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Scriptorium NewsTo date, scribes have completed the following percentages of writing in the remaining volumes: Wisdom
100% November 2005 - In September, a remarkable milestone was achieved. After more than five years of writing scribes Sue Hufton, Sally Mae Joseph and Brian Simpson, who were joined in 2003 by Susan Leiper and Angela Swan, all completed their final pages of text & poetry for The Saint John's Bible. Donald completes his writing allocation by volume, scheduling it in with his illumination work. He plans to write the whole of Revelation and still has writing in Wisdom and Historical to complete. Total lines written: 96,781 (this equates to 97.5% of the writing); Total lines remaining for Donald to complete: 2,414. To highlight their individual contribution and to round off their work, Mabel and Donald have commissioned each scribe to design and execute a marginal Special Treatment in Volume V - Wisdom Books, on the theme of the feminine aspect of God chosen from a list provided by the CIT. We look forward to unveiling these Special Treatments in December when scribes visit The Scriptorium for the last time. A substantial amount of time and energy has been spent by Donald, Sarah & Rebecca over the last few months liaising with the V&A regarding the forthcoming exhibition. April 2005 - Scribes revisited the studio 25 - 27 April. They returned completed pages, worked on corrections and received a master class from Donald. Scribes also showed their preliminary ideas and sketches for each of their Special Treatments in Wisdom. They were all very different and were completely identifiable to each scribe - Donald was pleased with their initial ideas and thoughts. Following individual discussions with Donald, they will now progress their ideas and bring a final sketch for review at the end of June. The warm welcome and generous hospitality of Saint John's was felt by everyone. In particular the wonderful, moving blessing service held in the Abbey Church for the artists and scribes which was followed by a most enjoyable dinner and conversation as guests of the Monastery. We all felt very privileged to be a part of such a special celebration. The presentation of Volume IV - Prophets to the CIT was another memorable occasion, particularly for members of the team who had not experienced the unveiling of a volume before - as I looked around the table in HMML, I sensed an overwhelming feeling of sharing and oneness with the work. John Meriton - Deputy Keeper (Word & Image Department), Frances Rankine - Curator (Word & Image Department) and Diane Spall - Librarian (Word & Image Department) visited the Scriptorium on 9 March. The main purpose for their visit was to see work in progress and to gain a better understanding of the different work processes involved in the creation of The Saint John's Bible, in preparation for the exhibition at V&A next year; in addition, various conservation concerns were discussed. "Christopher & Mette de Hamel visited the studio on 18 March. Since work on the Bible first started, Christopher has been eager to visit the Scriptorium to experience the many work processes involved in its creation. He was fascinated to hear how the vellum was prepared, the use of computer layouts to help the scribes, the creative process of an illumination and of course to have the opportunity of seeing finished work.” Bible Oak (for binding) - Bernard Allen successfully sourced the tree from which the Welsh oak binding boards will be made. In order to choose the best quality from the tree for the boards, we purchased the complete butt and it was kiln dried, cut and stacked. Earlier this year, Bernard planed the entire set of boards and made his selection of oak from which he will make and shape the binding boards. The 33.024 ft³ of excess oak remaining after Bernard's selection was packed and shipped to Saint John's and arrived in March.” “Bernard will now store the best quality chosen oak until Chris Clarkson is ready to begin the binding process. The shaping of the binding boards is a very exacting process and cannot be done until Chris receives the first text block of one of the volumes of the Saint John's Bible.” January 2005 - Scribes visited the studio 17-19 January to return completed pages and to receive a master class from Donald. All scribes had been struggling with the quills - most said they started off well but quickly went soft after writing a few lines. Donald discussed the problems experienced with the quills and suggested he would reselect some feathers from studio stock, with Sarah's help, for them to try. Donald also talked to each of the scribes about their Wisdom Special Treatments which they will be doing as their 'finale' in the Bible. Having already chosen their quotations, Donald was keen to hear about any concerns or questions. December 2004 - The following volumes of The Saint John's Bible are complete: Pentateuch, Psalms, Gospels and Acts. As of December, the scribes have completed the following percentages of writing in the remaining volumes: Prophets 98% Scribes Sue, Brian, Susan and Angela visited the studio, returning with their completed pages. Donald was delighted with the quality of their writing and provided each scribe with an individual critique and master class. In the most recent visit, Donald worked with Sally Mae and Brian discussing ideas for the style of chapter numbers in Prophets, as well as book headings. Sally Mae and Brian explored the ideas further, especially in relation to color and agreed with Donald the way forward. Scribes will have completed the writing of the Bible in July next year so they will be returning their final pages in September, following the summer holidays. As a way of enabling the scribes to have the opportunity of being 'soloists' in The Saint John's Bible, Donald has given each one a Special Treatment in Wisdom to complete. Every scribe has embraced this as a wonderful 'finale' to their work in the Bible and looks forward to working on sketch ideas. Donald is now in the midst of his creative sketch process and recently forwarded these illumination sketches for CIT review -Ezekiel's Vision of the New Temple, Vision of Isaiah and Ezekiel's Vision at Chebar. November 2004 - Sally Mae Joseph and Sarah Harris prepared, labeled and secured crating for 139 checklist items for the exhibition at The Minneapolis Institute of Arts. Included are the tools, inks, materials, sketches used by Donald Jackson as well as his desk top. April 2004 - Donald Jackson and Rebecca Cherry bring Psalms to Saint John's. This volume represents the third completed volume of seven. The project is more than half finished. All of the handwriting will be finished by September, 2005. January 2004 - Letters and Revelation recently arrived back from Peachtree Editorial having been proofread. This is the conclusion of this portion of the project. Bernard Allen, who has sourced the oak for the binding boards, recently confirmed that the kiln drying process for the wood is now complete and in his words "they are absolutely stunning." Angela Hind has confirmed the transmission date for the BBC Radio 4 documentary as Good Friday, April 9, 2004. Angela came to the scriptorium to interview Donald and obtain some additional audio relating to quill curing. She will visit Saint John's in February. October 2003- Sally Mae Joseph presented to an audience of over 100 "Friends of Hereford Cathedral on Friday, October 17 at the Hereford Cathedral. Her presentation included wonderful slides of the sketches and finished work in Pentateuch as well as images from the Gospels and Acts. BBC Radio 4 producer, Angela Hind is scheduled to visit the studio the 19th and 20th of November to begin recording for the BBC Radio documentary on The Saint John's Bible. She will spend time interviewing Donald and Sally Mae, as well as recording parts of the scribes' visit such as the unveiling of their written pages and a master class with Donald. September 2003 - Scribes Susan Hufton, Susan Leiper, Angela Swan, and Brian Simpson visited the Scriptorium on the 23-26 to return completed pages of writing and to receive individual critique and masters classes from Donald. Donald also reviewed their completed pages collectively, which gave a wonderful sense of the writing as a whole; he is very pleased with the harmony of the work. To mark the completion and delivery of the Pentateuch, the studio linear chart was ceremoniously taken down by the scribes. Donald gave a short slide presentation to share some of the completed Pentateuch illuminations with them. Four of the scribe work from the own studios at home and do not see Donald's creative process, so this was especially valuable. August 2003 - To date we have completed the following
percentages of writing in the remaining volumes: July 2003 - Conservator and binder Christopher Clarkson visited the studio on the 9th. He met with Donald to clarify a number of concerns and questions he had relating to the binding of the high-end facsimile. Hebrew scribe, Izzy Pludwinski who is based in Jerusalem, visited the studio to complete the Old Testament book headings and running headlines. Sally Harris has completed preparing and ruling up her 100th skin. We now have completed 79% of the preparation and ruling of the skins for the whole Bible. June 2003 - Scribes, Sue Hufton, Brian Simpson, Susan Leiper and Angela Swan return to the Scriptorium to receive a master class from Donald. Sue refined her book headings, while Susan and Angela worked on the text. Brian returned with his completed book of Psalms. He also completed all of the chapter numbers in Pentateuch and started some practice on poetry script for Prophets which he will now return to. April 2003 - Sally Mae and Sue Hufton gave a joint presentation about The Saint John's Bible to an audience of over 300 at the Society of Scribes & Illuminators Lay Member day on April 26. It was very well received and the audience were fascinated to hear about the various different processes involved in the creation of the Bible. March 2003 -- Donald forwarded to The Committee of Illumination and Text sketches of Abraham and Sarah and the Death of Moses, for their response. Brian and Sally Mae have started Psalms production pages. February 2003 - Donald forwarded to The Committee of Illumination and Text sketches for their response: the Genesis Frontispiece Tailpiece to Genesis Incipit, Adam and Eve and Jacob's Ladder. January 2003 -- Fr. Michael Patella visited the Hendre January 18 thru 21 during his sabbatical. Donald was able to show him his ideas for the treatment of Psalms. December 2002 - Two new scribes have joined the team! Welcome to Susan Lieper and Angela Swan. November 2002 -- Donald and Vin have worked closely together on the design layout for Prophets which was first typeset a year ago. Donald felt that further refinements were necessary so the the entire Prophets was redone, and more recently, the Psalms. Sarah Harris has been appointed as Studio Assistant. Sarah is an Art, Design & Media graduate from Portsmouth University and is delighted to join our Scriptorium team. October 2002 -- The Scriptorium hosted a visit of people interested in The Saint John's Bible. The group was led by Fr. Eric Hollas, and spent two half days in the studio gaining a complete overview of the processes involved with the production of The Saint John's Bible. They were given the opportunity of trying some of the processes themselves, such as scrutching, writing with a quill and handling some of the written pages of the Pentateuch. September 2002 -- Donald and Sally Mae have finalized the allocation of illuminations and special treatments for the Pentateuch. Formal one month's training will commence on September 16 for 4 additional scribes. Following the requirement for additional ink to enable the scribes to complete the writing, contact was established with a Japanese calligrapher. The samples were analyzed and a suitable alternative has been chosen by Donald. April 2002 -- Recently we received some interesting news from the Scriptorium. The materials used to date to create The Saint John's Bible include: 9 ink sticks; 95 skins; 45 quills; 8 eggs; 1 pound of sandarac; and 20 dust masks. The team is unable to account for how many cups of tea and chocolate coated graham crackers they have consumed! March 2002 -- Following the arrival of the CIT briefing for Historical Books, Part 2, Donald and Vin have spent time working on the layout design together. Vin recently completed the typesetting for this and the pages have been sent to Peachtree Editorial to be proofread. The pages from Historical Books, Part I, have been returned from Peachtree and Vin is now working on the proofread corrections. The next issue of the Society of Scribes & Illuminators' Journal will be dedicated to the production aspects of The Saint John's Bible. Sue Hufton is the editor of this journal. We eagerly wait the published article. February 2002 -- Andrew Jamison visited the studio to complete the design for Acts' carpet page on vellum. He spent a valuable week receiving art direction from Donald and produced a wonderful concluding image for Acts. January 2002 -- Scribes Sue Hufton and Brian Simpson returned to the studio for three day to review their returned text pages with Donald, to complete proof-reading correction to received a masterclass session from Donald. Brian continued with the remaining chapter number in The Gospels and Acts and completed some on the Pentateuch pages. |
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