Old Ways of Making Books in Santa, Idaho

I had the privilege of spending the month of June completely off the grid (no electricity, cell phone service, internet or running water) studying materials and gothic bookbinding structures with Jim Croft at his home in Santa, Idaho. It was a big decision for me to spend such a large chunk of time, so late in my design education, doing something not directly related to my professional pursuits, but I feel that I learned more living in a tree in Idaho for a month than I would have pushing pixels and pulling beziers back in Baltimore. I expected to learn tons about gothic bookbinding, a field in which Jim is a world-renowned expert, but I did not expect to learn so much about homesteading and sustainable living.

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Jim and his wife Melody live almost completely self-sufficiently in the woods of northern Idaho, in a house they built themselves from the ground up. The paradigm of recycling, Jim is always salvaging materials that would otherwise have gone to waste to create unique and beautiful things. The hardwood floor and roof of his house are from an old hotel and mercantile that Jim help deconstruct; he makes his own binders board by laminating old cereal boxes together with paste; he turns bones and antlers that hunters and butchers consider useless into amazingly beautiful bone tools and folders; almost all of his impressive amount of wood, used for everything from construction of outhouses to covers for some of the most beautiful books on the planet, is rescued from lumber mill burn piles.

Jim himself is a true renaissance man. Not only is he a master bookbinder and wood-worker, but he also knows how to wire a solar panel system, how to rejuvenate 100 year old Edison batteries, how to repair Chevy trucks from the 30′s, 40′s & 50′s, how to use, sharpen and repair every one of his hundreds of tools, and how to whoop my ass at tennis. He is hands down one of the most passionate individuals I have ever met, about every single one of the many things he loves.

I got to fulfill a childhood dream of living in a tree house for the four weeks I spent with Jim. While I will admit I was wishing I hadn’t seen The Blair Witch Project as I walked the few hundred feet into the pitch black Idahoan woods to goto bed every night, sleeping outside, rain or shine, was a great experience. I woke up with the sun every morning, often with a squirrel friend or two scampering on my bed.

Jim and Melody host a pair of workshops each summer on gothic bookbinding, wooden board covers, paper making, etc. During the last week of my stay, I participated in one of these workshops, and worked on two gothic books in addition to the tools and covers I had made in the weeks preceding. Going through the process of making a book in Jim’s style, splitting and shaping the covers with no power tools, pack sewing on cords with a sewing frame, hand crafting the hinges and clasps from raw cuts of brass and bronze, gave me a new respect for the beautiful books he makes. Not only are they aesthetically pleasing, but the functionality of Jim’s binding, the smoothness with which the book opens, is incredible. As nice as they are to look at, holding one of these books in your hands is the only way to completely appreciate it.

I have some plans to make a book or two this coming year with the skills and knowledge I gained in Idaho. I am hoping to translate Jim’s brand of upcycling from the woods of Idaho to the streets of Baltimore: can someone create a book of the same quality using only materials found in the urban environment?

View all the photos from my trip