by telyhardware
In 2016 I was asked to write an introduction to the catalog for an auction of Philip Smith’s work. Given the interest in my prior post about Philip, I’m re-posting what I wrote here. I am a romantic but not prone to great exaggeration. As I have studied deeply the history of books and their making, I think I am in a safe zone in stating that the bindings of Philip Smith are among the finest and most skilled ever […]
Categories: News
by telyhardware
“Creativity involves not only years of conscious preparation and training but unconscious preparation as well,” wrote Oliver Sacks in outlining the three essential elements of creativity, adding: “This incubation period is essential to allow the subconscious assimilation and incorporation of one’s influences and sources, to reorganize and synthesize them into something of one’s own.” In essence creativity is not a thing. It has no mass or weight, meaning it must be a metaphysical discharge. It can be seen as the […]
Categories: Mastery, My Work, Working & Methods
by telyhardware
It is possible to interpret this confrontation of script and stars. Just as now and then a star emerges from the host—as a moving planet, as a comet—so also does a cipher, whose ideogram becomes intelligible to us, rise up now and then from the heap of incomprehensibility. One could draw the conclusion that the limits of vision correspond to the limits of understanding. —Werner Spies[i] Everything we hear is an echo. Anyone can see that echoes move forward and […]
by telyhardware
While in England on my NEA grant, I met Philip Smith – an encounter that spun into a lifelong friendship. Most bookbinding texts focus on journeyman work – the skills needed to begin the process and to contemplate mends, repairs and the conservation of rare works. During my self-propelled apprenticeship I found many books covering these issues in binding – key issues where I was intrigued. Through them I learned a tremendous amount about the raw fundamentals and first principals. […]
Categories: Biography
A Planetary Collage - Timothy C. Ely