In this class, we’ll look at examples of altered books, explore the art form’s history, and view demonstrations of techniques for altering pages, creating sculptural books, turning books into boxes, working with found text, and building new mixed-media narratives out of the scraps of old ones. Students will complete 1-2 unique altered books by the end of the day and will leave with the tools and techniques to continue deconstructing and embellishing books at home. Whether you’re a visual artist, writer, designer, or someone who’s just curious about using found books as a creative medium, The Altered Book will make you look at the library discard pile in a whole new way.   

Materials to Bring: 4–6 hardcover books for altering; various magazines, postcards, No 6 flat shader brush, and softcover books for collaging.

Optional and available at SFCB for student use during workshop: Utility knife.

Workshop Fee (includes $20 materials fee): $185.00

Date & Time: Sunday, March 10, 2019 :: 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 | Matt Runkle

Matt Runkle is a writer, cartoonist, printer, and book artist. His short fiction collection, The Story of How All Animals Are Equal & Other Tales, was published in 2014 by Brooklyn Arts Press. His writing has also appeared in Monkeybicycle, The Collagist, Beecher’s, matchbook, and BOMB. He is creator of the zine, RUNX TALES, and was a resident at the Cartoon Art Museum. His comics have been anthologized in Gay Genius (Sparkplug Comic Books, 2011) and Rob Kirby’s THREE. A member of the board of directors of the College Book Art Association, he has exhibited letterpress work at venues including Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, the Compound Gallery, and Adobe Books Backroom Gallery, where it was included in SGC International’s 2014 Queer Communities in Print portfolio exchange. He has read and performed at spaces varying from SOMArts to Unnameable Books to Headlands Center for the Arts. His new artist's book, titled Catholics, is a limited-edition memoir composed of drawings, collage, and letterpress-printed prose. The winner of a Caxton Club Grant, it is included in permanent collections at the Newberry Library and the University of Iowa Libraries Special Collections. He teaches workshops in letterpress, zines, comics, sequential collage, and other modes of writing for visual and material genres.

Past Student Reviews:

“Learned lots of techniques I can use in my own studio.”

“Matt was organized, knowledgable and helpful with your project. He showed great samples of different styles of altered books in a slide show and also samples of his creative altered books. He made it easy to be very creative in his workshop.”

“Looking forward to taking additional classes that Matt is instructing.”