A five-day practical workshop
Book end-bands (small cords or strips of material affixed near the spine, usually of hardcover bindings) can be beautiful as well as practical, and they can also tell us a great deal about a book’s creation, its provenance, evolution, purpose and relationship with other crafts.
This five-day course offers a chance to practise and clarify the characteristics of twined or woven end-bands and their technical and decorative variations.
Twined end-bands represent a distinct category of rather elaborate compound end-bands commonly found in virtually all the bookbinding traditions of the Eastern Mediterranean. Over the course of the week participants will be able to make at least six different twined end-bands – a Coptic, an Islamic, a Syriac, a Byzantine, an Armenian, and a tablet woven end-band – to be taken away at the end of the course.
An introductory lecture will explain their evolution in time and place, their classification and terminology, their structural and decorative features as well as their relation to fabric-making techniques. Working materials, a hand out with explanatory drawings and some reading material will be also provided.
The course is led by Georgios Boudalis, Head of Book and Paper Conservation at the Museum of Byzantine Culture in Thessaloniki, Greece.
Day 1Morning session: Introductory lecture on end-bands
Afternoon session: Hands-on basic technique of twining
Day 2Morning session: Coptic split-twined end-band
Afternoon session: Islamic twined end-band
Day 3Morning session: Syriac twined end-band
Afternoon session: Byzantine twined end-band
Day 4Morning and afternoon sessions: Armenian end-band
Day 5Morning and afternoon sessions: The tablet-woven end-band (15th-16th century Russian and Byzantine bindings)
Details
| Name: | Twined End-bands in the Bookbinding Traditions of the Eastern Mediterranean |
|---|---|
| Where: | British Library St Pancras |
| When: | - |
| Price: | Full Price: £400.00 |
| Enquiries: | +44 (0)1937 546546 boxoffice@bl.uk |
