The Repair Shop: LIFE IN THE BARN: The Inside Stories from the Experts

Product Information

Sometimes a poem responded to a visual image, sometimes vice versa; many pages are more collaborative still, with a sketch from one prompting a draft from the other, worked up to a finished picture and redrafted poem once the printer’s hand has set them in their space.

Fellow of Designer Bookbinders, he covers all aspects of binding: cloth, leather, box making, restoration and design binding. A series of 25 watercolours by Emily Sutton, depicting her interest in Victorian transfer-printed ceramics (plates, mugs and jugs) found on her dresser. The main overall design was built up in gold using 2 lozenge hand tools and a single hand tool repeated over 500 times. The Court Barn is the principal setting, though some repairs are carried out in the Victorian smithy and nearby wagon shed.

The first ‘poem-by-way-of-a-preface’ implies that this book is a three-way collaboration of the words (the poet’s) and the images (the engraver’s) and the space between (the printer/designer). He was also one of the twenty five distinguished winners of the 2017 Designer Bookbinder International Competition, and he won the Sussex Lustreware tooling mug in 2019. He has won numerous prizes for his binding work in the Designer Bookbinders Annual Competition including: The Ted Womersley Award (1993), The Hewits Prize (1995), Highly Commended (1995 and 1996), The Elizabeth Greenhill Award (1995, 2000, 2002 and 2003), Finishing Prize (1994, 1996, 1997 and 2000).

Both volumes bound in matching but dissimilar full scarf jointed crimson and blue Harmatan goatskin; crimson, blue and grey full-thickness goatskin onlays in recessed panels edged in raw sienna acrylic.Box of black buckram with felt linings, lettered in gold on grey leather set into the recessed panel.

The book also contains a totally unique charming watercolour by Emily Sutton, depicting a transferware cup, especially commissioned for inclusion inthe binding, together with a note. Her most recent publication is a collaboration with Paddington Bear author, Michael Bond, The Tale of the Castle Mice. He has inspired students not only in Glasgow and Bristol but further afield in Ghana and he was the founder of Spike Island, the lively Bristol Printmaking studio. Peter Reddick was, for many years, one of the most highly regarded of British wood engravers and his work has appeared in many Penguin books, those of the Folio Society and Limited Editions Club, New York.He has a son Harry, who is a drummer for The 900 Band, the only Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater cover band in the UK. The idea for the design was to create a sympathetic interpretation of Emily’s repeat-pattern backgrounds that feature in these paintings, using the decorative method of gold tooling. Shaw has won numerous prizes for his binding work in the Designer Bookbinders Annual Competition including The Ted Womersley Award (1993), The Hewits Prize (1995), Highly Commended (1995 and 1996), The Elizabeth Greenhill Award (1995, 2000, 2002 and 2003), Finishing Prize (1994, 1996, 1997 and 2000).