books, sketchbooks, recipe books, and whatever else you can fit onto their pages. There’s a tactile experience found in interacting with books, as opposed to typing/archiving on your computer. There is nothing that can substitute for the act of turning pages, or physically capturing an idea or an image on a page. The difference between machine made books and handmade books is just as palpable. It’s the little details, the difference between machined and torn paper edges, or how a hand-sewn headband versus no headbands affects the overall look of the book. It is up to the artist, rather than the machine, to make these considerations and determine what will be best for each individual book. The consideration of details is what makes them into art objects, while their functionality is what keeps them grounded in the everyday.
In my practice, I like to work with people to make books that are perfect for them. I look at a wide variety of things—what the book is to be used for, the availability of materials locally, the preferences of the individual I’m working with—and work to make a book that will meet their needs as well as offer something unique that a mass-produced book could not offer. They, in turn, get the experience of working with an artist to make an art object tailored to themselves.
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