A Planetary Collage – Timothy C. Ely | drawings, paintings, bookworms, book forms, sketchbooks, bookbindings, lists, poetry, recipes, equipment, book artist and stuff

Book Review: Richard Horton’s “Sewings Workshop Guide, with 9 Exercises”

June 24, 2021 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

December 14, 2020 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

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Line of Sight — A Short Documentary About My Work. Just Released!

September 10, 2020 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 Doug […]

Categories: Biography, My Work

Writings About My Work

August 29, 2020 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 […]

Categories: Biography, My Work

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When the Asteroid Passes, What is Left Behind? Journals, Sketchbooks, and More

May 22, 2020 by telyhardware

Strange, strange times indeed. Historically we have had hundreds of pandemics but never before have we been so tuned in, as Marshall McLuhan suggested, to the world —electronically and, perhaps, psychically. In any event, I am able to know, as soon as a response comes in, how my friends are holding up in Norway, Australia and Israel. Yet I recall that John Adams did not know the Revolutionary War had concluded for some months. In the midst of this time […]

Categories: My Work, Working & Methods

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Timothy Ely’s Five Essential Bookbinding Tools

May 8, 2020 by telyhardware

This morning a guest post I’d written about my Five Essential Bookbinding Tools went up on Jeff Peachey’s blog. Just follow this link to “Timothy Ely’s Five Essential Bookbinding Tools”. Enjoy my list — which starts with Randall Hankins’ superb weights (Randy is a blog co-conspirator). If you aren’t familiar with Jeff, he makes outstanding knives and other tools for bookbinders. As an active bookbinder, he was dissatisfied with the tools available for his use. So he started making his own. […]

Categories: My Work

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SCALE

February 24, 2020 by telyhardware

It began with a question of ‘’How large should I make my book?’’ My student felt the question absurd but really there are no absurd questions. I told her of many successful experiences and missteps with scale. What does it mean to make something of any size? We were specifically referring to sketchbooks and I have reasons for why my preferred size works. Many are practical while not a few are eccentric… like how mine all are designed to fit a […]

Categories: Mastery, My Work, Working & Methods

X-RAY. A New Work.

October 7, 2019 by telyhardware

This week I’ve been finalizing X-RAY, a new book. Fortunately, much of the process around X-RAY has been documented with the film and photographs which follow. I’m quite often asked “How long does it take to create one of your books?” The truth is similar to that expressed by Abraham Lincoln when asked “How long should a man’s legs be?” Lincoln reportedly replied “Long enough to reach the ground.” Each work takes as long as it takes. That’s the way […]

Categories: My Work, News

The Right Triangle

July 3, 2019 by telyhardware

I don’t think celebrate is the right word for what I’m thinking today — perhaps deeply acknowledge is better? Regardless, I am aware of the anniversary of the landing of Apollo 11 on the Moon along with my departure for the CIA a month or so later. In the middle of all this, in 1969 I had my first solo exhibition in Snohomish Washington, where I grew up. The exhibition came through a series of the wild attractions which have […]

Categories: Mastery, My Work

A Visit to Reed College’s Special Collections

April 22, 2019 by telyhardware

My co-conspirator in this blog, Doug Garnett, and his son Sam Garnett, have begun filming a documentary about my work. Doug has directed national TV commercials and Sam is an excellent videographer and editor. (Here’s a clip with us busily at work in my studio.) It has been exciting to see film about my work begin to come together. While the documentary won’t be out for some time, the recent TX83 blog post has the first public example of their work. […]

Categories: My Work, News

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