the Old Ways in Santa, Idaho

Idaho, my new love for many reasons, but for the sake of this post, I will focus on my experience at The Old Ways of Making Books Workshop with Jim Croft.

It's been a month since I returned home from this life changing adventure and I want to share with you a glimpse of the experience. It goes a little something like this:

June 28-July 14, 2019 
15 days at the home of Jim Croft and Melody Eckroth in Santa, ID
Learning and applying skills to create a Medieval Gothic Book using materials from the land

The Place

• a 40+ year old homestead lovingly built from the ground up
• a home, a workshop/artist studio, an outdoor kitchen, a cellar for food storage
• areas of storage interspersed through the woods from years of collecting resources- woods, metals, fibers, cars, stacks of firewood, ping pong table 
• a garden for growing food, herbs, fruit trees and flax
• a complex system to transport water from the well spring down the road 
• a solitary solar panel for electricity and 2 solar thermal panels for hot water
• 4 wood cook stoves for meal preparation, water and space heating
• 2 of the dearest people who kindly welcomed us into their home and their world
• one cat, friend and foe, depending on the moment

The Students

• a mix of bookbinders, professors, conservators, artists, writers, teachers, free spirits
• from east coast to west coast
• delightfully brought together by the universe to learn, grow, support, bond, and ultimately create the beginnings of lifelong friendships 

4 characteristics of this style of bookbinding:

• a rounded spine
• text block with a “shoulder”
• wooden board covers
• clasps to hold the book closed

 
A rough plan of the work that lies ahead in order to make each part of the book by hand:
 
1. making paper from old cloth

2. making tools from bone for preparing pages, supporting sewing and working the leather spine
3. spinning flax fiber to make thread to sew the text block
4. processing animal (deer) hide to make leather to cover the book’s spine

5. sharpening a series of metal tools to support the wood working process
6. sewing a text block on a sewing frame
7. cutting and shaping book boards for the book’s cover
8. designing and creating brass clasps to hold the book closed

Each process in itself could take a lifetime to master. And over the course of two weeks, we dipped into them, one by one. In the end, we pulled each part together to create a finished work of art.

Here is my book, at its current state, left unfinished for now. 

I wholeheartedly recommend this experience which happens once every two year. If you are interested, you can find Jim's contact information on their website. It's best to give them a call or write them a letter. Remember, its a part of the old ways out there in Santa, which means stepping back in time, shedding some of the complex layers of modernity and immersing in a whole different way of doing things. And that for me was a significant reminder of how I want to be in this world.