Summer Classes and Workshops at OCAC

This summer Book Arts is offering a really wonderful selection of classes and workshops. Visit www.ocac.edu for more information, or go directly to OCAC's quick and simple online registration to sign up.

Codex C: Creating a 6th Century Coptic Binding

Five Coptic codices were found near Sakkara in Egypt around 1924. Of the five books, Codex C was bound in remnants of maroon-red goatskin over papyrus boards; fragments also survive of an elaborate fore-edge wrapping band with a bone slip, and there is evidence it once carried a bookmark.

This workshop will allow you to create a full-size model of Codex C. We will make papyrus boards, fold and trim paper as a substitute for the original parchment text, sew the textblock, create simple endbands, line the spine with coarse linen, create the full leather binding, and make the wrapping band and bookmark. We will shape a spatulate bone slip from a length of cow bone. For those that wish, ink decoration can be added to the text edges. Then a plaquette of leather on board with interlace tooling and ink decoration will be added to the covers and spine of Codex C to fashion a distinctive binding. The Codex will be finished by attaching the wrapping band, bone slip, and bookmark. Participants will have the option to leave one side of their binding "open" so the back of the textblock, the sewing, endbanding, and linen lining can be seen. Time permitting other Coptic structures may be explored.

Prerequisite: Basic binding skills are required to make this model including some experience with sewing a text block.

Instructor:  Julia Miller

Location:  Calligraphy Classroom

Dates:  7/23 - 7/27/2012

Days:  Monday-Friday

Time:  9:00am-4:00pm

Tuition: $405

Studio Fee: $45

All That is Gold: Gilding on Paper, Wood and Glass

This two-day workshop is for artists and designers who want to know more about the properties and the application of gold on a variety of surfaces and sizes. This course is highly suitable for calligraphers and bookbinders, though any creative arts-worker can join the class. Applications of both traditional and modern gilding will be explored including working on paper wood & glass. Learn to tool into gold and work gold on watercolor washes. The project work will be delicate and small, but will open up many possibilities for incorporating the luster of gold into your creative work.

Prerequisite: Students should have confidence in drawing with graphite pencils, using pen and ink and/or painting with fine brushes.

Instructor:  Gemma Black

Location:  Printmaking and Calligraphy Classrooms

Dates:  6/21 - 6/22/2012

Days:  Thursday/Friday

Time:  9:00am-4:00pm

Tuition: $330

Studio Fee: $20

The Letterpress Artist: Simple Books on the Vandercook

In this course we explore methods of producing artist books on the Vandercook Press. We begin by learning simple book structures and investigating how structure can influence or enhance the content of books. Students experiment with pressure printing, hand inking, blind stamping and linoleum cuts. We will combine these techniques with hand-set type to create simple, editioned book projects. Learning new techniques and experimenting in an open and fun environment is a great way to get substantial ideas brewing for new projects. While we'll be focused primarily on producing books for this class, students are encouraged to bring larger projects of their own for discussion as a group.

Prerequisite: Some printing and/or binding experience is preferred.

Instructor:  Sarah Bryant

Location:  Printmaking and Calligraphy Classrooms

Dates  7/30 - 8/03/2012

Days:  Monday-Friday

Time:  9:00am-4:00pm

Tuition: $380

Studio Fee: $35

Beyond Illustration: Creating a Chapbook with Text and Image

For years, writers of all stripes have been creating powerful books in which they combine their words—be they fiction, poetry, memoir, or a combination of all three—with images. More than mere illustration, in these works the visual and the textual are in frequent, sometimes confounding, conversation with each other. In this class we’ll look at contemporary examples of authors who bring visual elements into their texts, including WG Sebald, Claudia Rankine, and Anne Carson. Students will produce writing in a genre of their choice, and workshop this writing in group critiques; in addition, students will cull or create images to partner with their words. For a final project, students will create chapbooks comprised of their own writing and found or created images.

Prerequisite: None.

Instructor:  Sara Jaffe

Location:  Book Arts Classroom

Dates  07/12 - 8/02/2012

Days:  Thursday

Time:  6:30pm-9:30pm

Tuition: $165 Studio Fee: $15

Combined Print Media Collaborative Project

For the Combined Print Media's third assignment of the semester, the class took on a collaborative project. Each year this assignment deals with a topic that is political or social in nature. This class chose to talk about separating "need" from "want." The discussion began around dissecting feelings of attachment to what we perceive as "needs," when in reality we can often get by without what we fall back on as requirements.

We become attached to our tools and materials, as well as material comforts that we feel help us or inspire us. But what do we truly need? What are our base requirements, and how can we parse the difference between compulsion and compulsory.

Each student created a list of 40 'things' in their lives that they routinely think of as needs, which in reality they could probably live without. These things aren't necessarily material objects. We often feel dependent on feelings, approval, medical intervention...discussions revolved around these necessities. From this list, everyone chose for themselves one item that they would keep, were they only allowed that one thing.

Everyone felt it was important that this piece not subscribe to preachiness, or communicate a sense of judgement. The desire for the needs we hold on to are both universal and personal.

The prints were made using a photopolymer plate from Boxcar Press, which was printed in two colors. Everyone carved an illustration of their "want" in linoleum. All of the prints were tiled and hung in the breezeway near the book arts studios at OCAC.

Third Annual Fall Book Arts Sale

Please join us for the OCAC Book Arts Department's Third Annual Fall

"Cheap-but-Good" 2012 Book Arts Sale

November 20th

10am-3pm

in the Book Arts Studios at Oregon College of Art and Craft

8245 SW Barnes Rd

Portland, OR 97225

Artist book editions and one-of-a-kinds, blank books, letterpress printed cards, prints, and ephemera of all kinds. Prices start at $1!

Just in time to start your holiday shopping! Support OCAC book arts and student, alumni, staff and faculty work. Proceeds go directly to the artists and to the student workshop fund.

Book Arts Students in UK/US Exchange Exhibition

"Eudoxia" by Ava Goldberg

"Procopia" by Michelle Latham

The work of ten Book Art department students is currently traveling as part of a "4-University" exchange exhibition entitled "Invisible Cities and Hidden Landscapes" organized by the College of West Wales, in Carmarthen, Wales. The exhibit opened there in October and will travel to the University of West Essex in Bristol, England, Kansas State University, and finally the Oregon College of Art and Craft. Participating students are: Ruth Bryant, Erin Derge, Rachel Fish, Ava Goldberg, Ruby Kapka, Michelle Latham, Elizabeth Rank, Melanie Rolka, Sue Selbie and Gwen Stronach. An illustrated lecture by Cath Fairgrieve, the organizing faculty from the College of West Wales, will be scheduled this February at OCAC.