Jesse Meyer contacted us about visiting his shop, Pergamena, where parchment and leather for book arts purposes (among others) are made, tanned, and dyed. While technically not a book and paper facility or a community organization, I thought I could easily glean some information about handmaking and the bookarts community. Plus, Matt once worked at a leather-selling store for a while and we thought he’d particularly enjoy visiting the tannery along our route.
When we arrived, Jesse invited us in to see the workshop and he and Matt quickly fell into discussing the various leathers produced by the shop.
The tannery has been in Jesse’s family for generations, and during college he turned his eye towards leather use in book arts and the process of making parchment (also known as vellum). Now Pergamena is the premier maker of parchment and book arts leather in the US.
Jesse walked us through the process of making vellum, from the de-furring of the skin to the stretching, scraping, and drying of this material. Though I have never done any leather binding or written on vellum, there’s a huge difference between what we can research about this process and of seeing it in action.
Thanks for showing us around — I can now more fully understand parchment’s high status in the book arts community.
Jesse Meyer, founder of Pergamena, and Matt discussing leather
Jesse explaining how the skin is de-furred/de-fleshed
Leather drying
Jesse showed us how parchment is carefully stretched to dry
Parchment drying/being stretched
Finished parchment
Other kinds of parchment (deer and pig)
Matt among the dyed leathers
