Use your creative voice and build on your artistic skills to make your own book or zine and bring it to life with your own artwork, images, and writing.

There are no available registration dates at this time.

This workshop is a part of the 2023 Summer Academy program

Filmmaking

Film School (Jun 26 - Jul 7, 2023)

Photography

Digital Photography (June 26 - July 7, 2023)

Book Arts & Design student focusing on their freshly printed letterpress design for a zine.

Rethink your notion of what a book is! Spend two weeks in Maine using and building your artistic skills, creative voice, and artistic vision through book arts, printmaking, mark making, and writing.

We will explore a variety of bookbinding techniques, from traditional Coptic binding to more contemporary styles like zines. By combining image and text into a book form, how does that define your story? What beauty and exuberant expression will you unfold exploring a variety of book structures? Are your words and images contained between two covers or do they expand out into sculptural paper forms? Can the pages be transparent dreams or folded board sheets to communicate with the masses? This workshop will focus on building your creative ideas into an artistic expression.

Book and Zine making, Summer Academy - by Anna Low

We’ll play with basic printmaking techniques for you to explore bold visual communication and ways to reproduce images throughout the pages of your book or to make an edition of books. Words and images often find a home together in the pages of a book and there will be guest speakers who will offer options for a written component to express your thoughts with sincerity, wit, and originality.

Books and Zine making, Summer Academy - Header image - by Anna Low

The structure of the class will be a balance of technique-driven instruction and encouragement of creative expression. You will have available bookbinding, printmaking, and writing resources. As a class, we will share ideas and inspiration with supportive, daily discussions and critiques, an essential part of building a life as an artist. You will have ample time to work independently in the studio to make your own artist books and collaborate with like-minded classmates on projects of your own creation.

About the Maine Media Summer Academy

The Summer Academy at Maine Media cultivates the next generation of photographers, filmmakers, and book artists through expert learning opportunities. Students will be surrounded by peers who share their passions and are guided by working artists who encourage creativity as they instruct them in the latest skills and techniques and help create portfolio-level work.

Brief Academy Overview:

  • All Academy students must be fully vaccinated for COVID at least 14 days prior to arrival. A copy of the vaccine card must be submitted to registrar@mainemedia.edu.
  • Student days are comprised of both classroom and field/location work: lectures and critiques, demonstrations, shooting, editing, writing, computer workflow and/or digital lab work, depending on the workshop. All instructors are talented industry professionals as well as experienced educators, and each works with a teaching assistant, providing additional support for their class. The students are busy all day and into the mid-evening hours.
  • All students reside in our campus residence, occupying the lower floor. Rooms are all private baths with a maximum of three students per room (most will be doubles). Resident Advisors (RAs) also reside on the same floor to monitor and supervise.   The upper floor is occupied by non-Academy adult workshop attendees who will have little exposure or direct interaction with the Academy students.
  • During the week, all meals are taken together in the dining facilities directly across the street. Weekend meals are taken in the local economy and transported by the RA’s – or sometimes do cookouts. This cost is included in the tuition package. Parents may indicate any special dietary needs upon registration.
  • RAs supervise the students when not in class and help make group decisions about weekend activities which may include swimming, bowling, movies, and hiking. Coin laundry facilities are available on campus.
  • A lobster dinner is served (there are other choices) on the last Friday night of each workshop, and all Maine Media students gather for an evening presentation of highlights from the week’s work. Parents are welcome to attend, and meal tickets may be purchased in the Registration Office.
  • We recommend students have access to $150 over the two-week period for incidentals, snacks, movies, field trips, etc.
  • Check-in is on Sunday, between 3 and 6 and departure is on Saturday morning.
  • Tuition includes accommodation, access to campus amenities, transportation once the workshop has begun, meals (including a lobster dinner!), Resident Advisors, and Teacher’s Assistants.
  • Students may request a transcript be sent to their high school for possible credit.

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Anna Low Profile Picture

Instructor: Anna Low

Anna Low runs Purplebean Bindery and it was born out of necessity. While in college she took a book binding class, became fascinated with the book form and couldn’t stop. Her shelves sag with stacks of hand-bound books so it seemed logical to begin selling them to make room for more and fund her book making habit. There are hundreds of ways to bind a book and she loves experimenting with new styles. Her favorite bindings, include the buttonhole stitch, coptic binding, and accordion books. You’ll rarely find her making the same book twice also; there are too many beautiful papers and fabrics out there to be bound together. Every book she makes, whether it be blank or an artist's book, she thinks of it as a marriage of form and function and loves the intimacy and interaction of the book form too. Leaf through, unfold, or unroll one of her artist books and you’re actively discovering and participating in the art. Anna loves the idea that every blank book made is a collaborative art project between her and whoever ends up filling the pages.

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