+5 Beakers to Bookbinding
Beakers to Bookbinding
Beakers to Bookbinding
Beakers to Bookbinding
Beakers to Bookbinding
Standing at the wooden workbench at the back of her small Urbino shop on Via Giuseppe Mazzini, Margherita Mari measures a large piece of red leather she intends to use as the cover for a custom photo album. She examines the leather, looking for any scuffs, scars, or holes, not to hide them, but to highlight them. She carefully rubs her fingers along the leather, then pauses. “That’s it,” she says, referring to an inch-long raised bump that resembles the letter “j.” She arranges the leather so that the blemish will be in the bottom-left corner of the cover, and begins to cut the leather around a wooden rectangular stencil. No other book will have that scar nor look like that album. It is one of a kind.
Margherita Mari, owner of the shop Daisy in the Book, makes one-of-a-kind products. She hand makes all the book-related items in her shop, such as albums, agendas, bookmarks, and wedding invitations. Her work requires logic and resourcefulness, attributes that, until two years ago, also served her well in her previous career as a chemist. “I am meant,” she says, “to make practical things.”
Daisy in the Book, located almost at the bottom of Urbino’s Via Mazzini, is a small and narrow shop. The display window shows shelves of thesis covers and books, each different from its neighbor. Walking through the doors, the customers are immediately greeted by a towering brown bookshelf on the right holding Mari’s latest work, small graphic agendas and leather photo albums. Mari, a petite woman with large black-rimmed glasses, can always be found peering from behind her tall counter at the back of the shop.
This morning, she is attaching a thin fabric to the cover of a custom agenda. As she sits in her chair, she recalls that only two years ago, she was struggling to find work. Mari earned her PhD in chemistry at Università degli studi di Camerino with the intent of working in a laboratory. But the job market had other ideas, and she found herself with a lot of time on her hands—hands that were used to being busy. She began making scrapbooks, which led to a fascination with all craft-making. As her time as an unemployed chemist grew, Mari had to weigh her options. At last, she thought to herself, “What do I actually want to do with my life?”
Just then the phone rang. It was Sara La Rosa, a friend from her past who was a professional bookbinder. Mari would occasionally help La Rosa at her shop when La Rosa had big restoration orders. La Rosa was retiring from bookbinding and wondered: Would Mari like her bookbinding equipment and lessons on how to use it? Mari finally got what she was waiting for, a push in a direction and an escape from limbo.
Mari says, “I thought, like, oh my god!” Throwing her hands down against her thighs, she says, “This was something sent to me from heaven because I really had no idea of what to do with my life because I loved being a chemist, I loved working in the lab.”
Mari finally got what she was waiting for, a push in a direction and an escape from limbo.
Mari accepted the cardboard cutter, the trimmer, the book-press, and the lessons. La Rosa, using her university skills, taught Mari the basics of box-making and bookbinding. La Rosa gave Mari the boost she needed to take her hobby to new heights.
—
Mari stands up from her chair behind her desk with a big smile on her face. A customer is in the shop wanting a custom order. Today, the customer is me.
I tell Mari that I want a leather photo album for my mom. Mari responds, “Okay, what type of leather would you like?” She walks over to an imposing tower of different leathers. I look at her blankly, like a deer in the headlights. All these choices, choices most people don’t know they have.
I choose a deep-red leather with lines of texture you can see from feet away. Mari grabs the rolled-up leather from the middle of the large tower and brings it to her workbench. She runs her fingers over the piece, looking for the perfect detail that will tell its own story. She finds the raised “j”-shaped scar that will make my album like no other. Mari walks to a bookshelf and takes down the pre-sewn pages of the future photo album. She flips and turns the leather against the sewn pages, determined to show off the imperfection. As she tries every position for the material, she explains why she is so determined to show the scar: She wants to “make a defect something precious.”
Mari flattens the leather under the wooden stencil, and, on each side, cuts it down to size in a single smooth stroke. Then she takes three small bags of metal accessories from the drawers beneath her desk. Dumping out all three bags, she scatters onto the desk about a hundred pieces of small mixed beads that are used as decorations. I choose a silver circular metal piece that shows three suns nested within each other. Next, Mari goes to the back of her shop and pulls out options for string that would hold the flaps of the album closed and would complement my red album. I pick a navy-blue string, which she weaves through the punched holes she’s made and ties in a bow. Finally, Mari glues the leather to the cover, smiles, and says, “It’s done. Now we must be patient and wait.”
—
Walking into the shop named Guado is like walking into the sea: All four walls are covered by turquoise-blue products. Parting the sea is Alessandra Ubaldi, standing behind her counter. Mari has explained that she is collaborating on a new book product with Ubaldi, owner of Guado, another small shop on Via Mazzini, which specializes in products dyed blue using an ancient technique.
When asked about her collaboration with Mari, Ubaldi says, “It’s important that we stick together, and it would be important to communicate and exchange ideas much more. Since in Urbino, we have an economy that turns on tourism and university we should customize our offer towards that direction. It’s important that we all go towards the same direction.”
Back at Mari’s shop, she flips through the pages of the small seawater-colored book that she and Ubaldi are creating, and talks about why she likes to work with the local people of Urbino: “I see myself in them. I see creativity. I see brilliant people doing brilliant things and I always look for ways to include those beautiful things in my work.” With this collaboration, Mari and Ubaldi will create a unified, one-of-a-kind, and brilliant thing.
Moving to the back of her shop, Mari examines her fabrics and paper, looking for the factors that make them unique. Each item has its own characteristic, whether it is a mark, hole, or unusual pattern or texture. Mari uses those characteristics to her advantage. Mari points out two similar, but not identical, leather books and says, “Even if I tried, I couldn’t make two of the same products look exactly the same.”
On the wall of Daisy in the Book hangs a note that Mari says “makes it all worth it.” The letter is from Camryn, a past customer who was staying in Urbino for a study-abroad program. Camryn ordered a few custom journals from Mari to send as gifts to her family and friends. Camryn wrote in big bold letters, “Thank you so much! I am so glad I met you and cannot wait to see my journals.”
“I see myself in them. I see creativity. I see brilliant people doing brilliant things and I always look for ways to include those beautiful things in my work,” says Mari.
But in a world of mass production, Mari worries that individual creativity—one-of-a-kind-ness—is dying out. “The world tells you what music you like, which dresses you like,” she says as she throws her hands up in the air. “Even which kitchen tools you like!” How do we get our creativity back?
Books, says Mari. “The more you read, the more you travel without traveling, the more you open your mind, the more you learn about points of views different than yours, the more you get curious,” she says. “The more you get curious, the more you get creative.”
Translation of interviews and other language assistance by University of Urbino students Lisa Oliva and Beatrice Burani This article also appears in Urbino Now magazine’s La Gente section. You can read all the magazine articles in print by ordering a copy from MagCloud.
