About the bindery
Florian Bieschke
Florian Bieschke opened the Atelier Bindery in autumn of 2011 to promote and preserve the craft of hand bookbinding and restoration. With over two decades of teaching experience in the visual and book arts at the undergraduate level, Florian brings a unique and diverse skill set to this “teaching bindery”. After earning his M.A. in Studio Art, Florian served a three year apprenticeship at Studio 22 Graphic Studio and Gallery in Chicago, IL and went on to teach typography, printmaking, graphic design, painting, and traditional English bookbinding at a variety of institutions, including Indiana University, Indiana State College, Purdue North Central University, The South Bend Art Center and The Indianapolis Art League Museum. For seven years, Florian owned and operated the Binder’s Press, located in South Bend, IN; Atelier is a revitalization of that bindery, with education its primary goal.
For the past decade, Florian has lived and worked in the picturesque Minocqua/Woodruff area of Wisconsin.
Education
- B.A. Fine Art, College of Racine, WI
- M.A. Fine Art, University of Notre Dame, South Bend, Indiana
- Graphic Design Program, Indiana Vocational Technical College
The atelier tradition
Atelier is a revitalization of our first bindery which was located in Indiana and specialized in repair, restoration and re-binding. These services are available while the primary goal of the bindery is to promote and preserve the craft of English hand bookbinding.
Atelier draws its name from the French word for “workshop”, and from a long-standing tradition in the fine arts; historically, an atelier was the workshop of an established master artist, wherein the master, apprentices and students endeavored to produce work that was recorded in the master’s name. Enforced by medieval guilds, but later largely supplanted by art academies, the atelier declined in popularity until recent times.
The modern atelier works on the model of a professional artist who takes on a very small number of students for long-term, often intensive study in the particular techniques of a fine art or craft, in this case, bookbinding.
While the Atelier bindery offers courses from as short as five days to up to two months in duration, all instruction is based in the same principles of fine craftsmanship, high-quality tools and materials and historically-accurate technique as the historic ateliers practiced for centuries.
Materials & equipment
Only the finest goat and calf leathers, seasoned book boards, handmade papers, Japanese tissues, Irish unbleached linen tapes and 24k gold are used in the production of our books. The majority of our equipment is vintage cast iron which has been restored and refinished by hand for use in a modern bindery.