Across The Bridge Soup
by telyhardware
On soup, oil, starch, and paste.
Categories: Mastery, My Work • Tags: baking, bindery, book-binding, bookbinding, bread, food, paste, paste making, Wheat paste
I Only Have Two Hands
by telyhardware
Tom Robbins passed away on my last birthday. I had begun reading his reviews when he worked for a great metropolitan newspaper and eventually read almost all of his novels and essays. It has been surprising to learn that many of my friends knew him personally though I never did. His writing and being had great influence on my thinking – for the better. To start, school assignments seemed to always be short term things where the assignment was given […]
Categories: My Work
The Only Constant
by telyhardware
I have long been a fan of THE NEW BOOKBINDER, since its first issue with Roger Powell on the cover. The honor of writing a short essay for the journal, aside from being a humbling process of recollection, has garnered me some new friends. Its nearly impossible to sum up large pieces of a lifetime’s work or even to describe the insights, tricks, sudden moves and revelations that one gets from working, talking with other binders, and, of course, following […]
Categories: Biography, My Work, Working & Methods • Tags: art, artist books, book-binding, bookbinding, books, manuscript books, modern art, one of a kind books, Timothy C. Ely
Soon to Open In San Francisco: Cognitive Distance: The Bookworks and Thoughtforms of Timothy C. Ely
by telyhardware
The San Francisco Center for the Book is mounting an extensive show of my work starting on October 22, 2022 and running through January 8th of next year. This is a big show with around forty manuscript books spanning the past fifty years along with a number of drawings and prints. SFCB is also showing some of my most recent prints and books and will offer a 100 page catalog of the show. In their announcement, exhibition curator Jennie Hinchcliff observes: For […]
Awards for the Line of Sight Short Doc!
by telyhardware
In 2020, we released the short documentary showcasing my work. This video gives many their first look inside a finished book and it offers everyone a peek at my studio practice. It has been a pleasure to hear from so many who have enjoyed the video. I’ve also been pleased to hear that it introduced many to the world of the contemporary rare books and one-of-a-kind books — work which remains too little known as it resides in library special […]
Categories: My Work
My Interview on Spokane Public Broadcasting
by telyhardware
Yesterday evening, Spokane Public Broadcasting aired a 15 minute segment on my work. I’m pleased with the time and care they put into the finished piece and thought I’d share it. The entire episode is on YouTube. You will find my section starting at 14:33. Thanks to the folks at KSPS for their interest and care. Hope you enjoy! ©2021 — Timothy C. Ely — All Rights Reserved
Book Review: Richard Horton’s “Sewings Workshop Guide, with 9 Exercises”
by telyhardware
I received The Gibson System for the Guitar, carrying a copyright of 1939, when I began to take guitar lessons in 1960. This excellent foundation built my understanding and my skills. It focused on the fundamentals that mattered so well that it has value today. On the other hand, my family camped every few years. Of course, when we skipped years we forgot how to “do” camping. My grandfather’s tent must have been Civil War surplus and weighed more than […]
Categories: Mastery, Working & Methods
The Codex Offers Unusual Depths to Explore
by telyhardware
I create books in a most common historic form — the Codex. Of course there are many forms which can be bracketed between the earliest gatherings of written material to something written last month. But this is the form which reaches me as a maker. The primeval forms of scrolls and stones and tablets remain venerable and inspiring. They can provide stimulus for so-termed book artists. Yet the codex remains uniquely compelling for me — a fit basis of my […]
Categories: Mastery, My Work, Working & Methods • Tags: artist books, bookbinding, manuscript books, modern art, one of a kind books, Timothy C. Ely
Line of Sight — A Short Documentary About My Work. Just Released!
by telyhardware
When I started making books in the 1970s, there was no clear roadmap for what I wanted to make. Now Doug Garnett and Sam Q. Garnett have created a short documentary on my work and many of the processes I use — including a full tour of my book Line of Sight. Enjoy! And pass it along! To share, here’s the link to the video on Vimeo: https://vimeo.com/protonik/timothyelylineofsight And here’s the link to the video on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OVdqPEZy8Sc&feature=youtu.be Special thanks to […]
Writings About My Work
by telyhardware
Blogging co-conspirator Doug Garnett has collected a set of writings about my work onto a page added to this blog. So I thought my regular readers might find these writings of interest. After all, I’ve spent my career creating books which deliver an experience of mystery and delight — attempting to create an artifact which delivers the surprise one might feel encountering an unusual and compelling work hidden within a rare book collection. The work which developed turns out to […]
A Planetary Collage - Timothy C. Ely 