Wilfredo A. Geigel

Santurce, Puerto Rico 
A seventy-three year old trial lawyer, Wilfredo Geigel began bookbinding as a serious hobby almost twenty years ago. Following classes in San Juan, Puerto Rico, he joined the Guild of Book Workers and has since taken courses at the American Academy of Bookbinding in Telluride, Colorado and classes with Helen Solie, Don Etherington, and Edwin Heym. Geigel has also lectured and written essays on the art of bookbinding.

Example Binding: 
Ignacio Balcells. 
La mar: una versión de la vida ante el mar y del viaje a solas por las costas de Chile.
Santiago, Chile: Editorial Andrés Bello, 2001.

The volume was rounded and backed and full bound following the French style with three different pieces of leather used to form the outline of the shoreline of the sea. The intent was to represent the title of the book, La mar, which means the sea. The top edge was covered with graphite and the headbands were sewn with three silk threads in different colors.

Design Description: 
My design proposal will humbly attempt to reflect symbolically what one of the great master binders performs in his work. The book would be rounded and backed and bound in a full dark red goatskin following the French technique, to highlight the importance of restoration in the conservation of books.  The front and back covers will have an indented rectangular space covered with inlaid lacunose mat representing the joining and meshing of pieces of leather, usually required in the restoration of books.  Both the front and back cover will have a series of parallel indented straight lines representing the various straightforward requirements for returning the book to its original elegance. The headbands will be sewn with three different color threads and the interior of the covers will be dressed in an edge-to-edge doublure. The book will be housed in a linen covered clam shell case.