Sunday, October 21, 2012

Skin Graft of a Burnt Book


I have been working on simple, mindless, straightforward jobs since last week to recover from the trauma caused by La Merope ordeal. I just needed some time to heal my mind a bit. One of the jobs that gives me calmness and sereneness is what I call a "skin graft operation". It's basically a cosmetic repair on books that have gotten severe disfigurement issues caused by relatively common occurrences such as "Sh*t, my dog just ate my book!" or "They burnt my Harry Potter, god dammit!" or "Stop throwing books at me! I didn't sleep with your BFF!". Well, whatever injured those unfortunate books, I like doing this procedure because all I have to do is to just sit there and focus on the part I'm "operating" on! No need to move around, look around, carry heavy things around and it's very meditating to me. But most importantly, I like getting a "Wow!" from clients who didn't think the complete transformation was possible. Anyway, this is a 1862 Bible in German. There's a large hole on the back cover that appears to be caused by fire. I can see that the edges of the hole were shrunken and melt, and there are some surface damages on the surrounding area as well. Maybe someone knocked over a candle or left a cigar on it? Anyway, I transplanted a new skin from a new hinde which was cut exactly the shape to fit into the damaged hole, and colored and put the exact texture to match the surrounding. The seam is still visible if you look close, so I was disappointed a bit. But considering how bad the original condition was, I think this is the best any book doctors can do!

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