by blake herzog, photos courtesy of alan cheung
Bookbinding is an art that transcends media. It transfixes book lovers who get to explore the structure behind their favorite objects while flexing their graphic artistry skills. Visually creative people can connect with words in a new way as they interpret them with arresting imagery so a bypasser will stop to pick it up.
Alan Cheung is a Prescott Valley CT technician with a woodworking hobby, married to a voracious reader for whom he crafted an elaborate Beauty and the Beast-themed home library.
Now he’s just opened a studio at Pine Ridge Marketplace, WineNBind, where people can gather in a social setting to take a bookbinding class and, if they choose, imbibe to loosen some of their creative juices for the task.
“The idea actually just came on a whim from doomscrolling at work and it popped up,” Cheung says. “I was looking at some stuff about library construction ideas and something about this came up and I started watching it and I was like, ‘Oh, this seems interesting.’ And I figured it might be a fun thing that if I get into it, would be an activity my wife and I could share.”
He definitely got into it, making visually impressive “dragon-scale” covers for the five volumes of Christopher Paolini’s The Inheritance Cycle for a friend’s daughter.
He learned “wine and bind” workshops have been held in locations scattered throughout the country, but couldn’t find any permanent businesses based on the concept. “So it’s unique,” he says.
Classy fun
Cheung, who has made about 100 book covers since he started, taught one bookbinding class at a friend’s house this spring and is eager to offer them to the public now.
Bookbinding workshop fees can run into the hundreds of dollars depending on how involved they get, so his base offering is a $35 introductory class where students can learn the basics and gauge their interest in pursuing it.
You’ll be supplied with a box full of tools you’ll be familiar with if you’re a crafty Cathy (though no experience is required for the class): scissors, pens, pencils, rulers, rotary cutter, utility knife, paper cutter, silicone brushes, parchment paper, etc., plus the book board that is the backbone of the cover and copious amounts of craft glue to hold it all together.
You can choose one of the fiction or nonfiction paperbacks from Cheung’s bookshelf or bring your own. It can be a dog-eared favorite you’d like to spiff up for yourself or as a gift, a personal journal (pre- or post-journaling), your own masterpiece, whatever you desire.
Not all books work equally well for this kind of makeover, since some covers aren’t as easy to tear off and replace as others.
“There’s certain things I would caution people against, like if it’s an heirloom, or maybe it’s like a family bible, or it’s like a hundred years old,” Cheung says.
“You probably don’t want to do that. The paper is a little weird, and the binding and the glue they use can be different. You want to take that to a professional press. This is more of a recreational kind of thing,” he adds.
Next, you’ll choose the cloth or paper you want to cover the book, a simple but luxurious suede is standard or multicolored paper for an upcharge.
Soon you will rip the cover off of your book.
“Here’s the fun part. Also the part my wife can’t stand because she’s very much a book person,” Cheung says. But you’ll hold onto the front cover, because Cheung likes to have students sign their names to it so he can staple it to the wall as a memento.
What follows is roughly an hour of measuring, cutting, folding and gluing the various components of an elegantly bound hardcover, from the couple of stiff blank sheets at the very front and back to the colored endbands at the top and bottom of the spine and a ribbon bookmark glued into the spine.
Cover art in the starter class usually will be a Cricut label with the title and author; for an additional fee an image or pattern of your choice can be laser-engraved onto the book. If you have an original design you can pick it up the next day, Cheung says.
Classes are 90 minutes with a 30-minute buffer at the end and can have up to 10 people, which can be any combination of friends or family groups, couples out for a date night and anyone else looking for something to do.
It helps if you have a background in arts and crafts activities and/or are a book nerd, but anyone with a use for and appreciation of the tactile, nondigital book will have a memorable experience and come out of it with a one-of-a-kind souvenir.
The real point is to get out, relax and socialize, with or without wine for lubrication.
“This is just like the sip and paint classes. You’re not meant to make works of art here,” Cheung says.
He has found a new appreciation for the written word through his bookbinding adventures and enjoys bringing his own brand of artistic talent to the project.
“Well, like I said, my wife’s a big reader. I’ve historically not been, but more recently, since I started doing this, I’ve become a much bigger reader. And I like making things pretty again. So some of these books, some of her stuff is beat up or we get some from the used bookstores, and it’s fun.”
WineNBind is in suite 206 at Pine Ridge Marketplace (next to Fox and Bear Kids’ Trading Post), 3250 Gateway Blvd., Prescott. For more information visit
@wine_N_Bind on Instagram or email
winenbind@gmail.com.
