This master class, based on Carmencho Arregui's Crossed Structure Binding, will develop your capacity to deal with an unusual way of thinking in a perfectly balanced asymmetry, and your everyday practice will benefit of this extra understanding of books' motion.
The course is open to who has already followed CSB Part One, with Linda Allard Forsman or with Cristina Balbiano d’Aramengo, hence knows already the basics and made the paper bindings with the different variations of the CSB.
It lasts five days, during which each participant will make some bindings on real books with the cover in leather or parchment.
Participants will have to identify the most suitable structure for their books, providing justification for the choice, which will be reviewed collectively.
The aim of the class is indeed to learn the techniques but also to get able to discern which structure can better fit depending on which book has to be bound.
There will be time to study and practice the intrinsic decorative possibilities of this structure, and to analyze the original models of Carmencho Arregui and Cristina.
We will practice with Manne Dahlstedt’s sewing frame, and many tips and tricks about measuring, marking and cutting the leather will be shown.
Furthermore, during the course we will have the opportunity to learn and apply the technique of lining the leather with Japanese hand-made paper, which will then be used to create some of the bindings.
"In the last years Cristina Balbiano d'Aramengo has worked with me, discussing technical matters as well as finding new solutions to different problems. Out of this friendship Cristina has developed her own ideas about the Crossed Structure Binding and is now able to present the structure in a more complete and complex form. Her interest in book conservation has led her to adapting the technique to the needs of old books and heavy volumes. Such matters will be treated during this workshop."
Carmencho Arregui
This is a masterclass, therefore it is designed for experienced bookbinders, although not necessarily professionals. We will give for granted some basic bookbinding knowledge, about piercing, folding, cutting, measuring.