DT: I saw on your website that you’ve been making books since you were a kid. What made you want bookbinding to be your career?

ML: I took a class, maybe 20 years ago, with three of my friends at the Multnomah Arts Center. Their response was “Yeah cool. I made a book,” and mine was “I’m going to do this for the rest of my life.” It totally, one hundred percent, resonated with me. Partly, I think it’s because it’s a lovely blending of beauty and precision that goes in to bookbinding. Those are two distinct parts of my personality, and to find something that embodied both of those things so succinctly kind of blew my mind.

I’d always thought about architecture. There’s this whole world of people telling that you shouldn’t try to be an artist because you’ll never make a living at it. I remember thinking that maybe I should do architecture because I like building and structural, linear things. But then I went to check out the architecture school at the University of Oregon and thought “I hate everybody here and I don’t want to do any of this.” It was too rigid; it was way too rigid. There was something about books that blended all of the aesthetic things that I love and the problem solving and the building. I have a tremendous amount of patience to wait for things to be ready whether it is a book or a human or a dog. You really need a lot of patience, as you well know, to be a bookbinder [laughs].

It’s funny because when I teach classes I observe everybody, and I look at some people and think “They are not made for this.” They’re trying to slap things together, and they have glue all over themselves. You can’t hurry because if you hurry you ruin it, and you have to start over again. You just can’t hurry through a book project.

Before that I had been teaching kids’ art classes, but I had mostly done ceramics. I really enjoy that too. I didn’t even really know that bookbinding existed until I took that class. As a kid, I would recreate my favorite children’s books. I would make a new box and draw the pictures and write the stories. That was already in me somewhere and when I found out that it was a thing that you could actually do and it was a discipline, I thought “Oh my gosh there is a career in this somehow.”

DT: Did you know anyone else at the time that was a bookbinder for their career?

ML: No. Not at all. I know a lot of artists but not bookbinders.

DT: Thinking back to when I first started my business, there were times when I was unsure of this new career path. It’s nice if you can be the kind of person that decides something and doesn’t look back. I’m just wondering how that was for you.

ML: The short answer would be that I’ve always had a part-time job as well. That’s partly for income purposes, but largely because there are a lot of other things that I love too. There are a lot of things that are important to me, so bookbinding is something I will always do, but it’s kind of ebbed and flowed over the years. Sometimes it’s been my primary source of income and sometimes my secondary source of income. There have been real highs and lows. I don’t worry about either one of them; I just sort of rolled with it all these years.

I worked at Oblation for eight years. I was doing a lot of custom bookbinding for them largely because I could. I said, “Hey people are asking me for these things. Can I just make them and then we can figure out how to charge for it.” Then I thought, “Why am I making it for them when I could be making it for me.” That’s when I decided to leave. I already had my studio, but when I quit working there I decided to be a bookbinder full-time. Three months later I was like “Well nobody just walks through the door. That’s for sure.” I went and got another part-time job, so I’ve always kind of kept a balance. It’s just as much because I need balance in my life, a variety of projects, a variety of experiences and stimulation. I’ve never thought that bookbinding would be the only thing that I would ever do for my life or for my living.

DT: What’s the other job that you do?

ML: I have a few things that I’ve done, but primarily I work with animals. I work at a holistic veterinary clinic. I do a lot of nutrition counseling for animals to help them live longer better lives and I really, really care about it a whole lot. It’s my heart work. There’s my heart and my creativity: my creativity is the bookbinding, and what I’m put on this planet to do, to give back to the world, is to take care of animals.

DT: How did you learn to make books?

ML: Well a lot of it is that people ask me to do things, I say yes, and then I have to figure out how to do it. That happens all the time, and I like those kinds of challenges. I like when I’m working collaboratively with someone who needs something to function in a certain way, and I know because of all of the experience that I have that I can do it. I just haven’t done it yet.

So, a lot of it I figure out by trial and error and problem solving. I’ve done a lot of books that have moving parts to them or pieces that you can take out or books within boxes or different sorts of multiple pieces within one box and I love figuring those things out. I do things wrong a lot and I have to do it over again a lot, but mostly what drives me to create new things is people ask me for things I haven’t made before.

DT: Who have you taken classes with? Do you take very many?

ML: Roberta Lavadour, who I adore. She is wonderful. Tim Ely, Masie Chadwick. I’ve taken a bunch of classes up at the Oregon College of Arts and Crafts. They have awesome summer workshops. I love to take those workshops.

Every year we have the Focus on Book Arts here in Portland, and I usually take at least one or two workshops. Two years ago, I took Jim Croft’s class on making your own bone folders. It just rocked my world. I loved it. That’s not bookbinding, but it’s everything to do with bookbinding in some ways and I loved it. We started with a full elk bone and with a hatchet pared that down, sanded it, and made these beautiful bone folders.

I probably take two classes a year: usually one or two-day workshops to keep broadening my horizons. Someday I would love to go to Telluride, tuck in there for a year and take everything.

DT: What do you enjoy most about bookbinding?

ML: It’s very meditative for me. That’s one of the places where I really calm down, and I’m quiet and focused. My studio is really peaceful. I love being in there. A lot of it is just the experience of being there in my own quiet, creative space without the chaos of the outside world. As far as the actual act of bookbinding, I think my favorite piece is figuring out new things, sort of brainstorming how to build new things. A lot of the things that I do are the same thing over and over again because I’ve created a product line. I passively enjoy making all books, but I really actively enjoy creating new styles of books and new bindings.

DT: Do you think being self-taught is an advantage because you’ve had to figure things out for yourself? If you were to bench trained, someone else would have shown you all the steps of how books have historically been made.

ML: I don’t think it’s advantageous or disadvantageous. It just is. It’s just the path that I took. I think that’s largely because I’m an only child, and I’ve been self-taught with just about anything I’ve done and that’s how I learn best. Part of it is, I think, “Oh well I could pay to go to University of Texas and get into their book conservation and preservation program and pay how many thousands of dollars to do that, or I could just make some books.” [laughs]

DT: Is there another craft that you think you would enjoy as much as bookbinding?

ML: Yes. There are a lot of other crafts that I love. I mean gosh, just about everything. I love creating. I love painting. I love ceramics. I love making dream catchers. My hands like to be busy. I think sometimes about not necessarily weaving but I’m really good with thread and strings and knots and tying things. My hands are really good at it. That probably comes also from my mom and sewing. I learned so early to use needle and thread and make stitches. I think some days, “I can’t wait till I’m old and I can just sit around and do a bunch of craft projects.” I love painting and collages. Yeah I mean, I really enjoy a lot of different arts and crafts. I’ve taken metal-smithing classes, woodworking classes, I’ve taken stone sculpture classes. All of that I really enjoy.

DT: Do you think selling the work takes a little bit of the joy out of it? [laughs]

ML: Totally. One hundred percent. Absolutely. Yup. That is not the fun part of doing this at all.

DT: I mean it’s fun when things sell. That is nice.

ML: For five years I had a business partner named Michelle. She worked at Oblation with me. She was a lovely, wonderful addition because what she really wanted to do was learn how to run a business and grow a business. She believed in me and loved what I did. She wanted to try her hand at making more of a business out of my art. That’s like every artist’s dream, for somebody to come in and say, “Great you just make your art, and I’ll sell it for you.” Fabulous, that sounds wonderful!

She was tremendously helpful. We did everything together. She made some books, but she really wanted to build a business. That was the creative part for her, figuring out how to run the business. Together we made our website, and together we made our product line, our color palettes. All that part was really fun too. But honestly, I probably never would have done it had she not stepped in and said, “Let’s make this a big thing.” But when she did do that it was really fun, and we just did great work. It was hard. It was hard work for me to change my brain. I’d have to spend a whole day figuring out QuickBooks rather than how to build a book. It’s not easy. Marketing is not easy and doing all the bookkeeping is not easy, but it’s also necessary. I feel hugely accomplished for figuring out the business end of things as well as the bookbinding end of things.

DT: Would you like to find someone else to pick up where Michelle left off?

ML: No. I don’t think so. I can’t think of someone else. It would have to be really the right person, and she was really the right person. It just worked seamlessly; we had really good, clear communication. I’m really enjoying fulfilling the jobs that come in, but I’m not working too hard on building the business right now. That might change again later, but it’s kind of nice to let it just, like I said, ebb and flow like that.

I thought about finding another Michelle, but there is no other Michelle. It would be really hard to find somebody else that I could work that closely with and get along that well with.

DT: Have you thought about having someone else share in the business that is another bookbinder not a business person necessarily?

ML: I have, yup. That would take the right person too. Yeah, I definitely have. I haven’t met the person yet. I’ve thought about a friend, whom I love. She’s mostly a letterpress printer now, but she’s an amazing bookbinder too. She was tired of doing the bookbinding part of her business and she started handing off all the bindery aspects of her work to me. She would do the printing part, and I would do the binding part. But again, it’s also really hard when you’re both artists and you both want to do art, and no one wants to do the bookkeeping. [laughs]

DT: What bookbinding techniques interest you most? Are there things you look out for, for classes you would like to take?

ML: Yes. There are still things I want to learn. I would love to learn to do tooling. I’ve minimally tried it, but I’ve never done a whole lot of work with any sort of embellishments, especially leather. That is something I still want to learn. I love working with leather too, which is odd since I love animals. So, I think I would love to learn more leather crafting and leather tooling.

When you asked about other art forms that I’m interested in, I think leather would be one of them. We have an awesome leather store here called Oregon Leather. They offer saddlery classes and leather jacket making classes. I think that would be really fun to learn. But as far as bookbinding goes, there aren’t a whole lot of other structures or binding styles. Most of those I feel like if I haven’t learned them already I could learn them if I either took a quick class or read a book or something like that. But, as far as tooling goes, I have no idea how to do that or where to begin. That’s something I’d really like to learn.

DT: Are you involved in the larger book arts community like GBW or something else?

ML: No. I think that comes from my only-child tendencies. I really enjoy taking classes when there are workshops available. But, because I’m not school-trained in bookbinding, I’ve always felt like I wasn’t a great bookbinder. I’m definitely great at what I do, but I didn’t feel legitimate because I never went to school for it. That’s why I’ve carved my own niche that’s a combination between production bookbinding and book arts. It’s a little bit of each but not really one or the other. I think I’ve been a little shy too reach out to the larger bookbinding community.

DT: I totally identify with that...in every way.

ML: Cool. I’m not alone out there…

DT: One of the things that I very much appreciate about your work and your business is that you have made a brand around it. You have a look that’s Hinged Strung Stitched and I know that’s not easy. When I came across your website many years ago, I thought, “They’re doing it!” It gave me such hope and inspiration. I’ve been checking back every now and again to see how you’ve grown and changed through the years. and I’ve always thought, “If they can do it, then I can do it.”

ML: It’s true: you can do it! That’s the other thing that I love about doing this and that I love about teaching classes. I really do believe that you can do it. It’s not easy to actually make a business out of it, but you sure can. Look at, for example Mullenberg Designs. Have you ever checked out his stuff? They make custom portfolios. He has a thing that he does. He’s a bookbinder and he can do anything. But he has this thing, this product that he created, and he’s really good at it. He’s built a business around it too. I look at him and think, “Oh he’s got to be big time.” But then one time I called him. I was going to refer someone to him, and we talked for half hour. Then I thought, “He’s just like me.”

DT: Is he in Portland?

ML: No, he’s on the east coast, Maine. He has a similar background. Started off with basic bookbinding skills, created a product line of portfolios, and now he has a very beautiful aesthetic and makes all sorts of portfolios for photographers and designers. He has a very beautiful website. He does printed pages for people too, which is something I’ve dabbled in but I’m not good at it, so I have people supply their own printed pages.

I know what you mean, there are definitely bookbinders that I’ve watched over the years, admiringly. But then I know it’s just like how on Facebook everybody always seems happy and successful all the time. I feel like that is the way of the world, like everybody is so much happier and more successful than I am, and they are all doing it. But we are all successful in our own unique way. There is no better or worse; we’re just different from one another.

What I do isn’t for everybody. Of the inquires that come in on a weekly basis, I probably say no to about half of them because it’s not quite what I do. I send them somewhere else. I also think that as much as I try to stretch myself to do new things, I also really know what my limits are, so I haven’t diluted what I’m good at by trying to do too much.

DT: That’s smart.

ML: I’ve pushed those limits for sure and tried some things that I realized are not for me. I think one thing that’s been really beneficial over the years is to be really clear about what I do and what I don’t do, to not take on too many things that I’m not very good at. People call me all the time to repair bibles. I don’t repair bibles. It’s not my thing. I tell them, “I know someone else that will do a great job for you, but I don’t do that.” It’s really important to say no to things that aren’t right up your alley.

DT: If you were going to say how your business has evolved, would you say that it’s based on following that principle—knowing what you’re good at and really refining that—or do you respond to what the client is asking for?

ML: I would say that I’m asked to do things more with a variety of materials than with a variety of structures. People will send me samples of different materials and they’ll say, “Can you use this? Can you make a book with this?” I always say, “I don’t know. Send me a sample, and I’ll try it. We’ll see what happens.”

I have a client that makes custom-printed linens like pillowcases, bed duvets, and curtains. So, they have this whole portfolio of their fabrics that they have designed and printed. They want to make a portfolio of the fabrics, and they really, really want their own fabric to be the cover material for their books. I told them that some cover materials work, and some don’t; it depends on how tight the weave is. They just sent me four yards of fabric, so I’m trying it out to see if it works. If it does work we’re going to make a whole series of portfolios for them. Those kinds of things are fun and collaborative. I’ll glue it up, tell them what I think about it, and send it to them. If it looks good to them then I’m happy to use what they have.

DT: How do you go about establishing a relationship with clients?

ML: Most everybody contacts me via email. I usually ask them if they have any images or designs or pictures of what they’re imagining this project is going to be. I have them send those along so I can just look at it and see. Sometimes if they don’t know what they’re looking for visually then I’ll just ask them to do an internet search and see what they come up with. If there’s anything that speaks to them, they send me a picture.

It’s great if I can meet with people in person. Usually people don’t know what they want, but they definitely know what they don’t want. I think meeting with people in person is great because I can also show them a bunch of samples and they’ll say, “No, no, no, no, oh yep that’s what I want” and then it’s really clear where you go from there.

DT: If most of your clients are getting in touch with you via email are they finding you through a Google search?

ML: Yes. Honestly where I get most of my clients from is Instagram. It’s amazing how effective of a tool it is. It’s visual. People will search for visual things. Instagram and Etsy are the two places where I get most of my jobs.

DT: How was, or is, Etsy was for you?

ML: I don’t have to do a whole lot to maintain it. It just exists. Etsy is just a very easy platform to use. It’s easy to put listings up, and it’s easy to take them down. It’s a virtual marketplace that anyone can search, and a lot of people go there to find products and designers. I have a friend that runs a small retail store, and when she’s looking for new merchandise to bring in for the store she just goes to Etsy. She sends direct messages and asks if sellers are interested in wholesaling. I’ve gotten several inquiries like that. I can’t really wholesale things because I can’t charge what they want to pay. There is no way for the time it takes to make the book.

Etsy has been great, and Instagram is great. Instagram is also a huge source of inspiration for me. I love looking through it and looking at what other people are doing. Oddly that is probably my community if I were to define my bookbinding community. It would be the people that I follow and keep in contact with on Instagram.

DT: Are they worldwide?

ML: Yes.

DT: That’s fun isn’t it?

ML: Oh, it’s awesome. I love it. A couple of years ago I went to Italy and finally, my dream had come true. I got to go to the Amalfi paper mill. I was so excited and so happy to finally get to go there and see how that paper was made and be in that town. I was just so happy. I immediately followed. But I made a personal connection with them and so now it’s just really cool. They’ll comment on some things I post, or I’ll comment on the things they post. And now it’s like I have this friend in Italy who’s been my idol for all those years and now we have a connection. I love things like that.

DT: Have you done any forms of paid advertising?

ML: No. Not at all. I did just some boosting Facebook posts along the way and it didn’t seem to help that much. I don’t think it’s really that kind of a business. I think if I was running a retail store or doing a more high-volume thing, then it would be great. If I had a product that I was selling like a day planner, I would maybe do something like that. Almost everything I do is one-of-a-kind custom work. Probably 75 percent of what I do is custom work.

DT: Are you as busy as you want to be?

ML: Yes absolutely; jobs keep rolling in. Right now, without Michelle working, I don’t have as much time to make books because I have to do all of the emailing and the bookkeeping, so I don’t have as many jobs as when she was part of the business. But it’s actually great because there’s no way I would be able to do all that right now. It’s evolved into much more custom jobs and far fewer production jobs. Every once in a while the product line jobs drop in and an order will come in off of Etsy for a photo album in a slip case and I’ll pop it out and ship it off. Those are nice little things. I look in my email and I’m like, “Oh that’s great: $350 just came in.”

ML: How do you mostly sell your books? Is it through your website?

DT: I’ve done all kinds of things. I’ve even done the stationary show in New York City. I sold wholesale for a few years (and had good stores like Papyrus, Kate’s Paperie, Sam Flax) but it didn’t take long to realize that I wasn’t making that much money doing it. It was good advertising though and more and more I had people ask me if I made wedding albums so finally I focused on that.

I did a lot of meeting with photographers, and I did that type of work for many years. I was always busy but not busy enough to fully support myself. Many times, I had part-time jobs. After I got married (and soon after had my kids) I took time off to take classes and just be a mom.

So now it’s been a lot of years since I’ve really had a steady bookbinding business. But what I did do was design the baby memory book that’s on my website. I had that commercially manufactured. The project ended up taking much longer than I thought it would, to design it, to produce it, and now sell it. I’m really focused on that. I’m also doing school work and of course the day-to-day of raising kids, taking care of the house, and that kind of thing. So, I haven’t really been doing custom bookbinding as much

ML: One thing I never wanted to do was any sort of mass production of something. That was one of the places where I did draw the line because Michelle said that we should just design books, mass produce them, and sell them. But I wanted to be the person that made the book. That was really important to me, and that was one of those forks in the road where we really chose one direction over another. I’m sure that I probably could design a handful of books and have them produced and just get whatever kickbacks I get from that but it’s really important to me to be the one that makes the books.

DT: Fairly recently I just felt like, “Oh my God, I put so much work into school and when’s the last time I even was working on making a book?” I’ve really spent a lot of time on the baby book. Partly because I didn’t realize how long it would take. Sometimes I wonder if I can do both: have a great wholesale business and be a great bookbinder. I don’t know...I’ve been giving it a lot of thought lately. How do I want to spend my time and what can I do that can also be profitable? I think that struggle in a way is part of what led me to interview people.

ML: I bet it will be really illuminating.

DT: I know It has been. It’s been great.

ML: It’s such a good way to broaden your perspective and open your mind and your heart to what comes next.

DT: Do you have a mentor, or someone that you modeled your career path after? We touched on that a bit.

ML: Only just my mom, really.

DT: Oh, that’s nice!

ML: Yeah. She really was courageous in making a living doing her artwork so she could support me as a single mom. And I remember so clearly her getting up her courage to go out and basically show people what she did and hopefully get jobs from it. I would say one hundred percent that’s where my courage comes from to do this.

DT: What does she make?

ML: She doesn’t do it anymore, but she did applique. She did big fabric applique wall hangings. At first she started doing crafty things and selling at craft fairs. Then when she got divorced, she had to either make a choice to get a job or to try to make her living doing artwork. She chose artwork. So, she really changed what she was making and started making it more sellable and appealing to corporate places. She made big, huge pieces that were applique, but they were almost like paintings. She would frame them. They were big wall pieces for corporate office buildings, restaurants, and law firms. Again, she was also really her own niche. She was sewing but she wasn’t making clothes. She was just making something that was totally different from what you thought of when you thought of applique bedspreads or something like that.

DT: That’s awesome. It is so inspiring.

ML: Yup.

DT: What aspects of running your business do you find most challenging?

ML: I think the things that have been challenging I’ve gotten a lot better at. They’re not nearly as hard anymore. It took me a long time to feel confident in doing all of my bookkeeping. It was hard to learn invoicing and how to reconcile my bank statements every month. Things like that were really challenging. But now I know how to do it and I do do it.

Definitely some of the client communication is hard. I get a little impatient sometimes with some of the clients, but I’ve also gotten better about telling people what I can do for them rather than them telling me what they want me to do. That has helped tremendously for me to feel confident in saying, “Well this is what I do, and this is what I can do for you.” That took a long time for me to figure out and it came from just building confidence. At this point I have a pretty good handle on all of it. It’s kind of cool to look back and think about where I started and think, “Oh my god I’ve learned so much about running a business. I’m really good at this now.”

DT: How much time do you spend working on the business and how much time on the actual making of the books?

ML: Probably half and half.

DT: Yeah, I’ve come to believe that’s just the way it’s going to be.

ML: Yeah, unless you find a Michelle [laughs].

DT: Where is everyone’s Michelle?

ML: I know, I know. I tell that to her over and over again everyone should just be so lucky to have a Michelle