Book Arts Nerd Camp

I finally made it to Paper & Book Intensive. My high school boyfriend’s dad told me about it in 1996 and it only took me, oh, 15 years to finally get there. I’m happy to report that the experience delivered and I’m looking forward to going again in a couple years.

PBI is an annual event offering a series of intensive workshops in book arts, papermaking, printmaking and conservation. The location and workshops change every year and this year’s PBI was held at the University of Machias Maine. Bernie Vinzani has built a lovely facility there for the UMM book arts program. I was particularly impressed by the well designed and incredibly clean papermaking studio.

I’ll post more details about the workshops I took, but for now here’s the most adorable little Showcard press. It was an itty bitty workhorse. The modular rails to lock in type were new to me, thus utterly captivating. Pretty much everyone had a crush on this little press.