Peter & Donna Thomas

Santa Cruz, California 
Book artists, papermakers, and letterpress printers, Peter and Donna Thomas also illustrate, illuminate, and bind their own books. They are founding members of the Miniature Book Society and are active in book arts and papermaking organizations. Since 1977, they have produced over 125 limited edition books, 200 artists’ books, and recently wrote and illustrated More Making Books by Hand for Quarry Books.

Example Binding: 
Jorge Luis Borges. 
Ficciones
.
Baltimore: Alfred A. Knopf, 1993.

Sewn onto wooden dowels. A threaded hollow steel rod connects two redwood hexagons that function as lids or covers. The “book” has a hexagonal slipcase with six panels featuring copies of the original book’s cover attached to a redwood base. [Displayed with book lifting out of slipcase.]

Design Description: 
In “The Library of Babel,” Borges writes: “The universe (which others call the Library) is composed of an indefinite, perhaps an infinite, number of hexagonal galleries, with enormous ventilation shafts in the middle. . .” This concept is inspiration to bind Ficciones as a hexagonal book structure. The binding would be similar to the example except that silver rods would replace the wooden dowels, brass pipe would replace the threaded steel tube, laminated Argentine hardwoods would replace the redwood, and original paintings would replace the images of the Groves Press cover.

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Peter & Donna Thomas example binding

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Peter & Donna Thomas design proposal

Peter & Donna Thomas