This class is now 100% full. Please watch this space for information about the 2023 Book Arts Intensive!

We’re back with another outstanding Book Arts Intensive to invigorate and challenge you! Books and How to Contain Them, a workshop about books and their containers will provide the inspiration to create not only books, but the boxes and portfolios that can contain what you make.  Come for one, two or all three days. I hope to see my book making friends here!! 

Day One – Hardbound Books

Learn how to create your own hardbound books!  Cindy McGuirl is the best book maker I know to teach case bindings and has loads of experience in teaching.  You will love going home with this book.

To create the text block for your book, you will learn signature sewing. The pages, made from heavy-weight rag paper, are first folded and stacked. Pages are then assembled into signatures.  Making your cover is next and your chance to show your individuality. The cover and text block are brought together with endpapers. Each student will go home with a small hardcover sketchbook.

Day Two – Hinged Lidded Boxes

Joelle Webber, of Mermaid Bindery, will demystifying the process of building a Hinged-Lidded Box. This box style, which opens like a book or jewelry box, can be used to gather treasured possessions. Students will gain experience using multiple types of papers and thicknesses of book board. Collage materials will be available to decorate the tops of your boxes in your own unique style.

Day Three – Portfolios

Sometimes what’s needed is a portfolio to hold, save, or house your work.  Perhaps the work is not meant to be bound into a book but wants to be seen page by page.  We will experiment with 3 different kinds of portfolios – a hard cover portfolio, an envelope portfolio, and a thin box portfolio.  Some are simple enclosures for holding things, others can be used as part of the presentation of your work.

Whether using a material like card stock, or decorative and hand-painted papers, you will find ways to incorporate portfolio making into your tool kit.

We will work from 9:30 am until 5:00 pm each day. Please bring a bag lunch. There is a $15.00 materials fee for each day. NOTE: You may sign up for any single day or sign up for all three. Please register accordingly in the signup section below (if you have any problems with this on my website, please contact me at sandy@26splitrockcove.com).

About the Artists

CYNTHIA MCGUIRL works with fiber, metal, and paper using the techniques of stitching, hammering, and bookbinding, discovering a back and forth exchange between creating narrative images and creating objects. Cindy states, “I try to work in an intuitive way when creating books. One image or word leads to another, and when I feel it has come together completely, the book is done. I hope people find the narrative informative and entertaining, but that it also inspires them to think about their own stories.”

JOELLE WEBBER began her career building boxes for photographers, print makers, and book artists. Mermaid Bindery traveled for many years offering decorative treasure boxes and other hand-bound gifts at craft fairs. Joelle now creates artist books that combine her almost 40 years of collecting binding techniques with her love of philosophy, nature, writing, and sculpture.

SANDY WEISMAN is both a poet and visual artist. Her poetry has been included in two anthologies and several journals, including Salamander, Spillway, Barrow Street, The Maine Review, Off the Coast, and Muddy River Poetry Review. Sandy’s artwork has been exhibited locally at the Michael Good Gallery in Rockport, Granite Gallery in Tenant’s Harbor, Waterfall Arts in Belfast, the Maine Jewish Art Museum in Portland, as well as at locations in the Boston area. She is a member of the Midcoast Maine Book Arts group. Her artist books include Ontogeny, Book of Hours, and Blue.