Stuart Williams: His World and His Art

Bound by Erin Fletcher

Stuart Williams: His World and His Art
William Corbett with an essay by Adrienne Jacobson
27.5 x 25.5 x 2.1 cm
Completed in 2020

Hand-painted fair calfskin, hand-dyed fair goatskin in grey, yellow and dark blue, handmade Katie MacGregor orange paper, embroidery floss, light blue Stonehenge paper, matte grey foil, handmade periwinkle paper from Morgan Conservatory.

"I love the playfulness of the design, which was greatly inspired by the work of Stuart Williams. Celebrated within the text, Williams was an artist from Vermont living with Prader-Willi disease whose art is not widely known. Williams drew what he loved about the world around him. Living on a farm in a rural town, meant that he captured the spirit of both human and animal behavior.

I was so enchanted by his chaotic drawings, which are layered with ill-proportioned plant life and creatures; all saturated by color applied with uneven marker strokes. Williams' work inspired me to work freely and open up the possibilities of my embroidered leather bindings. And so the thing I love most about this binding are the hundreds of hand-stitched paper 'sequins'."

Erin Fletcher runs Herringbone Bindery from her studio in Belmont, Massachusetts, offering unique handcrafted bindings and boxes. She also teaches workshops for North Bennet Street School in Boston and other institutions around the country. Her design binding work has been exhibited worldwide and is held in various private and institutional collections such as The University of Virginia, Grolier Club, and the Boston Athenaeum. See more of Erin's work here.