Jim Croft
Making Tools by Hand
Working with bone, wood, bamboo and steel, participants will manufacture variously shaped folders, spatulas, scrapers and knives, according to their preference. Inherent in this will be the sharpening, care, use and repair of the above tools, as well as crafting tools to meet specific needs. Most of the processing will be hand-powered, though the use of bench grinders and belt sanders will also be discussed.
Robert Espinosa
The Components and Fabrication of a Chemise/Vellum Binding
This workshop will explore the fabrication of a three-piece binding based on the historical one-piece limp vellum prototype. The modified binding extends the supple qualities of the limp vellum "soft cover" binding through the use of a fitted tawed-skin chemise over the spine. The interplay of tawed skins and vellum (or tanned skins and paper case papers), together with various sewn elements reveals the functional, aesthetic and tactile qualities of these traditional materials. Participants will complete two binding models using different combinations of materials.
Richard Hungerford
Painting an Accordion
This workshop examines paper as a water-based medium to develop paper pulp paintings. Initially, participants learn the basic skills that enable them to produce a base paper, which will then be utilized as a blank canvas, establishing the starting point for the integration of paper pulp painting and book concepts. The course content is structured around the development of a 9" x 94" paper pulp painting. The completed paper will then be folded into an accordion book structure. Discussions cover the relationship of paper pulp painting to the composition, content, and structural elements of book forms. Participants are encouraged to come prepared to translate ideas into the 9" x 94" format.
Susan E. King
Homeward Bound: Developing Ideas for Artist's Books
From womb to tomb we inhabit a variety of dwellings. Like the books we make, some of these spaces are more compelling than others. We will use simple writing and brainstorming exercises to develop ideas and forms for books on the topic of home in its broadest definition. The focus is on generating content for future bookworks. Participants can expect to have several mockups for projects by the end of the session.
Mark Van Stone
History of Our Written Form
Write your name. This simple act is the culmination of many thousands of years of trial and error, experiment and design. We shall trace letterforms back through history, with attention to the continuity of method and design which unites their many expressions. Special emphasis will be given the interaction of a text's role and its form in order to explain the difference between monumental, cursive, and book scripts. Day 1: Medieval. Day 2: Ancient alphabets. Day 3: Hieroglyphs. Day 4: The invention of writing and the fundamental issues of designing a writing system. No calligraphic experience is required.
Nell Meldahl
Basic Japanese Handscrolls
After mural painting, the handscroll is probably the oldest style of formal painting in Asia. Easily transported, it flourished as an art form to convey Buddhist teachings throughout the East. In a few short days we will create our own handscrolls, improvising on age-old techniques. This course is designed to be of interest and use to conservators and binders as well as artists working with book forms or paper media.
Steve Miller
The Sun Book/Moon Book
In this class we will explore simple techniques for producing photopolymer plates suitable for letterpress printing. All presentations and work sessions will emphasize the low-tech end of this emerging medium. In addition, the class will cover letterpress printing techniques unique to reproducing text & image from the photopolymer plate. As the medium for these travels, the class we will produce a collaborative limited edition letterpress volume of near-miniature size. You may bring interesting papers to work with, and a head full of ideas.
Dolph Smith
All Sites Day: A Book for Here and There
To paraphrase book artist Bill Drendel, ". . . a book is where you site/sight it!" The aim of this workshop is to build a book connecting two points, i.e., beginning and end . . . or maybe two origins with encounters at the center. Work alone or collaborate with a colleague. Binding=Suspension, Case=Pylon, Book=Bridge.
Sarah Van Keuren
Gum Bichromate Printing
In this non-silver printing process developed during the 19th century, watercolor pigment is combined with gum arabic and light-sensitive chromium salts to produce an emulsion that is brushed onto a paper support. A light-resist (film or paper negative, photogram objects, drawing on translucent material, or photocopy) is placed against the emulsion and exposed to daylight. The prints are developed in water, and the emulsion can be manipulated while wet. When dry, the paper can be coated with additional layers to build an archival, rich-in-color image. This medium offers unlimited possibilities for creating both unique images and prints or books in editions.
Claire Van Vliet
Approach to Landscape
This workshop is offered in Session 2 so that participants will have had some opportunity to absorb the landscape and experience changes that occur during the cycle of the day. Morning classes will follow a structured sequence of varied drawing approaches to the landscape that surrounds Penland. The first afternoon class will focus on collage techniques, while the second and third will be open for pursuing drawing/painting/collage/book structures on an individual basis. Weather permitting, we will work outside as much as possible.
Jim Croft describes himself as a "genetic rebel, itinerant, peasant, guerilla medievalist." Since 1972 he has lived in the mountains in Santa, Idaho, where he has built a water-powered stamping mill for papermaking. He and his wife practice a variety of traditional crafts using local and home-grown materials. Jim also hosts and co-teaches the annual Technology of the Medieval Book seminar.
Robert Espinosa is Preservation Librarian and Conservator at the Harold B. Lee Library of Brigham Young University. As a hand bookbinder for the past twenty years, he has been interested in the use of historical models to suggest bookbindings of grace, utility and durability. He began his training at the Center for Book Arts, New York, in 1974, and worked as a book conservator at the Library of Congress (1978-82) prior to his tenure at BYU.
Mark Esser is Book Conservator in the Burns Library at Boston College. From 1986 to 1994 he founded and taught the course in hand bookbinding at the North Bennett Street School in Boston. He served an apprenticeship with William Anthony, and has worked at the Newberry Library in Chicago, and at the University of Iowa Library Conservation Department.
Richard Flavin has, for the past twenty-three years, been living and working in Japan. Initially he studied wood-block printing for two years at Tokyo University of Fine Arts. For the past fifteen years, he has been making nagashizuki-style paper, books, and art work at his studio and home in Ogawamachi. He has been a frequent PBI instructor and has conducted numerous workshops in the U.S. and Japan.
Maria Fredericks (PBI '95 Co-director) is Conservator of Rare Books at the Huntington Library, San Marino, California. She has worked at the Winterthur Museum, the Library of Congress, and the Conservation Center for Art and Historic Artifacts in Philadelphia.
Richard Hungerford works as a studio artist in Keswick, Iowa. His work has been exhibited internationally. He has taught papermaking workshops since 1986, and believes that creativity results from hard work.
Susan E. King is an artist and writer who trained as a sculptor. She makes unique artist's books at Paradise Press in Los Angeles, and at presses around the country. Her work is internationally exhibited and collected.
Nell Meldahl is in private practice as a conservator of Asian paintings. She apprenticed in Kyoto, Japan, for five years, and was an assistant conservator at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, before starting her own studio on Cape Cod.
Julia Miller (PBI '95 Journalist/Archivist) is a book conservator in private practice in Ann Arbor, Michigan. She makes artist's books on such subjects as odalisques and wandjinas.
Steve Miller (PBI '95 Co-director and instructor) teaches letterpress printing and hand papermaking at the MFA in the Book Arts Program at the University of Alabama. He is the proprietor of Red Hydra Press, and President of the Friends of Dard Hunter, an international group focussing on hand papermaking and books.
Dolph Smith will, when PBI '95 begins, be in his first week of retirement after thirty years on the faculty of Memphis College of Art. He is producing paper/book works, drawings, and tomatoes at his new studio -- Tennarkippi Field, Ripley, Tennessee.
Pamela Spitzmueller (PBI '95 Co-director) is the Conservator at the University of Iowa Libraries, and a member of the UI Center for the Book. She has worked at the Library of Congress Conservation Office, and the Newberry Library in Chicago. Her many one-of-a-kind books are often inspired by studies of historical book structures.
Sarah Van Keuren is a photographer/printmaker who uses a pinhole camera to produce large negatives that she prints in cyanotype and gum bichromate. She has been teaching non-silver processes for fifteen years at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia, which has resulted in the publication of a non-silver manual. Her work has been widely exhibited.
Mark Van Stone is a calligrapher, illuminator, carver, and historian of writing. He has taught classes for scholars and artists, as well as workshops in historical manuscript arts and their lessons for the modern designer in Europe, Japan, Australia, New Zealand and North America. He won a Guggenheim Fellowship for work on a history of calligraphic art, and is presently studying Mayan Hieroglyphics at the University of Texas in Austin.
Claire Van Vliet, proprietor of the Janus Press since 1955, has exhibited her landscape prints and paperworks most recently in a solo exchibition at the Bates College Museum of Art, and her books at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. She was the recipient of a MacArthur Prize Fellowship 1989-94.
Eileen Wallace (PBI '95 Site Host) is a papermaker and book artist who held an internship at Dieu Donne Press & Paper in New York City, and is a recent graduate of the MFA in the Book Arts Program at the University of Alabama. She is currently a Studio Coordinator at the Penland School.
The program consists of one four-day session, during which participants will take two classes, one meeting in the morning and one in the afternoon, followed by one three-day session meeting all day for three days, for a total of three classes during the event. Specialized class supplies as well as appropriate equipment and working environments are provided as part of the program. Presentations from each class will be given to the entire group. The annual PBI Auction and Banquet are held on the last day of the event, May 26th. Participants should plan to arrive in the early afternoon of Wednesday, May 17th, and depart after breakfast on the morning of Saturday, May 27th.
To apply for PBI '95, please send the following information to Pamela Spitzmueller on a single 8.5" x 11" sheet of paper (use both sides if necessary): (1) your name, address, and all telephone numbers, (2) a brief description of your background and areas of expertise/interest, (3) your reasons for wanting to attend PBI '95, (4) a list (this is very important) by instructor name, of your first through last choice of ALL classes, both for Session 1 and Session 2. Every effort is made to give participants reservations in their preferred classes. Upon acceptance, you will be notified of your class placements.
Pamela Spitzmueller, PBI '95
UI Center for the Book
Book Conservation, Main Library
The University of Iowa
Iowa City, IA 52242
319.335.5908