The Art of Bookmaking with Claire Owen

Explore the form and function of artists' books!  Gain hands-on studio experience in building four different book structures, including stab binding, accordion structures, non-adhesive forms and dos-a-dos format. As well as the physical aspects of the book, we will also be discussing ways this form has been explored by artists such as: the visual diary, narrative or non- narrative, and the book as object. I will show examples of contemporary and historical examples of books developed in the general categories.

As we move through the weeks and we discuss these different approaches, you will develop a single piece using any one of the formats you have made. In our last meeting you will share with the class the piece you have developed. If you have an idea already at hand for a book project, you can use this class to develop it as well.

View/download the Materials List
View/download the Cerulean Arts Information & Policy Guide

Dates:  4 weeks, Friday, June 7 - 28, 2024
Time:  10 a.m. – 1 p.m. 
Fee:  $195 (includes basic materials)
Register by:  May 31 (space is limited)

** Sign up with a friend and receive 10% off both registrations.  Use discount code SM24Class1 at checkout. 

Claire Owen is a painter, book-artist and poet, living and working Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She received degrees in illustration and printmaking from Rochester Institute of Technology in Rochester New York where she grew up. She moved to Philadelphia in 1977 and established her own imprint, Turtle Island Press which produced fine print, limited edition artists books.  In her bookwork, Owen is primarily interested in developing a narrative, using the book in its traditional craft form, including hand printings and hand binding.  In her painting she maintains an interest narrative, by exploring cautionary tales once told to children, now carried forward in the fairy tales of children’s literature. These tales, she believes, have settled into our collective imagination, remaining with us as adults. We nod with recognition at the twist of fear in the child lost in the forest. We can admire the cunning children use to see themselves safely away from the predators jaws. She often use the forest as a setting for her paintings, and as a character itself. From European folk tales to contemporary literature, the forest remains in our imagination a place where the real and fabled intersect. Her paintings can been seen in the Cerulean Arts exhibition Once Upon a Time