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Po Box 410963
San Francisco, CA 94141
USA

A close-knit group of hand bookbinders, with shared interests in creating and collecting fine bindings, joined together to promote hand bookbinding and related book arts and to exchange information and ideas. 

HBC41 - 2013

Dear Members,

This is a wonderful time and place to be a bookbinder.

We have a long established local tradition of fine binding with collections of astonishing work we have only to ask to see, and bookbinding titans who still walk among us, sharing their knowledge and creating new work. An active community of young makers who are rediscovering the joy and deeply human satisfaction of crafting by hand and who want to reinvent that process for the 21st century thrives here. The Bay Area houses open studios that provide access to specialized equipment (some new, some over a century old) that can refine and elevate one’s work. We interact with like-minded colleagues all over the world with an ease and speed undreamed of in the history of humankind.

HBC is happy to return to the San Francisco Public Library’s Special Collections Skylight Gallery. As with last year’s exhibits at Stanford University Green Library and Mills College, archival bindings from the library’s collection are included. These bindings by influential Bay Area binders and teachers add richness and meaning to the exhibition.

We thank especially Andrea Grimes, Librarian of Special Collections for her encouragement and help in all aspects of the exhibition.

Special thanks to Margaret Johnson, Coleen Curry, and Rhiannon Alpers for their essential help in organizing the entries and designing and completing the catalog for this year’s show.

Our sincere gratitude to long-time HBC member Signa Houghteling, who completes her two-year term as Exhibitions Chair with the HBC 41st Members’ Exhibition at the San Francisco Public Library.

The exhibit will close September 7th and then move to the Doyle Library at Santa Rosa Community College. During Joanne Page’s term as Exhibitions Chair, she and Karen Peterson at the Doyle established links with teachers at the college who incorporate the binding exhibition in class projects.

In addition, this year, Ms. Peterson has organized a book fair which will be held at the library during the exhibit, encouraging the general public to attend the exhibition.

In 2014, HBC will be privileged to open its 42nd Members’ Exhibition at the new premises of the San Francisco Center for the Book, and will travel from there to Santa Clara University Library.

The unifying principle of the HBC is our interest in books. We invite anyone who has found this exhibit interesting or inspiring to join us at our monthly meetings, special lectures, and classes. Please join us and share your work in the 42nd Members’ Exhibition.

Brian Lieske

President, HBC