Workshops
Let your hands create what your heart imagines.
There are no available registration dates at this time.
NOTE: DUE TO COVID-19, OUR TRADITIONAL ON-CAMPUS PROGRAMS WILL BE MOVED TO A LIVE ONLINE FORMAT FOR THE SUMMER OF 2020. VIEW ONLINE OFFERINGS HERE
A book takes many forms. It is a mini exhibition. It is a sequence of time. It is a sculptural story. A book emphasizes the interplay between word and image, encouraging experimentation at the convergence of writing, photography, book arts and printing. Take your writing from previous workshops or personal journals and delve into this rich 400-year legacy with this youth-focused week in letterpress printing, book structures, and the history of publishing with both traditional craft and new technologies. You will leave with a completed collaborative chapbook and a completed soft-cover work of your own in a small edition.
This class is often taken in conjunction with the Young Artist Poetry Workshop happening during the preceding week!
About the Young Artists Program: Young Artists’ days are comprised of both classroom and field/location work: lectures and critiques, demonstrations, shooting, editing, writing, computer workflow and/or darkroom 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, attending presentations from visiting master faculty. All Young Artists reside at a nearby residence (a motel-style building, with four students to a room, gender specific, and private bath) located 3/4 of a mile from campus. The property is controlled by Maine Media Workshops and is used exclusively by students, selected staff, and their counselors. Students are shuttled to the main campus each morning for breakfast and to begin their day, and are driven back at the end of the each day, following their last class or other scheduled activity. All meals are taken together. Parents can indicate any special dietary needs upon registration. Counselors supervise the students 24 hours a day, and help make group decisions about weekend activities like swimming, bowling 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 Workshops 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 $75 over the one-week period for incidentals, snacks, movies, field trips etc.
Check-in is on Sunday, between 3 and 6 and departure is on Saturday morning.
Students may request a transcipt be sent to their high school for possible credit.
Tuition Note: includes room and board
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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.
