Eleanore Edwards Ramsey
Sausalito, California
Eleanore Edwards Ramsey has taught bookbinding and worked privately as a binder since 1980. She has taught courses at Mills College, the University of California at Santa Cruz, Scripps College, The Ahha School of Art (Telluride, Colorado), and the Guild of Book Workers Standards of Excellence Conference, 1994. Ramsey was president of the Hand Bookbinders of California, San Francisco, 2000-2001.
Winner: Award for Design, tie
Example Binding:
Porter Garrett.
Philosophical Writings on the Ideal Book.
Compiled by Jack Stauffacher.
San Francisco: Book Club of California, printed at Phelps Schaefer, 1994.
Full, dark brown French Cape morocco binding with unique magnetic closure developed by binder. Front cover design with Garnett's Laboratory Press printer's device, also in blind on verso. Onlays of French Cape morocco and chagrin leathers with paste varnish top edge and marbled paper by Claude Del Pierre. Title and tooling in gold, drop back box. The book is opened by holding down center printers device while lifting front cover.
Design Description:
Front and back covers will represent a map of the central United States surrounding the Mississippi River Valley during the mid-1840s, the design suggested by Barry Moser's "photographic portraiture" reflecting Huckleberry Finn's matter of fact, straight-forward point of view in the telling of his adventure. This map is similarly a "photographic portrait," linked in the time and place to the story. Each state or territory is to be individually covered in one of fifteen colors of green leather including: French Cape morocco, chagrin, karroo, box calf and oasis. The states and territories will be mounted so the board edges are the same color as the state, changing as they pass each geographical area. As the book is opened, another layer of the story is revealed: the division between free and slave-holding states becomes apparent. The free states and territories will be made of honeycomb paneling and mounted separately on the reinforced flyleaf. The slave states remain on the board cover. The book will be titled in gold with all edges gilded.
