About me
I am a bookbinder, box maker, and teacher based in Bloomington, Minnesota. My work explores the possibilities of the book, combining traditional bookbinding techniques with contemporary approaches and materials.
I am interested in the details that are easy to overlook—the way a book opens, how materials work together, and how small decisions can change the experience of using it. I enjoy taking familiar forms and looking at them a little differently, creating books and boxes that are both functional and thoughtfully made.
Teaching is an important part of my practice. Through workshops and hands-on instruction, I share my knowledge of bookbinding while encouraging students to experiment, ask questions, and develop an understanding of the craft for themselves. I love how teaching pushes my own understanding to deepen.
Whether I am making, experimenting, or teaching, I am drawn to the balance between precision and creativity. My goal is to make useful things well, while leaving room for curiosity, beauty, and joy.
My Story
About a month into my Master of Library Science degree I realized that they didn’t teach me how to fix broken books in the collections I was training to care for. This realization began six years of workshops and library book repair, before two years of study at the North Bennet Street School’s hand bookbinding program. After graduating, I founded Saga Bookbinding to create and repair books and boxes.
Land Acknowledgement
Saga Bookbinding is in Bloomington, MN, on part of the unceded Dakota lands. While the Dakota people were forced to sign a treaty it was never signed into law. The Dakota people were never paid, and the settlers still commited genocide, ethnic cleansing, and forced removal of the Dakota nation. The Dakota people are still here, fighting for the welfare of the land.
See https://nativegov.org/about/our-land-acknowledgement-statement/ for more details
Green Pledge
These days it can be difficult to know the ethics behind products and that can be scary. According to Stephen Gonzalas Monserrate, Cloud storage researcher and PhD candidate, books are greener than using the cloud. They use less water and they are made of renewable resources.
I only order supplies from trusted companies. When I have learned about questionable sources or practices, I find an alternative supplier or material. Locally, I upcycle. If I hear that materials I would normally not buy are headed to the dump, I will upcycle them whenever possible. Trashing them would only add to the overabundance of garbage in the world and waste what has already been sacrificed for their creation. For example, tanned leather. I don’t buy new chrome leather. Due to the chemicals involved, chrome tanning is dangerous for the tanning workers’ health and, especially outside of North America, those chemicals are often dumped into the environment to cause mayhem.