Kate Holland

Bookbinder

©Kate Holland

©Emma Lewis

©Kate Holland

©Emma Lewis

The art of bookbinding

Kate specialises in artistic binding
Her most used tool is a humble bone folder
Bookbinding is the perfect marriage of form and function

Kate Holland discovered bookbinding when she worked for the London antiquarian bookshop Robert Frew Ltd after struggling to start a career as a contemporary Chinese art dealer. While taking a weekly morning class in order to be able to help repair and refurbish the books in the shop, Kate became hooked and enrolled for a part-time Higher National Diploma. After graduating and winning the Kate Thomson prize for best student, she opened her current workshop in 2007 in a refurbished cowshed near Frome, a historic town of binders and home to the first colour printers in the UK, Butler and Tanner. “Bookbinding covers a huge array of disciplines from restoration to conservation, book arts to artist books,” she says. Her specialisation has led her to bind several of the shortlisted Booker Prize titles.

Interview

©Kate Holland

What is special about bookbinding?: At college I was told that bookbinders have to work to a much higher accuracy than brain surgeons! We work in one-quarter millimetres, whereas I believe brain surgeons have a one-quarter inch tolerance.
In what way is your craft linked to your area?: I buy all my materials from suppliers in Britain: leather from Scotland and Northampton, paper from John Purcell and Shepherds in London, hand marbled papers from Jemma Lewis in Melksham, gold leaf from Cornelissens in London and vellum from William Cowley, the only manufacturer left in the UK.
How are tradition and innovation present in your work?: The tools and equipment, materials and techniques that I use on a daily basis have not changed for centuries. However, my bindings aesthetically are very much of the 21st century and reflect modern attitudes and politics.
What's surprising about your work?: I suffered several traumas in early life and I think I have only just realised that I was unwittingly drawn to bookbinding for its therapeutic benefits. I now teach bookbinding to wounded, sick and injured veterans who may be suffering from PTSD or have lost a limb.

Kate Holland is a master artisan: she began her career in 1995 and she started teaching in 2008