{"id":5930,"date":"2013-06-16T01:00:16","date_gmt":"2013-06-16T05:00:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.herringbonebindery.com\/blog\/?p=5930"},"modified":"2025-09-15T16:22:01","modified_gmt":"2025-09-15T20:22:01","slug":"bookbinder-of-the-month-sonya-sheats-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.herringbonebindery.com\/blog\/2013\/06\/16\/bookbinder-of-the-month-sonya-sheats-3\/","title":{"rendered":"Bookbinder of the Month: Sonya Sheats"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"5Conjugations\"<\/a>

Photo by Brandon Constant<\/p><\/div>\n

5 Nouvelles Conjurations<\/em>\u00a0by Pierre Mrejen was bound by Sonya Sheats<\/a> in 2010 and is the smallest book she’s ever bound at 8.5cm x 7cm (3.3″ x 2.7″). Bound as an open joint binding sewn onto eel skin and vellum tapes. The spine is brown goatskin with polycarbonate boards covered in frog skin and d\u00e9cor\u00a0in snakeskin. Each cover uses one full frog skin.<\/p>\n

Sonya’s use of exotic skins has become a signature in her work and one of the reasons why I love her bindings.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"BovaryRose\"<\/a>

Photo by Brandon Constant<\/p><\/div>\n

Sonya originally bound this copy of Madame Bovary<\/em> by Gustave Flaubert in preparation for a\u00a0d\u00e9cor class taught by Florent Rousseau. However, Sonya was displeased with the work she did and immediately reworked the binding once the class was over. Sonya cut off half of the buffalo on each cover and replaced it with new leather of a noticeably different grain. To hide the seam between the new and old leather, Sonya pared salmon skin to a lace-like thinness and place them over the seam as an onlay. The seam was still quite noticeable, so Sonya blind tooled a decorative fillet over the salmon.<\/p>\n

A comment from Sonya:\u00a0<\/strong>
This book is the one that I receive the most inquiries about on my website and in my studio. It draws the most attention for some reason, though it was made from a series of impulsive decisions. All of the shades of pink and bordeaux come straight from the illustrations inside.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

5 Nouvelles Conjurations\u00a0by Pierre Mrejen was bound by Sonya Sheats in 2010 and is the smallest book she’s ever bound at 8.5cm x 7cm (3.3″ x 2.7″). Bound as an open joint binding sewn onto eel skin and vellum tapes. The spine is brown goatskin with polycarbonate boards covered in frog skin and d\u00e9cor\u00a0in snakeskin. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[12,68,13],"tags":[1054,1867,1056,1053,1052,1055,1058,1057,1007],"class_list":["post-5930","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-binder-of-the-month","category-bookbinding","category-feature-book-of-the-week","tag-5-nouvelles-conjurations","tag-bookbinding","tag-frog-skin","tag-gustave-flaubert","tag-madame-bovary","tag-pierre-mrejen","tag-salmon","tag-snakeskin","tag-sonya-sheats"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2Btis-1xE","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":5796,"url":"https:\/\/www.herringbonebindery.com\/blog\/2013\/06\/09\/bookbinder-of-the-month-sonya-sheats-2\/","url_meta":{"origin":5930,"position":0},"title":"Bookbinder of the Month: Sonya Sheats","author":"Erin Fletcher","date":"June 9, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Bien Aim\u00e9 Raymond\u00a0by Max Jacob with illustrations by Jean-Marie Queneau was bound by Sonya Sheats in 2007. This was Sonya's first open joint binding using MDF and wood veneer. Sonya refers to this binding as an open joint because the covers are attached by the snakeskin and vellum sewing tapes,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "binder of the month"","block_context":{"text":"binder of the month","link":"https:\/\/www.herringbonebindery.com\/blog\/category\/binder-of-the-month\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"bienaimeraymond-sonyasheats","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.herringbonebindery.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/bienaimeraymond-sonyasheats-1024x468.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.herringbonebindery.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/bienaimeraymond-sonyasheats-1024x468.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.herringbonebindery.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/bienaimeraymond-sonyasheats-1024x468.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":6013,"url":"https:\/\/www.herringbonebindery.com\/blog\/2013\/06\/23\/bookbinder-of-the-month-sonya-sheats-4\/","url_meta":{"origin":5930,"position":1},"title":"Bookbinder of the Month: Sonya Sheats","author":"Erin Fletcher","date":"June 23, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"In 2010, the New England Chapter of the Guild of Book Workers exhibited a series of juried design bindings for Johnny Carrera's Pictorial Webster's: A Visual Dictionary of Curiosities. As a project that began in 1996, Carrera patiently sifted through a collection of around 12,000 engravings from the Merriam-Webster Company\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "binder of the month"","block_context":{"text":"binder of the month","link":"https:\/\/www.herringbonebindery.com\/blog\/category\/binder-of-the-month\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"pictorialwebster-sonyasheats","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.herringbonebindery.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/06\/pictorialwebster-sonyasheats-1024x648.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.herringbonebindery.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/06\/pictorialwebster-sonyasheats-1024x648.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.herringbonebindery.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/06\/pictorialwebster-sonyasheats-1024x648.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":6071,"url":"https:\/\/www.herringbonebindery.com\/blog\/2013\/06\/30\/bookbinder-of-the-month-sonya-sheats-5\/","url_meta":{"origin":5930,"position":2},"title":"Bookbinder of the Month: Sonya Sheats","author":"Erin Fletcher","date":"June 30, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"When Harold Pinter was award the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2005, the Nobel Museum\u00a0(located in Stockholm) began a collaboration with the Swedish Bookbinders Guild to offer an annual Nobel Museum Bookbinding Exhibition. Their goal has been and continues to be to give bookbinders an opportunity to work together with\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "binder of the month"","block_context":{"text":"binder of the month","link":"https:\/\/www.herringbonebindery.com\/blog\/category\/binder-of-the-month\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.herringbonebindery.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/06\/MadrigalTranstromer.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.herringbonebindery.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/06\/MadrigalTranstromer.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.herringbonebindery.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/06\/MadrigalTranstromer.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":5787,"url":"https:\/\/www.herringbonebindery.com\/blog\/2013\/06\/02\/bookbinder-of-the-month-sonya-sheats\/","url_meta":{"origin":5930,"position":3},"title":"Bookbinder of the Month: Sonya Sheats","author":"Erin Fletcher","date":"June 2, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Paperrad was an artist collective based in Boston and comprised of Jacob Ciocci, Jessica Ciocci, and Ben Jones (all fantastic friends of Sonya Sheats). Their multimedia projects use \u201clo-fi\u201d visual aesthetics, bold fluorescent colors, and images from popular culture. In 2006, Jacob visited Sonya in France. Paperrad\u2019s first book, BJ\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "binder of the month"","block_context":{"text":"binder of the month","link":"https:\/\/www.herringbonebindery.com\/blog\/category\/binder-of-the-month\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"paperradpoly-sonyasheats","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.herringbonebindery.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/paperradpoly-sonyasheats-1024x654.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.herringbonebindery.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/paperradpoly-sonyasheats-1024x654.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.herringbonebindery.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/paperradpoly-sonyasheats-1024x654.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":6075,"url":"https:\/\/www.herringbonebindery.com\/blog\/2013\/06\/30\/bookbinder-of-the-month-sonya-sheats-bonus\/","url_meta":{"origin":5930,"position":4},"title":"Bonus \/\/ Bookbinder of the Month: Sonya Sheats","author":"Erin Fletcher","date":"June 30, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Les M\u00e9moires de L'Oiseau Mendelssohn\u00a0by Monique Lepeuve was bound by Sonya Sheats in 2005 and was her first polycarbonate binding made during her first apprenticeship with Edgard Claes in Belguim.\u00a0It tells the story of a bird by the name of Mendelssohn, who introduces the reader to the incredible characters in\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "binder of the month"","block_context":{"text":"binder of the month","link":"https:\/\/www.herringbonebindery.com\/blog\/category\/binder-of-the-month\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.herringbonebindery.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/06\/oiseaumendelssohn3-sonyasheats.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.herringbonebindery.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/06\/oiseaumendelssohn3-sonyasheats.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.herringbonebindery.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/06\/oiseaumendelssohn3-sonyasheats.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.herringbonebindery.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/06\/oiseaumendelssohn3-sonyasheats.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":5766,"url":"https:\/\/www.herringbonebindery.com\/blog\/2013\/06\/01\/june-bookbinder-of-the-month-sonya-sheats\/","url_meta":{"origin":5930,"position":5},"title":"June \/\/ Bookbinder of the Month: Sonya Sheats","author":"Erin Fletcher","date":"June 1, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"La Couleur du Vent is\u00a0a collection of poems by Gilles Vigneault, illustrated and designed by Nastassja Imiolek under the artistic direction of C\u00e9cile C\u00f4t\u00e9. Sonya Sheats bound this copy for an international design binding exhibition organized by ARA-Canada\u00a0and the \u00c9cole Estienne in Paris. The exhibition is currently on display in\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "binder of the month"","block_context":{"text":"binder of the month","link":"https:\/\/www.herringbonebindery.com\/blog\/category\/binder-of-the-month\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.herringbonebindery.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/06\/sonyasheats.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.herringbonebindery.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/06\/sonyasheats.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.herringbonebindery.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/06\/sonyasheats.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.herringbonebindery.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/06\/sonyasheats.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.herringbonebindery.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5930","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.herringbonebindery.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.herringbonebindery.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.herringbonebindery.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.herringbonebindery.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5930"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.herringbonebindery.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5930\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5935,"href":"https:\/\/www.herringbonebindery.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5930\/revisions\/5935"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.herringbonebindery.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5930"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.herringbonebindery.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5930"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.herringbonebindery.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5930"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}