I have loved books for as long as I can remember, but becoming a bookbinder was an unexpected development. I read, wrote, and edited texts in a previous life, and even dabbled in layout. But I never stopped to think about how a book was actually held together. That changed when I entered an enclosed monastery in the Netherlands and was assigned to work in its bookbindery. I was gradually initiated into the various facets of bookbinding and discovered, to my joy, that binding could be combined with various creative impulses to create works of real beauty.

I later left the monastery in order to become an Orthodox Christian. Returning to South Africa, I turned to bookbinding as a way of supporting myself. 

More recently still, I have been returning to the world of typesetting and layout as I have begun to produce my own text blocks. In this way I hope that I will be able to share with others treasures that I have discovered along the way.