Letterpress Summer Cammp for Teens! is a week-long workshop that provides a unique hands-on learning experience to high school students (minimum age 13) in a fully equipped letterpress studio and book bindery. 

Throughout the week, students will learn the basics of letterpress, while creating greeting cards, broadsides, posters, and will finish the week by producing a collaborative book of their original prose and poetry.

Book Arts skills student will learn during Summer Camp for Teens! include: designing pages, the cover, colophon, text, title page and half title page for books as well as how to read a pica ruler, set type by hand, mix ink, work with makeready, pull proofs, make corrections, manage kiss-off and paper grain, distribute type and spacing, cut and wax thread, and bind prints into a single signature to create a pamphlet-stitch book. 

Each student will take home small editions of each project they worked on as well as three copies of the collaborative book.

Materials to Bring: Notebook; pencil; prose, poetry or imagery that students wish to work with in the printing process.

Workshop + Materials Fee: $650.00

Date & Time: Monday-Friday, June 19-23, 2017 :: 9:30am-5:30pm

Location: 375 Rhode Island St, San Francisco, CA 94103

Note: Please read over the SFCB Registration Policies before signing up for a class

REGISTRATION WILL CLOSE 3 DAYS PRIOR TO THE START DATE OF THIS WORKSHOP.

About the Instructor | Mary Laird

Mary Risala Laird, MFA printmaking, University of Wisconsin, Madison, has been doing letterpress books since 1969 as Quelquefois Press. She partnered in Perishable Press Limited editions from 1969-84. Ms. Laird has taught letterpress at San Francisco State University, Kala Institute in Berkeley, Naropa University, and at the San Francisco Center for the Book as well as workshops in Utah, Idaho, Colorado and Washington state. For fifteen years she worked with the entire 7th grade class as a guest artist, making handmade journals. Her focus in printing is poetry. She binds the editions she prints.  Her work is in many collections across the country, including Stanford, UC Berkeley, Library of Congress, UW Madison, the British Library, Yale, University of Washington, and UC Santa Cruz. She has three grown children, lives in Berkeley with her husband John Malork, and is a member of the Sufi community. Currently she serves as a board member at the San Francisco Center for the Book.

Past Student Reviews:

“I really loved the class and look forward to doing more letterpress!” 

“I loved that we dove right in and started working on projects. Mary was awesome and super patient."

“I learned so much and so quickly. I love Mary's dedication to the art of letterpress, her skill, her knowledge, and her contagious enthusiasm. The space is well organized, clean and instills respect for the machines, the tools, all the little bits and pieces, and the art.”