Curriculum

The Book and Publication Arts program at Black Rock Press is an established book arts program, which conducts a range of activities relating to the field of artist’s books, fine press printing, bookmaking and the publication arts.

This program is interdisciplinary in nature and mixed-media in its approach while exploring both digital media, hand skills and design/craft techniques. It combines both the literary and visual arts with the history and evolution of book and print technologies, all to develop one’s artistic voice and an understanding of book and publication arts within a contemporary art practice.

Throughout the program, students will study:

• The book as an art form, including artist's books and fine press printing, to sculptural and abstract book works.
• The field of publishing as an artistic practice, including zines, to a myriad of other publications that lean towards the idea of the democratic multiple as a means of artistic agency within contemporary culture.
• The many shapes and forms the book has taken throughout history and across cultures as a way of envisioning the future of the book and publishing as artistic expression.
• Contemporary artists and publishers working in the field, as well as the many artists and historic art movements that have used books and prints as a way of expressing and disseminating their ideas.
• The history of graphic design and fine typography through letterpress printing from metal and wood type on our historic presses from the 19th and 20th centuries, along with the newest design tools in both our studio and the department's fabrication lab.