BOOK ARTS 101: Midsummer Night's Dream A Seasonal JCBA Immersion
Instructor John Cutrone

In House Workshop at JCBA
Saturday June 24, 2023
1 to 4 PM
JCBA Book Arts Gallery, Printshop, & Bindery at FAU's Wimberly Library, Room 350

Tuition schedule: Self-determined
Class limit: 18 (you must register ahead of time!)

June 24 brings St. John's Day: Old Midsummer. It is the day when the four lovers awoke in a grassy field after a long night of fairy induced mischief on St. John's Eve in Shakespeare's famous comedy, "A Midsummer Night's Dream." What better day, then, to bring back our old favorite introductory immersion in FAU Libraries' Jaffe Center for Book Arts? Some folks think JCBA is, after all, a place just as magical as any enchanted wood.

Old Midsummer is based on the timing of the summer solstice and the longest days of the year. It’s a time traditionally thought of as more magical than ordinary time, and there will be plenty of magic in the air as we transform you into a book artist over the course of this 3-hour in-person workshop. We’ll begin with a screening of a 7-minute video in which you'll meet JCBA founder Arthur Jaffe. We’ll follow this with a thorough sampling of the amazing collection of artists' books that is at the core of the Jaffe Center for Book Arts –– books that will entertain, inspire, educate, and astound you. And in celebration of Old Midsummer, we'll be sure to bring a few appropriately otherworldly books into the mix. Expect a little summertime story or two, as well, from the instructor's cache of Convivio Dispatches from Lake Worth.

After a leisurely break for coffee and tea and midsummer treats, we’ll move on to the JCBA Letterpress Studio, where each participant will print a sheet of paper from type set by hand from JCBA's collection of historic wood type. These sheets will be the covers for the books we’ll make, a brief history of the book arts that we’ll bind by hand using the Single Signature Pamphlet stitch. It's a simple book structure that you'll find useful again and again in your own book arts projects. You’ll go home at workshop's end with a book you made yourself –– one that you can read as sleep calls later that night, as you reflect on the new outlook on books (and maybe even life) that you’ve found earlier in the day at JCBA. “For there is great joy in knowing how to do things.”

Registration

Advance registration is required for all JCBA workshops. For more details or to register, please email JCBA Director John Cutrone (jcutrone@fau.edu).

JCBA’s SELF DETERMINED TUITION CONCEPT

Our suggested tuition rate for Book Arts 101 workshops is $50; your tuition, however, is Self-Determined. This means you decide what your tuition is, using our suggestion as a guide. If you decide your tuition should be $1, then so be it. In determining your tuition, though, we ask you to consider your means, to consider what a typical 3-hour creative workshop might cost, and to consider what this particular experience means to you. Then decide what your tuition should be. Your good experience here at JCBA is more important to us than the amount you pay for it.

There will be a donation box at the gallery doors into which you may place your tuition; it’s all by the honor system, and we make no judgements. If you don’t have cash, you can deposit a check into the box; checks should be payable to FAU FOUNDATION, referenced “Jaffe Support Fund” on the memo line. You can also pay your tuition with a credit card at the front desk; just ask any of our staff to assist you with that.

Instructor

John Cutrone is Director of the Jaffe Center for Book Arts. He is a graduate of the MFA in the Book Arts Program a the University of Alabama. Aside from his work at JCBA, he is also a writer and a partner in Lake Worth's Convivio Bookworks, a book arts studio specializing in limited edition letterpress printed books and broadsides, as well as authentic artisan goods made in their traditional origin settings around the globe (https://conviviobookworks.com/). He is the author of the Convivio Book of Days blog, exploring the quirkier side of seasonal traditions, encouraging us to live the ceremony of each day (https://www.conviviobookworks.com/blog/).