A handmade item has a unique appearance and you can see the artist’s work, which gives it more details and design elements that are not found in industrialized items. When I show my books to people they are always fascinated that they are handmade.
My primary artistic work is in the area of “design bindings.” On exhibit in SEE is a unique binding for Shakespeare’s Venus and Adonis. The cover illustration is created from many small pieces of leather and is a based on an illustration found in the book by Rockwell Kent. While I like to try new techniques and materials in my design, I feel the binding is a part of the larger whole, so it should reflect the contents of the book and the time period in which it was made.
Untitled Box, 2016
Book board, PVA glue, green pattern cotton fabric, green silk bookcloth. Attached lid; upper compartment with fixed dividers and bottom drawer for organization.
Venus and Adonis, 2012
Design binding; full terracotta goatskin binding with onlays and line onlays. Top page edge painted copper with hand sewn silk endband. Decorative copper paper endpapers with leather hinge.
Jana Pullman teaches book arts at Carleton College and a number of other institutions, including Minnesota Center for Book Arts. She began creating books and boxes in 1983 while an art student, realizing she needed boxes for storage and books for drawings and writing. Over the years she has explored a variety of book art methods, with her passion leading to the establishment of her own business, Western Slope Bindery, where she continues to construct boxes, bind books, and restore old volumes. Jana holds a BFA in drawing and printmaking from Brigham Young University, a MFA in graphics from the University of Wisconsin and was a Traveling Scholar with University of Iowa.