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I woke at 4:30 am, arrived at Greensboro PTI in time to see WXII send off the Flight of Honor, checked my bags, went through security and boarded the plane for Philadelphia. The plane left the terminal and the pilot abruptly announced we would be sitting there on the runway in Greensboro for an hour because of delays in Philadelphia. Great luck! But in the end, by some miracle, when I arrived in Philadelphia, I had just enough time to hit the restroom and walk briskly to check-in. I made it just in time for my flight to San Francisco!

The Guild of Bookworkers is an old organization going back to 1906. Every bookbinding “rock star” is a Guild member. The group is made up of conservators, binders, printers and book artists. Each year, the Guild has a conference with demonstrations by its’ members entitled: Standards of Excellence Seminar. To begin the conference, all the conference attendees were bused to the San Francisco Public Library for a reception and showing of the Guild’s exhibit of books entitled: “Marking Time”.

The first demonstration was by Tatiana Ginsberg. She gave a presentation called “The Tradition of Traditionally Dyed Japanese Papers. Tatiana studied at the University of Iowa Center for the Book and received a Fulbright Research grant to study traditional dyeing in Japan. She demonstrated the steps of brush dyeing using natural dyes which she cooked right in front of us.

The next demonstration was Carolee Campbell, owner of Ninja Press. Carolee has designed, printed and bound all the work from Ninja Press since 1984. She primarily designs books featuring contemporary poetry featuring unique bindings that she prints on her Vandercook letterpress. Carolee discussed her process of designing each book using examples she brought with her.