After receiving graduate degrees in painting and sculpture from San Jose State College in California, Don Glaister began his study of hand bookbinding with Barbara Hiller in San Francisco in 1972. Don’s classes with Ms. Hiller continued until 1975 when he moved to Paris to study binding and tooling full time with Pierre Aufschneider and Roger Arnoult, icons of French bookmaking in the mid-twentieth century.

Don returned to the Bay Area in 1977 and opened a studio where he accepted commissioned binding work and taught bookbinding privately. He then also began his career as a design bookbinder, making design bindings that were collected by private and institutional collectors, mostly in the U.S. In 1984 Don moved his studio to Western Massachusetts where he joined the growing community of bookmakers working around the Northampton area. In that fertile environment he enthusiastically pursued his ideas of design as they related to his binding work, experimenting with materials and techniques rarely associated with bookmaking while continuing to honor the traditional form.

Don accepted a position as book conservator in 1996 at the Northeast Document Conservation Center in Andover Massachusetts, and then in 1998 became professor of book arts in the Book Arts Program at the University of Alabama. Both of these positions vastly broadened his experience as well as his view of bookmaking and its place in modern culture. During his employment in Andover and Alabama, Don continued his exploration of bookbinding as a format for intensive design work and invention.

In 2000 Don moved to Cleveland Ohio where he resumed his career as a full time book artist. While living in Cleveland in 2002, Don made and published his first edition (60) of artist’s books entitled Brooklyn Bridge: A Love Song. He has since made two further editions of artists books; Angelique and the Pearl Necklace: An Homage to Sail which celebrates the beauty of wooden sail boats and sailing, and A Few Questions, which explores the nature of being and of time.

Don now lives with his wife, book artist Suzanne Moore, on Vashon Island Washington where he makes design bindings and artist’s books that are collected worldwide. He also teaches book arts in Telluride Colorado where he is Director of Fine Binding at the American Academy of Bookbinding.

Library of Congress, Washington D.C.

National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.

British Library, London

Victoria and Albert Museum, London

National Library of the Netherlands, The Hague

Pierpont Morgan Library, New York

Getty Center, Los Angeles, California

Boston Athenaeum, Boston

Special Collections, Cleveland Public Library

Special Collections, Denver Public Library

Mayo Clinic Collection, Rochester MN

Mitchell Special Collections Library, Bowdoin College

Mandeville Special Collections Library, University of California, San Diego

Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University,

Carl A. Kroch Library, Cornell University

Jaffe Collection, Florida Atlantic University

Houghton Library, Harvard University

Lilly Library, Indiana University

F.W. Olin Library, Mills College

Special Collections, Thompson Library, Ohio State University;

Special Collections, Denison Library, Scripps College

Ruth Mortimer Collection, Smith College

Bridwell Library, Southern Methodist University

Department of Special Collections, Stanford University

The Rare Book Room, Swarthmore College

Harry Ransom Research Center, University of Texas, Austin

J. Willard Marriott Library, Special Collections, University of Utah

University of Washington Department of Special Collections, Seattle

Beinecke Special Collections Library, Yale University