Hi, I’m Joe Puglisi.

I’m an award-winning photographer and visual artist located in New Paltz, NY.

I started looking into bookbinding back in late-January for the purpose of creating a monograph of my pictures of Coney Island. 

Around the same time I booked the trip of a lifetime to Singapore and found a private bookbinding class at a shop in the city there.  I booked the class before I left home.

The class was definitely an experience because my instructor didn’t speak a word of English, and I didn’t speak a word of Malaysian. She showed me a selection of leather covers, papers, and threads for me to pick out for my book.  She laid out my selections in front of me, then similar selections in front of her; opposite to me. 

I watched as she carefully threaded the needle, then made the holes in the leather and showed me how to make the holes in the paper. Together we worked almost in silence, slowly making our books. I found the process to be very relaxing and challenging. I wanted to do more.

When I got back to home, I made a book of my Singapore trip but it only had about 45 pages. I wanted to see if I could find another style where I could create larger books. Now I’m over a hundred journals from where I started.

I began using decorative papers for the covers before using my own photographs.  A close friend whose name is also Joe, gave me the brilliant idea of putting customers favorite pictures on the front of a journal; and that’s what White Butterfly has become.