Boxes and Penland

Post author:springleafpress
Post published:March 1, 2017
Post category:Box Making Workshops

Boxes are in full swing in the studio as several commissioned enclosures have just been sent to their new owners. The studio becomes a mess with so many box projects going at once. Materials are strewn about, scraps are spread everywhere, and my tools are somewhere under all of the debris. The bustle makes me think back to the most recent box making workshop I taught last October. I had the privilege to teach Box Making for Book Artists at Penland School of Craft, an experience that everyone assured me would be more than memorable. They were right, of course. I…

Clamshell Workshop Recap

Post author:springleafpress
Post published:April 9, 2015
Post category:Workshops

This time of year, workshops - both planning for them and teaching them - take up the majority of my time. This has been a new realization as I eagerly compile handouts and make lots of teaching guides. All the while, the stack of works in progress remain on the bench like a group of archaeological artifacts on display. It is a little bit frustrating not to get to those projects, but the reason I can't devote attention to them right now is highly rewarding. Earlier this March, I had the opportunity to teach a Clamshell Workshop in my studio,…

Adventures in Content, Charleston SC

Post author:springleafpress
Post published:October 27, 2014
Post category:Workshops

Brien Beidler, a friend and colleague,Â works at the Charleston Library Society and invited me to Charleston to teach Adventures in Content a month ago to a wonderfully enthusiastic group of people at Redux Studios. In a two day workshop setting, the students would work through their own artist books prompted by a list of three words chosen by me. In order to simulate the creative process from concept to completion, everyone was asked to think about these words before class. Once we all met in the morning, we went around and discussed our ideas for our projects. With those…

Workshop with Daniel Kelm

Post author:springleafpress
Post published:December 15, 2011
Post category:Artist Books Workshops

I had the privilege of participating in Daniel Kelm's workshop on wire edge binding this past weekend here in Bloomington. He treated us to a lecture the previous Thursday, and it just made me more eager to get my hands working with the structures. Daniel has a great way of explaining the processes but also allows room for participants to join him in his thinking process. It is great to be invited to figure out for one's self why he came to the conclusions he has for each of his structures. This sort of instruction helps me greatly when I…

Standards of Excellence in Boston

Post author:springleafpress
Post published:October 17, 2011
Post category:Artist Books Bookbinding Guild of Book Workers Surface Decoration Workshops

The Guild of Book Workers Standards of Excellence this year was held in Boston, Massachusetts at the Boston Park Plaza Hotel & Towers. We were conveniently located in the middle of Boston so there was a lot to see and eat. Needless to say it was easy to fill any spare minutes outside of the presentations and the vendor room. However, I will leave out our culinary tour of Boston's great seafood stops and focus on the book related content of the weekend. As we had driven from Bloomington (by way of Niagara Falls and Amherst) we made our way…