High Class Booker is the alter-ego of Rai Peterson, retired English professor and founder at Book Arts Collaborative.

Using centuries-old methods, Rai makes books from sheets of paper, thread, book board, and glue. While she loves the 21st Century (and dreamed since childhood of participating in it), she generally eschews modern machinery in favor of hand tools: knives, brushes, scalpels, rulers, pencils, needles, sewing frames, bone folders, presses, and patience.

With a fondness for vintage paper and artifacts, Rai collects hand-made, and manually-decorated papers from around the world; baubles, coins, medals, and other treasures; as well as rare and domestic leathers for use in book ornamentation.

Treasure binding began with monks in the 6th Century who would encrust volumes with jewels. During the Renaissance, there was a resurgence in treasure binding. High Class Booker is leading a contemporary revival of the treasure binding in which a lucky charm has been embedded in each book.

We do the same thing a million different ways, building journals and sketchbooks from fine materials and found objects.