With Wood Engraving by Michael McCurdy
The Arion Press, San Francisco, 1992



Walnut veneer Dorfner binding. Spine covered in sea-green buffalo skin. Walnut veneer covered boards are hand-painted on edges. Sewn to a yellow handmade paper stub with false shoulders painted to match stub. Board attached to grey vellum tapes. Tabs are made from a variety of materials: red wheatstraw paper, olive green buffalo skin, Lokta paper, grey ostrich skin, pale pink cowhide, hedgehog purple paper and raw umber goatskin. Tabs are laminated to hand-painted museum board. Leather wrapped endbands in grey ostrich and pale pink cowhide. Ruby faux suede fly leaf made to handmade paper from Hook Pottery paper in hedgehog purple.

Binding is housed in a clamshell box covered in olive green buffalo skin and medium brown bookcloth. Onlays of grey ostrich skin and pale pink cowhide. Title tooled in metallic dark grey foil. Trays covered in medium brown bookcloth and lined with ruby Novasuede. Box also houses wood-engraving framed with Lokta paper inlaid into the outer tray.

22.1cm x 15.3cm x 1.5cm – Completed in 2023



Reading The Cabin by David Mamet, you are immediately transported to the woods of Vermont. Since the text is filled with colorful imagery and tantalizing textures, I wanted to create a binding that would evoke the same sensations.

I chose my inspiration from Mamet’s roll-top walnut desk which sits an ink-stained, ratty green baize mat and a ream of yellow paper. Using walnut veneer to adorn the covers steered the structure towards a Dorfner-style binding. The outside of the binding is embellished with shapes inspired by different animal tracks as identified by Mamet in the area surrounding the cabin. These prints are from the black bear, coyote and moose. A fox print is used on the clamshell box for the title piece.