Week 11, Residency 2. 3 hrs. Perpich Center for Arts Education, Golden Valley, MN.
This week I gave a bookbinding demo to my high school classes at Perpich! The lesson was on a simple figure-8 sewn, single-signature booklet with soft covers. The covers were folded on the fore-edge to double the thickness and give the book a nice finished look. I brought the paper for the covers (lokta, mulberry, and other fine art papers that I use often in my own work), and brought some of the binding supplies, such as waxed thread, needles, and bone folders. Jeremy cut down text weight paper for the pages and provided the remaining bookbinding tools from the class supplies, including awls and sponges for punching the holes. I had two-sided goal for the project: to show how even the simplest book structure can be used in a fine arts application, and to make it as accessible as possible. This was the logic behind the sponges (since book cradles are not super easy to find but a simple kitchen sponge is something most everyone can get ahold of). I brought examples of books made with single signatures, figure-8 sewing, or a combination of both, to show some of the various ways the structure the students were learning could be applied. This included zines that my collogues created, my own studio journals, and a variety of blank sample books in different sizes that I’d made or acquired.
I gave the same demo twice, once to each section of the class. It was about a half an hour long and the students followed along, making the books as I demonstrated each step. My time at MCBA earlier this year really helped me streamline my lesson plan and I think it went smoothly. The students were all super engaged and it really was a joy to do this with them. Every student made a book of their own, and a few went ahead and made more since I had extra supplies. That was my favorite part–seeing them take the ideas and run with it. A couple of the students said they’d make more over the summer, and some were right away working the new structure into their plans for their current longer-term project for the class. I showed one student how to do a double-signature book (I’d brought an example of one, my current journal). Overall the lesson felt successful and the feedback I’ve received has been overwhelmingly positive. There are a few things I would change about how I gave the demo, but they were mainly things that I didn’t anticipate and are part of a learning curve for me, such as when to hand out materials or how to fill a break in my talking while students completed a step (sometimes silence is just fine). This was a wonderful opportunity for me to grow my teaching, communication, critical thinking, and self-reflection skills, as will all future lessons I give. That’s the nature of being a teacher–we’re always learning too.
I can’t wait for the next time I teach. It brings me a lot of joy, in ways I really never expected.