West Seventh Freelance

Book arts and book binding are thriving in St. Paul, MN! One talented practitioner is Steve Prokop, proprietor of http://www.specialbindings.com.

Steve has restored treasured books, many of which are family bibles, since 2002. He notes that he is essentially self-taught in binding technique and has grown his skills- and amassed an amazing array of tools- to complete a myriad of projects over the past 23 years.

I first met Steve in the parking lot of our local co-op grocery. Observing that his license plate translated to “book binder”, I asked if he restored bibles. As he noted in a 2008 article in the Highland Villager, “Restoring family bibles makes up about half of my business. The oldest I restored was a Swedish bible that dated back to 1727.”

Indeed, I was looking for someone to restore my mother’s family bible. A very weighty book- and in quite bad repair- I was thrilled that Steve took on the project. After several weeks of dedicated work, the bible is now home- complete with a sample of the horsehair that was used to create a padded cover.

Steve can be reached by email: postmaster@specialbindings.com or phone: 651-698-1477