Bookbinding alumnus keeps craft alive in modern times

By Adela Talbot

Dan Mezza knows it is a lost art. He has worked to keep it alive for nearly two decades in his home studio in London.

The former social worker – and Western History and Visual Arts graduate – stumbled into bookbinding by chance in the late 1980s. It’s a time he remembers fondly, one that changed the course of his career.

“I was working as a social worker and decided to learn how to draw and paint as a diversion. I took Art at Western part time and, in my second year, took a print-making course. I developed an interest in paper-making, and through that, bookbinding,” Mezza explained.

The trade resonated with him immediately. At the time, he connected with a bookbinder and paper conservator on campus who was working in the Library and Information Science program. Mezza sought out formal training, only to realize it wasn’t readily available.

“Its very difficult to come by the training because there’s no place in Canada that teaches bookbinding. There’s no college or institution. The only formal training you get is from the Canadian Bookbinders and Book Artists Guild,” he noted.