Rye has a rich culture of creativity and a growing community of artists and craftspeople keen to share their skills through courses and workshops. Rye News will be regularly featuring the artists who are offering workshops to share their skills. This week we feature the book binder, Philippa East.
There is a wealth of artists and skilled craftspeople practising their work in studios and workshops in and around Rye and luckily for us, some offer up the opportunity to learn from them through workshops and one-to-one lessons.
Philippa East is one, a book binder making gorgeous handmade books using traditional methods in her studio at Seagull Bindery in Iden. Her books are folded and sewn by hand and covered with beautiful hand-printed paper from Italy and India, or fine leather.
As well as producing her own guest books, photo albums and sketch and notebooks, Philippa works as a paper and book conservator offering her services to archives and collections as well as to individuals wanting to preserve treasured family books.
As a young girl, Philippa started collecting vintage and antique books and learnt skills from her furniture restorer father. After training as a bookbinder with a binder in London, she spent six years on a voluntary placement with the V&A Museum book and paper conservation department gaining invaluable practical experience. This was followed by an MA in Preventative Conservation and voluntary work with the National Trust.
In restoring books, Philippa believes it is important to respect the heritage of the book – to conserve it but not to make it like new. One of her most recent commissions was to preserve a notebook written by the client’s grandfather during the Second World War, which contained his gardening notes along with facts about the war, “an interesting combination of the mundane and the historical” as she puts it.
Another is a copy of Mrs Beeton’s Cookery book which had some torn pages and a loose cover, and another, a family Bible of 1878 whose spine was badly damaged.
Philippa offers one-to-one and group workshops in her studio, to make a decorative hard-back, hand-bound book from a selection of beautiful, printed cloths and papers.
And in the spirit of collaboration, Philippa is working with Eloise Dethier-Eaton of EDE Projects at 4 Cinque Ports Street offering a two-day workshop on 28 and 29 April. The first a paper marbling workshop by Eloise and the next day a bookbinding workshop to make a book using the marbled paper within the binding. Both or either can be booked here
You can find out more about Seagull Bindery and workshops and events on offer here.
Image Credits: @the_life_narrator .