strong arm bindery :: interview + studio tour
if you live in portland, maine, and happen to have any kind of artistic inkling anywhere in your soul, you've probably come to appreciate what i'm about to tell you: diane toepher at ferdinand is kind of like mr. bacon himself in the six degrees of kevin bacon game, only in the arty/crafty/music world. but portland is small, so i like to think of it more like the two degrees of diane.
last winter, thanks to diane, i had the absolute pleasure to meet martha kearsley - proprietress of strong arm bindery and all around badass. martha is an old-school book binder, and she does antique book restorations, has a studio to die for (on the second floor...but we'll get to that in a minute), recently opened an etsy shop where she gets to display many of her other cool projects. i was happy to find that she also started a blog, which details some of her many adventures and processes. 
i recently got to spend some time with martha in her studio, and she graciously indulged me taking some pictures and patiently answered the many questions i had about her various tools, some of which are positively huge. *she got an excellent smile on her face when she explained how a few things had come to land in her studio...something involving a trip to massachusetts with a flatbed truck, at least one sibling, friends, the removal of a window, and a crane. see why i call her a badass?
i asked her some questions that she was nice enough to answer for me so i could share them with you - i hope you enjoy!
it looks like you've created your dream job. can you tell me how you got started?
It took a while for it to bubble to the surface, but once I figured out I wanted to be a bookbinder I had the good fortune of getting in to the bookbinding program at North Bennet Street School in Boston. Short of finding a full-on apprenticeship --which would be pretty rare these days, much less back in the early 90s-- I don't think I would have found such a comprehensive, all-consuming level of training anywhere else. Another thing that happened early on, during my 2nd year at NBSS, was that I got a part-time position as a technician at Harvard's conservation lab (now the Weissman Preservation Center). That position, which I've maintained pretty much over the last 14 years, except when I was in Chicago, introduced me to the handwork and mind-set of conservation practices. Those two places (and people and things) have defined whatever trajectory I've been on ever since.
share a typical day in the studio.
Today
was fairly typical. I started off with some vigorous list-making and
then cooked up some wheat paste. I have three different projects that
need printed spine labels, so I pared down pieces of calfskin and
backed them with Japanese tissue--I left those on a board to dry and
they'll be ready to print tomorrow. I finished a screw-post
binding--drilled the holes and put in the posts--and a clam-shell box
to house it(that's just waiting for a spine label to get printed and
then that project's done). I did some blabbing on the phone with a
distributor of bookcloth--he was actually asking my opinion about a
finish on a cloth I'd used in the past before he went ahead and got the
mill to make a bunch more (this is a really small crowd I'm working
in). Towards the end of the day I started cutting, folding and pressing
paper for blank text blocks. Those will wind up as journals on my Esty
site. And I finished the day by cleaning up the joint; washing my
brushes, clearing the benches and sweeping the floor. 
you do
a mix of work for libraries and institutions and some for yourself.
does it feel like a good mix? can you tell me about any new projects
you've got percolating?
So far it's been a great mix. The
library and institutional work has been very challenging--a lot of it
requires problem solving and researching materials. It's also been the
work that's sustained the business so far, and I pay very close
attention to that. The last few years I've been branching into my own
stationery work, and I really want to build that up. More often than
not, I find the materials I'm compelled to use in my own work are
things I've leaned on for conservation and repair work---and these are
usually materials produced on a small scale from traditional skills and
handwork. A good example is the Cave Paper I use on the Rat Bastard
books I make; it's also the same paper I just used to re-case an 18th
Century account ledger. The fiber content, the dyes used, and the means
of production are all appropriate for the ledger---they also happen to
be a dream to work with and print beautifully in my shop with the tools
I have. 
Right now, big plans for my own work include designing
the stationery pieces from the inside-out. We have a couple really
great printing machines in the shop (offset and letterpress) and I want
to start providing "content" for blank journals--say organizing the
pages of a gardening journal, or a weather journal, or just a really
kick-ass lined diary. And graph paper--I'll be making my own graph
paper in the months to come and it will be mighty.
what are some of your favorite tools in your studio?
My
absolute favorite tool has gone AWOL for a couple months---and
actually, it was sitting on my bench my first day of school at North
Bennet Street. It's a 15cm beautifully machined Starrett ruler--the
thing measures like a champ; it's easy to read in both metric and the
King's way. And I have to find another one soon. I'm also quite fond of
my Vernier calipers, which will translate the width of a book spine any
way you want. I love my knives--- there's one for edge paring leather,
one for lifting paste downs, and one I made special for fights in the
alley. And then there's big love--BIG LOVE--for the board shears.
what's it been like getting started on etsy? are you enjoying being there?
Etsy's
been really interesting, and a very welcome tool. It's made the
prospect of starting up a line of stationery pieces much more
manageable, and it's provided a form of feedback--on a variety of
fronts--that's been absolutely invaluable. The work I'm drawn to is,
and probably always will be, pretty labor intensive. This seems to be
happily accepted and encouraged by the Etsy community, and has
diminished my concerns about producing material for a wholesale market.
I'm working the Etsy site in an incubator fashion; seeing what gets a
big response, what doesn't, what prices work, etc. And I think it's
changed how I design my pieces. Rather than planning for one holiday
sale or craft fair, and putting all my efforts into a couple things
that I think/hope will be found appealing, I'm producing more items on
a smaller scale, throwing them up there and seeing what kind of
response they get. And it's all in real time---I think it's a very cool
machine.
anything else you'd like to say?
Just my heart-felt thanks for your curiosity and your great questions.
thanks so much, martha!
i am also a huge 
