Lorraine Brown – Works on Paper, Bookbinding, Artist Books

30 April – 1 May, 2011

Lorraine Brown

Studio:
83 Pacific Parade, Tamborine Mountain
Ph: (07) 5545 3353

What you’ll see:
Lorraine works from a studio at her private residence. She usually can be found to be working on a diverse range of projects – from restoring turn-of-the-century books, to compiling glossy, leather-embossed portfolios, to creating colourful, rich and textured artist books. Lorraine is warm and enthusiastic about her craft and loves sharing her passion for books with others.

Lorraine Brown discovered bookbinding later in life – an outlet from the drudgery of her career in IT and computers.

She grew up in Sydney and spent the first 28 years of her career working as a project manager for the IT industry. It wasn’t until a friend drew her attention to bookbinding that Lorraine’s interest was piqued. She’s always been mad about beautiful paper so it was an obvious fit. That was 10 years ago.
“My friend said to me, ‘Brownie, they’re making a little book in those little shops in town, let’s go along and have some fun shall we?’,” recalls Lorraine.
“I had a paper fetish, I just love paper and papermaking.”
Lorraine was hooked and made it her mission to learn more about the art of bookbinding and bookmaking. She introduced herself to old-time bookmakers and asked them to teach her.
It took her eight days to make her first book. Surely there was a better way?
Lorraine enrolled in a bookbinding and restoration course at Sydney TAFE and slowly but surely her skill – and her speed – improved.

DYING ART?

Some might argue it’s a dying industry, what with the prevalence of mechanical bookbinding and the rise of Ipads and e-readers.
But Lorraine says bookbinding and restoration is an art form and will always have a place in the world. Anyone who has watched Lorraine at work will agree.
This is not a profession for the impatient. It requires relentless precision, attention to detail and great patience. Lorraine says she’s learned patience with each project and the results are a fitting reward for her perseverance.
“What I do is non mechanical, they call it a craft, it’s been around for hundreds of years,” she says.
“When I started bookbinding I thought ‘I’m going to ditch IT and be one of those little struggling bookbinders and that’s what I did.
“It started off with the paper, you’d make something and I would be ‘Oh my God I made that’. It’s an accomplishment, an achievement – I actually made that and it works as well.
“Then I started to diversify. At TAFE I found out about artist books and I did a week’s course and that just opened doors.
“It was a complete career change for me, it’s like going backwards some people thought but not for me.

REPAIR WORK

“Repair work is interesting, every book is different. Some people give it to you and when they pick it up they can’t believe it
“One lady bought me her father’s book from WW1, he was in the book and the whole thing had been water damaged really badly. The cover was rotting. I rebound it, fixed it up and made a velvet-lined box for her. The look on her face, she just burst into tears and said, ‘This is exactly how I remember it from when I was a little girl.’
“She was in her 80s and it was very satisfying to make someone have that reaction.”
Lorraine’s work studio is a shed in her Tamborine Mountain backyard. She works early and late at night, dividing her time between projects.
Today she’s working on some gold-embossed, leather-bound sales books, a 1950s collectible Qantas Airways poster, two early 1900s books and an artist book.
Each project requires a different technique and her close attention. These are fiddly, intricate jobs – suited only to those who are fastidious about detail.
The shed has a number of workspaces and large pieces of printing equipment which Lorraine has scrounged, begged and borrowed. Much of her ‘technology’ was being thrown out by printers and publishers who had discarded the old methods in favour of new computerised techniques.
Lorraine was only too happy to give their superseded equipment a loving home.

ORIGINAL and AUTHENTIC

When Lorraine is entrusted with a book she asks the owner a number of questions – most importantly do they want it restored authentically as possible, or do they want it to look new?
“Some people want brand new leather covers or cloth covers, it all depends if it’s a book of significance.
“I like to try and keep it as original as possible, it can take weeks. There’s a lot of hand sewing with silk threads and pure linen threads.
“I won’t compromise, most of my paper is Japanese repair tissue or German archival tapes.
“Normal paper we use in printers is 120gsm, I have paper here that is 7gsm.”
The books in Lorraine’s care can be worth $5 up to $2500. She recently hosted a convention of 20 Australian bookbinders in her modest studio/shed. She says it’s through sharing of information that the industry continues to thrive.
That’s why she loves being part of the Open Studios programme. Lorraine’s a naturally friendly woman. She’s passionate about her art and it’s obvious she loves sharing it with others.
After all it’s only through the generosity of other bookmakers that Lorraine was able to learn her craft.
Visitors to Lorraine’s Open Studio will see repair work, artist books and her comprehensive albums of before and after photographs. She will show visitors her collection of beautiful papers, her marbling efforts and her printing equipment.
“Bookbinding and book repairs really teach you patience,” she says.
“I can sit here for hours and hours.”

Photography by Chelsi Foskett