If you can find them, old collectors’ books are treasures. Read them often and they become dear friends in leather jackets.

You can see these old friends, up close, at Jacksonville State University’s Hammond Hall exhibit now. And a relationship between old friends like these is felt when seeing Books on the Shelf through Feb. 19. Spending time looking at each book brings a new perspective on how books appeal to the eye and how they are bound. It’s a new glance into being attracted to a book in an entirely different way.

Not only that, it is a lesson on how artists unite selected texts and covers into usable, strongly constructed books. After seeing what’s on these shelves, and thinking about the author’s guidance in each writing, it’s easy to appreciate essayist and philosopher Thomas Carlyle’s saying: “The true university these days is a collection of books.”

Good publications are worth preserving. And the way volumes are rescued and given new life is one theme in the show, delivered by artists Mary Ann Sampson and Louise Lawrence Foster. The gallery lights shine brightly on the books they have reconstructed, and their covers are works of arts in themselves. It is the kind of display not often seen in college art showcases. What’s on view here was created by old fashioned, hand-operated machinery; yet what results is modern in though patterns. It’s old but it’s new, as we discover.

Because bookbinding is so labor-intensive (contrasted with the new concept of putting books together so quickly) one would conclude book artists are rare. Surprisingly, more artists are becoming interested in the craft, according to Foster. Although the process requires lots of equipment, making a wide set of decisions, handwork to follow, ordering materials from near and far (such as thread from Ireland) and book repair, book art now is gaining in popularity with the artistically trained.

“It’s appealing to artists because it combines so many skills,” explained Foster.

Sampson, from Ragland, and Foster, from Pensacola, Florida, both work with leather in restoring books. Both have a broad background in visual art. They are versatile is bookmaking, a field which was once called a trade but is now called an art. And the two women, who are friends, have a broad background in visual art.

Sampson received her Bachelor of Arts degree at Samford University and Master of Fine Arts at University of Alabama. Foster earned her Bachelor of Fine Arts at Auburn University, her Master of Fine Arts at George Washington University and her Master of Fine Arts (in Book Art) at University of Alabama.

Sampson’s expertise (she is also a writer, printer, and illustrator) is in recreating the whole book and Foster’s is in conservation and binding.

Be sure to see an especially fascinating shelf directly across the floor from the guest register. Pocket diaries are the focus from Lawrence and her interest and ongoing research on the history and structure of these small journals from the 19th century. “Well educated people carried these field notebooks or pocket diaries to record facts,” Lawrence explained. “It was also something soldiers did in The War Between the States.” One of the diaries she features is written by her great-grandmother in 1861-62. It reflects a young woman who grows into maturity in a year’s time as the wives in the family desperately look forward to letters from soldiers each day.

Foster had a distinct advantage; she learned from a teacher who was a first responder in helping to save books in Florence, Italy after textiles, paintings and rare books were destroyed by the 1966 flood. The raging Arno River nearly meant the death of many writings, and librarians, other volunteers, and donors gathered there to learn how to save what was nearly lost and the work went on for several years. “I was working at the Library of Congress then,” Lawrence remembers.

“My teacher, Nancy Garruba, taught me what she learned. Thankfully, new ideas and methods of book conservation were devised as a result of that flood.”

Sampson has worked with Alabama Poet Laureate Sue Walker in collecting her poetry in a volume, Faulkner Suite. In this work in the display, she has set the type, hand -printed the book, page by page, illustrated, and bound it. It is based on her impressions of the southern writer’s work.

Preparing the exhibit has given joy and satisfaction to the artists, said Lawrence, and they hope it will serve as a celebration of books to all who view it.

One more weekend for CAST comedy

It may seem far-fetched, but when you think of people who you know and have heard of, Southern Hospitality is real and believable. Jacksonville actors Glenn Davenport, Mike Stedham, Robin Bauer, Denise Davis, Dan Krejci, and backstage help from Dawn Hurst and Michael Parsons – and more – bring laughs from a small Texas town of zany but well-intentioned characters to CAST audiences at the Fort McClellan Theatre this weekend. With matinees on Saturday and Sundays at 2:30 p.m. the dates are Thursday through Sunday with night performances at 8 p.m. Prices are $8 for students and $15 for adults. Call 820-2278 for reservations.