Collections Come In
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Transmutaion Publishing offers collections of choice antiquarian and collectable books, manuscripts, art and ephemera and have recently partnered with JRR Bookworks to breathe new life into some of their choice editions. Pictured here are a few of the items I am have completed and there will be more to come. Hargrave Jennings The Rosicrucians Their Rites And Mysteries was bound in red goat skin that was spotted with charcoal black then hand tooled in blind with roses and crosses. Highland Second-Sight was bound in green goat with black covered, hand tooled scrolls, and gold stamped designs. Finally, Scotts Demonology and Witchcraft was given a new spine but the boards and cloth were saved.
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Lodge 19 And The Minneapolis Scottish Rite Valley
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Minneapolis Lodge 19 AF & AM just relocated to the Scottish Rite Valley of Minneapolis Building. I have been working on decades of meeting minutes for the Scottish Rite Valley – perhaps as many as 30 years worth - and was fortunate to meet the Secretary of Lodge 19 while dropping off finished archival bindings and picking up new unbound minutes. The Worshipful 19′er presented me with three antique books in various states of disrepair and requested I preserve these invaluable records of his Lodge.
I have pictured here both the meeting minutes and one of the Lodge 19 bindings just finished.
The Scottish Rite Meeting Minutes are archivally perfect (adhesive) bound using acid free materials, inlaid stitching in the spine ensures the perfect binding will never break, white acid free artists paper was used for the end sheets and the cloth is a starched black buckram.
The Pages are aligned, sorted, collated and any booklets that are not stapled into placed are cut at the folded spine and added to the rest for a perfect (adhesive) bind.
The Lodge 19 By Laws started as early as 1858 and have been kept with new signatures yearly till the present day. Almost all the leaves were cracked and loose, the stitching was broken, the original dyed page edges was worn, and the faux leather cover was ugly to say the least. I disbound the whole book. I then had to unfold and lay our each page set and repair the folds with period specific paper pieces- glued into place to join the ripped or broken leaves. I also had to steam off the material on the paste downs and press it so that at the end I would be able to re-attach it. I added new lined pages att he end so that it can be used from decades to come. Once I re-stacked them, pressed them and sawed in new kerfs I hand stitched it “all along” on my sewing table. The End sheets are hand marbled by Chena River, each one being signed by the artists when complete. I hand dyed and waxed the page edges and re-backed the spine giving it a curved or rounded spine. I added new boards, raised spine bands, and covered them in black veg tanned goat skin. I then hand tooled the cover in gold and finally added a hand tooled cut/carved Lodge 19 brass emblem. Hours upon hours went into this project and the result is an acid free archival hand bound heirloom book that will continue to be used by the lodge well past my lifetime. I added a basic slip case with silk cord to protect the book and designed it with an inner channel for the brass 19 to slide within. This project was a challenge in keeping the page edges dyed but not allowing the dye to seep toward the antique writing- which goes right to the page edges. I hope the 19′ers will be happy with my efforts.
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Glass Drop Spine Presentation Box
This glass presentation box was created to house an Olaf Ohman family heirloom book. The book has births and deaths of the Ohman family written in it for many generations. The box is a glass front, satin lined, 1/4 leather box with silk pull cord, agate marbled paper, gold tooling on the spine, and buckram sides. I specially designed this box with a place to put one’s finger in order to lift just the front cover and first few pages while the book remains in the box. This way the owner can show off the family record and not disturb the fragile heirloom.
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Ohman Kensington Rune Stone Artifacts
This rounded drop spine presentation box was made for a precious artifact book originally owned by the Ohman family of Kensington Minnesota. I was asked to restore the book, which was being held together by packing tape, and then create some kind of case for it. The book has a family picture from the Ohman family, a hand written note from Olaf Ohman and a hand drawn map of his farm. Olaf was the man who found the Kensington Rune Stone, a Minnesota stone with runic inscriptions dating back to the 1300′s.
I built this red hand dyed goat skin box with marbled paper interior tray, rounded drop spine with raised bands, a leather inlay rune stone piece and satin pull cord for access to the restored heirloom book. The book was re-stitched, all the artifacts preserved and rebound with the original cloth being laid on to the new cloth.
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- The Book Was Retitled After This Photo Was Taken.
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Masonic Secrets in A Hand Dyed and Tooled Leather Gothic Style Cipher.
A Gothic Masonic Cipher
This Masonic Cipher was hand bound in Hand Dyed Calf Leather. The Cambridge Styled binding is heavily tooled in blind with a black and yellow marbled sections. Skull and crossbones end sheets, black dyed pages edges, a gold tooled square and compass, and hand tooled hasp complete the look of this gothic style binding.
Heavily tooled, hand dyed, gold stamped. A Gothic Masonic Cipher.
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- Heavily tooled, hand dyed, gold stamped. A Gothic Masonic Cipher.
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Lemegeton Goetia Grimoire by Mathers and Crowley
The Lesser Key of Solomon the King is considered one of the best known and most often referenced grimoires in the Western World. It is part of the goetic tradition and has been reprinted, stolen, edited, researched, expanded with hitherto ignored material, and so on since its first publication in the modern world by S.L. MacGregor Mathers. I have bound this work before but wanted to do something “truly my own” for this project….since it was from my own collection. Since the Lesser Key deals primarily with the evocation and control, or exorcism, of spiritual entities commonly known as demons I felt it appropriate to evoke a feel of ancient evil in this binding. I chose something that perhaps does not bring that feeling to mind for many modern thinkers but should reverberate with “those who know” . It should evoke something about demonic energies throughout history. The eye-like pattern is reminiscent of the Yezidis conception of the Devil, it is also something like a peacock’s tail pattern, an evil eye amulet, a Middle Eastern carpet (flying), and a creature’s eye. In a work on grimoires I wrote some years ago I call certain documents “Threshold Documents” and wrote….” when you use these books you are able to look into another world, one not unlike our own. You will see the denizens of that world. When you look into a threshold document and see them…whether you want it or not they will see you. When you look at them they will look back at you.”(JRR Threshold Documents 2009)
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This is a green goat with scarlet goat onlays. I hand dyed the leather (shading, altering the base color, blocking off and marbling sections, and also dyed the page edges. I used satin and hand marbled paper end sheets, created more than the necessary spine bands to give it a sleek old world look, used a snake-skin title plate, and hand tooled the cover extensively in blind and gold. It may not be the stereo typical grimoire….but I hate stereo typical. This is the JRR Bookworks binding for the Mather’s Lesser Key…and one I am both revolted by and attracted to at the same time.
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Martial Artists Journals
Below is pictured a set of three custom journals that I hand dyed with additional acid etched brass plates with a Martial Arts School logo. I modified the logo just a bit for this client. I hand dyed the page edges, dyed then darkened, then marbled the covers and hand tooled the exterior. I did not photograph the spine prior to sending these off but I used a satin title plate in order to evoke the feeling of a cloth black belt- these being a black belt’s set of journals.
A Masonic Cipher in Classic Form
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Another Lodge Brother has come forward with a request for me to rebind his Masonic Cipher. It is always a pleasure to create an heirloom quality book for someone to one day give to their son. This is the fine thin calf, hand dyed in a deckled brown, ox blood, black, and mahogany. I hand tooled a hasp to have a tiny square and compass on it, used hand marbled paper from Payhemburp Marbled Paper in England, hand dyed the pages and gold tooled the outside with a traditional tools and a custom acid etched die stamp.
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A True And Faithful Relation of John Dee
A True and Faithful Relation of What Passed For Many Years Between Some Spirits and Dr. John Dee is a large volume and a classic in the esoteric field. It is the edited account of John Dee and his seer Edward Kelly’s transactions with entities he considered angels….whcih have become know as Enochian Angels. I have long wanted to bind this definitive work and was finally given the chance. My client wanted to preserve the book as a piece of binding art but also have it look like a grimoire- or book of magic. He wants people to be awed by it. I feel he was leaning a bit more toward making it a prop than a preserved bound classic but after reviewing the value of it I knew I had to walk a fine line between looks and true binding art in order to both elevate it to its rightful place as a cornerstone in any esoteric library as well as give him something that he will consider art to be handled. This edition is the Magickal Childe edition and is not signed by the publisher. A signed limited edition of 500 was bound in leather by Magickal Childe but this was not one of them. Still, it is valuable and more so now that it is a one of a kind.
For the rebinding I started with a cover that was not the original and had to remove it. I then removed all adhesives from the spine, rebacked and curved it, added thick boards and beveled them, added large gothic raised bands, French marbled end sheets, and finally bound it in brown goat skin. The end sheets are wine, black, and gold-colored and so i hand dyed the pages edges and deckled them with black. I was attempting to give the feel of a classical binding but with theatricality. It is anachronistic in many places in that I used modern spine and hinge material but gave it a look of being bound on cords and used goat when most assuredly a book from the 1500′s (one that would have been bound in this style) would have been bound in calf. John Dee lived until roughly 1609 and Casaubon printed this book in 1659. t certainly could have been bound to be an exact 1650′s style but the feel of age and romance was more important. This binding has elements of classical styles but could fit into the 1890′s, 1920′s or 2000′s which is just what my client wanted.
In order to get a rich multi layered look I extensively hand dyed the goat with a red and black center area, then outside of that a marbled square which was marbled in red, black, cocoa brown, violet, and mahogany, then I rubbed the bands and cover edges with layer upon layer of browns, ox blood, and chestnut, and finally I rubbed it all with waxes and burnished certain areas to bring out shine and shadows according to my taste. This book was shaded and work over to provide a bit of theatrics to lift it into the realm of art. I then hand tooled it extensively with traditional tools. I also added a central scarlet calf piece that has black dyed Enochian symbols on it that I added with a goose quill pen and india ink. I finally topped off this work with John Dee’s Hieroglyphic Monad. The Monad was more prominent in Dee’s mathematical philosophy but was part of his crest and holy science as well. Since this is not a book by Dee but one about him I thought a comprehensive sigil appropriate. This book is built using modern techniques which will make it last and perform for centuries but has echos of styles from the past as well as the present.
I am quite proud of the outcome, a bit jealous of the client who gets it- but proud to house this amazing work in such an appropriate binding.
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Thomas Taylor Translation: The Mystical Hymns of Orpheus
This book is an 1824 translation of that most important work of ancient Pagan myth, poetry, and mystery. It is bound in hand dyed calf in the Cambridge Panelled style with gold tooling, raised spine bands, goat skin title plates, and marbled end papers.
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