INTRODUCTION - Don Taylor And twenty years later they put on a show.... I've known Will Rueter for almost as long as I've taken money for doing bookbinding. My memory of our meeting is shrouded in the mists of the early 80s, inevitably associated with wine. I'm standing in a room holding a glass of red and there is an event going on. It may be one of those get-togethers that the hard-partying Nancy Jacobi arranged in the early days of the Japanese Paper Place, but in any case I'm working on achieving a state of 'balance' – that moment when you've had enough to drink that you feel capable of launching yourself into a roomful of complete strangers, but not so much that you will automatically make a fool of yourself when you open your mouth – and a burly form is making its way across the floor in my direction. This turns out to be Will Rueter, and he is holding his own glass of wine and his 'balance' seems well established. He stops in front of me and says something like, 'So you're Don Taylor.' And that's pretty much the whole story, really. We created a great friendship out of that tilted beginning. Shortly after that Will commissioned one of my first design bindings, his copy of a favourite John Updike novel about a family in rural Pennsylvania. I bound it in green goatskin with Japanese paper onlays that vaguely suggested the passes of a lawn mower. I will always remember Will's enthusiastic , 'It's beautiful!' as I nervously surrendered it. Over many lunches at the Queen Mother we listened to each others' rants and I learned more about what makes Will tick, in particular his passion for print as manifested in the magnificent achievement of his Aliquando Press. Then already 20-odd years old, Aliquando had published some truly beautiful stuff and as new books came out Will would press a set of sheets on me 'for future treatment.' Some of the books so treated are in this show. Come to think of it, Will has been doing this kind of planting in the book arts community for a long time. I refer you to something as simple as The Annual Paper Decorating Orgy that Will suggested to me and my bookbinding colleague Reg Beatty. Every year the three of us get together for a day to drink some wine (see?), eat some amusing food and expand our paper decorating repertoire. A small thing, perhaps, but a very free and creative experience nonetheless, and it wouldn't have happened without Will. And of much more far-reaching importance is The Loving Society of Letterpress Printers, a creation of Will's for the purpose of the advancement of fine edition printing. Out of consideration for his two bookbinder buddies, Will suggested that Reg and I form a satellite organization (for partying purposes). The Binders of Infinite Love was named after an encounter with a couple of rather vague women in nunnish gear who floated into the bindery one day looking for instruction in the art of Medieval illumination. They thought it was 'soooo beautiful' that they just had to learn how to do it and could I tell them how, please. I assured them that to my shame I knew nothing of such matters but wished them well in their quest. They drifted out leaving their cards identifying themselves as Sister Barbara and Sister Monica of The Apostles of Infinite Love. We adapted the name almost as a joke and it stuck. The result of this association has been several good parties and a major group show in 2001. So twenty years on, in the fortieth year of The Aliquando Press, and twenty-something years into my own stagger through the parti-coloured world of the book, one can look back on this period and see how important Will's ideas and extraordinary energy have been to my own life and to the lives of many others in the community of 'book people.' Will's presence in this tiny world reminds me of that ad in the subway which depicts a plate of pallid and tedious looking oysters, and then shows the same seafood dancing around joyfully after the application of Tabasco sauce. Let's just say that I'm grateful to Will for spicing up our lives and am honoured to be collaborating with him in this show. In fact, I raise my glass to him. Don Taylor was born in Edmonton, AB in 1951 and grew up in Windsor, ON. He received a Master of Arts in Romance Languages from the University of Windsor in 1973. In 1977 Don studied bookbinding with Beatrice Stock and in 1979-80 with Seamus McClafferty and Annegret Hunter-Eisenbach at Sheridan College. He studied for a further two years with Betsy Palmer Eldridge and has taken workshops on a wide variety of subjects with many leading bookbinders from Canada, the United States, and Britain. Since 1984 Don has been teaching for the Canadian Bookbinders and Book Artists Guide and Sir Sanford Fleming College among others. Since starting his binding studio in 1980, Don has worked on restoration, portfolios, and small edition binding, and has been developing as a designer and book artist. He makes decorated papers and is interested in innovative book structures and boxes. He is proprietor of Pointyhead Press, which produces short run editions, often involving found text and illustrations 'found' in pieces of his paste papers. He is also a founding member of the Binders of Infinite Love, an affiliate of the Loving Society of Letterpress Printers. Don's work has appeared in exhibitions across Canada and in Japan, Italy, and France. He received the Henry R. Jackman Award for Best in Show in the 1993 Art of the Book exhibition. Examples of his work can be found in private and public collections in Canada, the United States, Japan, and the United Kingdom.