About Sophia:

Sophia Siobhan Wolohan Bogle has been bookbinding since 1985 when as a student  she worked at the University of Minnesota library bindery.  It was there she saw her first “naked” books ~ books without their covers, the sewing exposed.  She found this inner working of the bindings so fascinating that she started taking classes at The Minnesota Center for Book Arts. 

After completing her English Degree (with a Cultural Anthropology minor), she became an apprentice at a used book store nearby, where she learned much about the value of books in the marketplace. More importantly though, it was there she learned her true calling. She found that she wanted to “fix-up” every book that came into the shop to make it more wanted and saleable.  She thought it a shame that wonderful books were being shunned because of library marks or dinged up corners.

She decided to learn more about how best to help these books and so she moved to Portland, Oregon,  to enroll in the book arts program at the Oregon College of Art and Craft. But book arts did not satisfy her desire to help broken books, so she moved on to work for Book Crafts, doing lots of case binding, foil stamping, sewing and paper repairs.

After a few years she moved on again and through a happy synchronicity found herself working for David Weinstein in Los Angeles, a true master of book restoration, who graduated from the London College of Printing with top honors and helped found the Heritage Bindery.

After two years of study and work with Weinstein, she moved back to Oregon and began Red Branch Book Restoration in the year 2000.

Since then, she has continued her work and now teaches small  classes in her home studio and is herself going back to schooling at the American Academy of Bookbinding studying with Don Etherington towards getting a conservation diploma. This should be completed in the year 2009.

Sophia still lives in the Rogue Valley with her husband and daughter and their dog, Big Pause (There is a joke that goes with his name that starts ~ “A polar bear walks into a bar…” for the rest of the joke e-mail me!) . Visitors are most welcome, but you must make an appointment first. Why not come to visit and see some of the world-class Shakespeare plays here in Ashland?

 

 

 

Contact  Information:

E-mail: Sophia@bookrestoration.org

Cell phone: (541) 601-7543

 

 

Secure Mailing Address:

Red Branch Book Restoration

2305-C Ashland St.

PMB #289

Ashland, Oregon

97520

 

Accepts all forms of  mail including UPS and Fed-Ex

When you can’t replace it...