Donald Jackson and Sarah Harris-Richards Reunited with The Saint John’s Bible for the First Time in 13 Years

In 2013, John Roberts Printing Company finalized production of all 299 The Saint John’s Bible Heritage Editions. Thus marked the end of a period during which Artistic Director Donald Jackson and Studio Manager Sarah Harris-Richards worked closely with the original pages of The Saint John’s Bible.

No longer needing to compare the original pages with those from the Heritage Edition, the two flew home to Wales, leaving the original pages safe in the hands of Tim Ternes, Curator of The Saint John’s Bible in Collegeville, Minnesota.

Across the ocean, Jackson and Harris-Richards continued to have opportunities to engage with the Heritage Editions as they were gifted to institutions such as the Royal Library at Windsor Castle and used for occasions such as the installation of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Sarah Mullally.

Through all those years, they had yet to re-encounter the original pages, which Jackson and Harris-Richards put so much thought, love, and labor into for more than a decade.

That is, until April 2026, when Ternes flew the pages of the Prophets volume to London, England, the first of the seven volumes to be bound. The skins were carefully delivered, looked over, and then put to rest for a week, giving them an opportunity to recover from their journey.

On the days leading up to the reunion, Jackson remembered feeling a bit nervous. Vellum, after all, is a medium that always seeks to return to its former state, curved to the spine of the animal it came from. It had been fifteen years since Jackson last saw the pages. He couldn’t help but wonder: Had they changed since he last saw them?

“There was some apprehension, because quite a lot of those pages have been on display around the U.S,” said Jackson. “They’ve been exposed to varying conditions, albeit very much under careful observation and control, but nevertheless, you can’t avoid the natural tendencies of vellum. You could put a piece of vellum under a rock, and 1000 years later take the rock off, and it will still curve.”

On that day in Lambeth Palace, it was Harris-Richards and Katerina Powell, the artist in charge of binding the original pages into a book, who filtered through the pages, slowly, one after the other, to make sure they were all accounted for. Jackson sat back and observed for the most part. Healing from an illness, he felt he was in a more vulnerable state than usual. Maybe that’s why, when Harris-Richards turned the page to reveal the Valley of the Dry Bones illumination, Jackson felt struck.

“In my state, I was open to being smacked right in the face by it,” said Jackson. “Touching the vellum and lifting the corner of that page and looking at something I had made, it was above all special. Literally, that page had been created out of my hands.”

As an artist, Jackson says, there is a lot of pain, tension, and anxiety amid the beauty of sharing and finalizing your work. When he handed those original pages over years ago, he remembers agonizing over the scale of the lines and the depth of the shadows. He wondered: Were they good enough? But that day, for the first time, he saw the pages from a new perspective.

“Previously, I had been looking at them very critically,” said Jackson. “This experience was one of the only times during this process where I’ve allowed myself to feel proud. It came across so powerfully, the energy and the delicacy at the same time, and it was a magic moment to be able to see that now as a stranger might.”

Harris-Richards, who hand-cut and treated almost every sheet of vellum for the project, had a similar experience. She, too, braced herself to experience how the pages might feel different years later. But at the moment of reunion, all that fell away. It was all still muscle memory.

“I thought I would feel more scared to get them back, but it all felt very natural,” said Harris-Richards. “The pages looked pristine. They were immaculate. They have been beautifully taken care of. It felt like old friends coming home. It was really emotional.”

Along with the original artwork, there remained scribbled notes on the sides of each page of vellum. Artist’s notes revealed comments about the vellum, the exact dates and times each page was completed, how the day was going, and more.

“It brought a very personal element to the experience and brought me back to the days of its creation,” said Harris-Richards. “You can imagine that day, a Thursday in 2004, it was 2 o’clock, and they had started working after lunch.”

The impetus for this reunion was, of course, the binding of the original pages. For years, the pages have travelled the world as individual entities. Now, they will be bound.

“Previously, the original pages had been displayed page by page,” said Jackson. “You could fill an exhibition with 60 cases, all of which told their own story. In book format, from now on you will only ever be able to see seven openings at the same time. The work changes in personality and substance. It comes of age.”

Both artists liken the experience to watching a child grow up. As the Bible enters the next stage in its life they both agree it is in phenomenal hands.

“We can safely say we put blood, sweat, tears and love into the original and to the Heritage, and they both mean so much to us both,” said Harris-Richards. “Watching someone make it into something different is emotional. It felt so nice to pass on the feeling of the page to a new artist. Katerina handles the skins beautifully. It’s beautiful to watch her work. It’s lovely to see. She’s going to make it beautiful.”

The Saint John’s Bible: Sacred Art to Last Generations

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