Amy Bernhardt uses book-making as an art form. She creates books of all types – journals, sketchbooks, and albums. The pages of her handmade books are sometimes blank and other times filled with images or text that she has beautifully painted or scribed herself. Amy’s work is inspired by her life-long love of books. "The house I grew up in was not popular with my friends for the typical reasons. Instead, it was known by kids and adults, alike, as the house with the books! Floor to ceiling in several rooms, our ‘wallpaper’ was mostly comprised of volumes big and small, on every subject imaginable."

For Amy, it was comforting being surrounded by books in this way. She explains, "I immediately think of the Cicero quote, ‘A room without books is like a body without a soul’. I find the ones I like the best are those that have been designed, those whose vessel has been cared about as much as the content inside. It has to do with joy of use: if I can make a book that feels as good to touch and to look at as it does to use and learn from, then I have made a good book! My books are meant to delight; the cover, the binding, the shape and the weight, all compel one to explore, whether by reading, by drawing, by writing or collecting." In art school Amy became fascinated with making paper as well as painting. Watercolor was her favorite medium. " I see now that it was a way for me to happily combine paint and paper. Though I shifted focus to make my career in marketing architecture, I have never left my love of books, paper, and paint very far behind."

Amy is a partner at an architectural firm in Boston, so finding the time to work on her books is always a challenge. But the lengthy commute sometimes helps her come up with new projects. She also has a cozy and inviting studio in her home. Her husband, Doug Coots, an architect, designed the studio for her as a Christmas gift complete with materials from other places that are meaningful to them: old redwood timbers from a Sert Jackson-designed building at Harvard University form one of the work surfaces, heavy blue stone slabs from her parents’ original garden serve as the welcoming threshold, and a centuries old multi-paned window salvaged from a farm in Sweden fills the space with light. She jokes, "If it had plumbing I would never leave."

Her books are made with acid-free components and are covered with fine cloth or unusual papers. Some of the papers used in the book covers she makes, use techniques such as marbling or paste paper decoration (a centuries-old technique of coating paper with paint suspended in paste, then displacing it to create texture and pattern).Other papers are imported from places around the world. In nearly all her blank books, Amy uses Arches papers, which are made in France, acid free, with 100% cotton fiber content. When she is interested in creating a unique, one-of a kind paper, she alters plain sheets through printing, painting or some other means of changing its surface in pattern or texture. Amy is always looking to interesting paper to work with.

"These days there are lots of accessible places that sell lovely papers, both locally and on-line. For example, Paper Source has made it really easy to find wonderful papers. For a selection of more unusual or harder-to-find papers, Kate’s Paperie in NY is terrific. Two of the best places from which I have bought papers have been wonderful finds: a small stationery shop in Toronto turned an otherwise mundane business trip into a fabulous adventure. When I learned the famed Harcourt Bindery in Fort Point Channel needed to move from the location they’d occupied for many years, I wangled a tour, and got to purchase several gorgeous papers. That was a real treat!"

For Amy, using fine materials makes all the difference and even the subtlest features are perceptible at some level. She explains, "An artist may recognize that a book’s pages are comprised of 100% rag paper, but everyone can feel that the paper is thicker and richer than ordinary paper, almost voluptuous. The edges of each page when hand deckled (that lovely irregular edge you might see on leather-bound volumes) beg to be touched; they are one of the many small signs that the object you hold is very special, that it is to be savored. The book cloths that cover the spine or corners of a book tell a piece of the story, too; an evenly woven matte color may be the foil for an opulent Florentine paper it complements, while the irregular slubs of a raw silk can be the finishing touch for a delicate Japanese paper."

The albums are fitted with brass screw-posts to allow pages to be added while some of her other books are stitched with Irish linen thread. Below, the star (accordion) books are covered with paste paper, use no adhesive in their construction, and can be viewed either as sculptures or as two-sided book. The Japanese Chitsu below is a silk-covered 4-sided case with bone closures and cedar strips which holds a stab-bound soft paper book.

The sketchbooks and journals are bound with Coptic binding, a technique developed by early Christians in Egypt, the Copts, in the 2nd century AD. This technique is especially good for books used for writing and drawing, as the intricate chain stitching enables the opened book to lie perfectly flat. Amy learned how to bind books about three years ago on a summer vacation. Every summer Amy and her husband, who vacationed in Maine, would see a notice posted promoting a week-long artists’ retreat on one of the sparsely populated islands there. Amy decided to attend the retreat. It was there that she first learned how to bind books from book artist Susan Bonthron and wood engraver Siri Beckman.

Amy uses her beautiful books to sketch in.   "My very first book was a journal, which was good practice for understanding that books are to be used, handled, learned from, and enjoyed! It is easy to feel that they are precious – a kind of look, but don’t touch thing – but it can be like "the good china"…life is short, use it now! The very large blank books are ideal for use as sketchbooks or journals, both because they lie flat and because there is a lot of ‘landscape’ in them that invites using the page in a wide variety of ways. The smaller books are excellent travel journals. Some have pockets in which to tuck mementos such as ticket stubs or a treasure found while beach combing – places to paste in the label of a special wine or a calling card from a memorable shop."

Currently, Amy is working on a couple of commissioned projects including a photo album that will be given as a birthday gift and a combination wedding album/guest register. Her work was featured in the For Art’s Sake ‘Made in Harvard’ community exhibition and For Art’s Sake hopes to feature it again soon in the Live Gallery at the Harvard General Store. For more information about Amy’s work, feel free to contact her at abernhardt@bergmeyer.com.