On Saturday 29 March Rachel Hazell, aka The Travelling Bookbinder, will celebrate 25 years bookbinding in Shetland at an event at The Peerie Shop café.

It has been a quarter of a century since Rachel successfully applied for the WASPS residency at The Booth in Scalloway, and little did she know that she was embarking on an island love affair. The two months Rachel spent on Shetland in the spring of 2000 were filled with school visits, workshops at The Hatchery, responding to the landscape and creating work for exhibition at Bonhoga the following year.

“Everybody was very welcoming and generous. I made friends then that I’m still close to today. I loved arriving at a school way down a single track road and teaching a class how to make books.The children often asked how many sheep I had, and I was sorry to disappoint them by saying none, especially as now we have a flock of Hebridean roaming my husband’s croft on the Isle of Iona.

After the first visit I have returned every year (except for the season I worked in Antarctica, and during Covid) to teach a bookbinding workshop, mostly at Bressay Lighthouse, bringing locals and travellers together to explore book forms. Singing in the engine room and watching the ships go by were highlights. The experience of returning to this landscape and people is magical over and over again.”

Rachel Hazell, aka The Travelling bookbinder

Now the annual workshop takes place in the studio above the Peerie Shop, attracting people from as far away as the USA and Australia to be inspired to create with paper and ink. 

For more visit: https://www.thetravellingbookbinder.com