Librarian

There are few if any opportunities to view one of the extant Ripley Scrolls. There are four total outside of private hands with known copies limited to just 23 in four flavors. Having come across a high definition photo of one of the scrolls, an idea of having a scroll of our own to ponder over at the Library table came to mind. Thus inspired, I’ve come up with a way in which try our hand at it, the making of it, albeit slightly smaller in length by 5 feet. The original is 18ft long and about 24 inches wide. The exemplar that we’ll be making is 16 inches wide by 13 feet long. This limited by my printer page size of 17 x 11 inches. Not sure it’d be worth the expense to have an exact copy printed.

As usual, the workshops are geared more toward a good excuse to get together over a bit of food and drink. In the back of my mind is a lecture with a keynote speaker and barbecue.. Who knows.

In the works, I have the 14 sheets printed out and ready to be mounted to – something. I’ll try a roll of linen first and go from there. There are so many ways to screw this up that I’m sure it will take more than one try at it with the resulting product, maybe, just maybe, worth the effort. No promises.

The workshops is open to 25 masons.

A donation of $5.00 to the Scottish Rite Research Library is requested for each seat.

Join us March 19th @ 6:30PM

Many of you know that Rudyard Kipling, the famous author, was a Mason. He has Masonic overtones in more than a few works but this one, ‘The Palace’, is outright in your face Masonic as the day is long. A few years back I was trying my hand at interpreting the poem for a lecture/presentation, it’s esoteric side if you will.

Somewhere in the midst of this excercise I though I’d Google around a bit to see what others had written on the subject and to my great surprise, nothing much came up. Just when I was going to quit – as if by Magic – I landed on a page that went well beyond my meager efforts of making sense between the lines.

We will in an evening of Brotherhood, probably over a beer and pizza, briefly discuss this article, and then continue on with constructing out of paper the hidden cubes and message contained in the poem as demonstrated by the author. For me at least, this tumbling of the words and placing them on an actual cube to decifer the message as illustrated, is somewhat needed to – see it for myself.

Here’s the link to said author and article, as we won’t have the time to read it out loud and discuss it during the workshop. It’s well worth the 26 page read starting on page 9. https://www.kiplingsociety.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/pdf/KJ311.pdf

Date: To be announced.

In this workshop we will be trying our hand at making an illuminated letter (Gold Leaf), on some worthy watercolor paper . Approx 5×7 inches – 8×10 framed.

Not sure of how much we can accomplish within our 2 hour envelope so we’ll be putting the gold leaf glue on first, letting it dry for 40min before we attempt the gold leaf.

In the meantime I dont think it will hurt if we put a little color down. I have picked out a letter design that appears doable for beginners.

Our first step will be to trace over the lines in a charcol pencil and or ink pen. I’m thinking that a finer line around the exterior leafs would be better. The charcol pencil seems to be a bit fat and it bleeds into the green color.

After the lines are defined we’ll add the transparent glue in the areas selected to recieve the gold leaf.

On hand, we’ll have some matt board pre-cut with beveled edges suitable to frame your illuminated letter if so desired.

Here’s an example of one I colored in with pastel pencils, minus the gold leaf of course, which will be where the yellow is now.

My guess is that there won’t be time to fully color the letter in the time we have, as this took me a solid hour to trace and color, mistakes and corrections included.

The gold leaf glue isn’t brushed down like paint, there’s a special technique involved that takes some time. So including the half hour to put the glue down and the half hour to put the gold leaf on, were pushing the 2 hour time frame.

I’ll have some colored pencils around. However, if you are going to finish the coloring at home as I suspect, you might want to bring your own coloring supplies/pencils/markers/pens, so you have what you need to finish it when you get home.

Notice all the smudges. We’ll have to be careful and clean it up before we mount the matt board and frame around it.

Date: June 11th, 2024 –

In this workshop we will learn what is called the Perfect bound technique which takes loose paper ( copy machine paper 8.5 x 11 ) and glue+ to make the inner binding of a book. Participants should print out a 100 – 200 page book that they have an interest in seeing on their bookshelf.

The next Bookbinding workshop (102), will focus on making and attaching your own custom hard board case, the covers.

Date and costs to be announced: Limited Seating

Join us for a round or three of poetry, written and recited by our Librarian, PM Robert Gordon Kille. There will be a short discussion of one or more of the poems and the how and why’s behind writing creatively for a purpose.

Several others will be on display in the reception room of the Library including, “Where Art Thou”, written for Most Worshipful Brother Rex R. Hutchens. You’ll notice I said written ‘for’, and not in memorandum of; we had some light hearted conversations about where we’d go when we passed over and this is somewhat what he wanted those who wished to know.., just where he thought he’d go.

Date to be announced…