Handmade Books from Cuba, Part II

Here is the second handmade book I bought when my husband and I visited Cuba:

It's a handbound copy of a poem by Carlos Jesus Garcia called Ritual del Pez (The Fish's Ritual). The text is in Spanish and English. The cover is made from sheets of handmade paper glued at the spine, and decorated with thin pieces of wood (the "v" shaped pieces on the cover). The fish on the cover is in ink and watercolor, and the paper was embossed so the fish rises up from the paper a bit.

This is one of the inside pages:

As you can see, the illustrations are just fantastic. According to the colophon, the pages (if my Spanish doesn't fail me entirely) were printed on an 1816 Gordon and Price press.

Here is another page:

And the back cover:

Of course now I'm wishing I'd bought more books, but my travel bag was the size of a teaspoon (well, it seemed like it anyway), so I resisted temptation. Sigh.

Handmade Books from Cuba, Part I

I went on a trip to Cuba a few years ago, and was lucky to visit the Taller Experimental de Grafica ( located at Callejón del Chorro No 6 Habana Vieja) in Havana. They make and sell handmade prints, and you can watch the artists at work. I picked up this wonderful handmade book there.

As you can see, it's called Los Dos Principes, by Jose Marti. The paper it's printed on is made by hand--it has lots of plant fibres in it--and is illustrated with lithographic prints. I just wish my Spanish was better! Nobody there really spoke English, and although I struggled valiantly, my Spanish is pretty terrible (more on the "where is the bathroom, please?" level), so unfortunately I didn't get to ask any questions about hand bookbinding in Cuba.

Here is a pic of the inside front cover:

And this is the back inside cover:

And the outside of the back cover:

The whole book is cleverly stitched together with one piece of help cord. On the back it says (I think) that it was made at the Taller de Papel Artisana in Holguin, Cuba, and that it was illustrated by hand. The pictures can't convey just how wonderful the texture of the printed paper feels.

NOTE: if you know of any other good bookbinding / book arts related places to visit, please do post information about it in the comments for this post. It helps to spread the word about the book arts! :)