Do you fiddle with your straw wrappers, fold your paper napkins into shapes, or peel the labels off of your beer bottles? Conservators sometimes talk about the meditative quality of the repetitive, even picky, work we do with our hands, and how satisfying it is in a certain way, though it may seem tedious to some.
In the Preservation Lab, folding paper precisely is one of the skills we use every day — such as when we make custom-fitted enclosures or prepare end papers for new bindings. But paper folding is also an art form.
If you’d like to burn off some nervous energy with your hands, stop by the Open Book Clinic on June 22nd and try making a Blizzard Box, one of the many folded structures described in The Art of the Fold, by reknowned book artist and conservator Hedi Kyle.
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