There are no available registration dates at this time.

This class will be held in a live, online format using Zoom.

This is a platform for sharing work and ideas with a supportive group who will do the same. Meeting every other week, to insure you are setting time aside amid the chaos to be creative and learn with like lovers of the book format and all that it offers as a creative outlet. No matter if you are a photographer, painter, printmaker, writer, whatever, the book format is a great vessel to hold any type of creative expression. For each class, I will give creative prompts and demonstrations as needed, plus useful links and resources learned in the intervening two weeks. Most of the class will be time spent presenting work and offering feedback to each other.

Class meets every other Tuesday, June 16 – August 25 (6 classes) 9:00 -11:30am EDT

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Instructor: Richard Reitz Smith

Richard Reitz Smith is a letterpress and book artist who excels in marrying traditional techniques with technology and is the Book Arts Program Chair and Studio Manager at Maine Media. He is the owner of DoubleDoor Creative in Camden, ME. In 2015, Richard was the first Book Artist in Residence at Maine Media where he wrote, illustrated, printed, and bound a limited-edition abecedary of alliterative haiku. Richard received a BFA from Carnegie Mellon University in painting and illustration.

After working for three years developing products for Crayola and Liquitex, he returned to school and earned an MFA in graphic design (Tyler School of Art- Temple University). Then started a five-year tour of universities as an art and design professor which led him to New York City, where he taught at Pratt Institute and School of Visual Arts. While doing this, he freelanced as an illustrator and graphic designer for companies like The GAP, Macy's, American Craft Museum, Metlife, Pearson Education, and Scholastic. Then he took positions at Clicquot, Inc. and Clinique Cosmetics consecutively. For Clinique Cosmetics, he managed multi-million-dollar, international, seasonal product and promotional launches as the director of package design worldwide. For Clicquot, Inc. he was a one-person art department for the wine importer/promoter of Veuve Clicquot, Krug, Bouchard, and many other ultra-premium wines. It was in NYC, that he found and frequented The Center for Book Arts learning much about letterpress and the book as an art form.