Curated by Claudia Sbrissa and Blythe Roveland-Brenton
St. Augustine Hall, 3rd Floor
October 22 – December 3, 2012
Since 2005, Claudia Sbrissa, associate professor of fine arts, and Blythe Roveland-Brenton, archivist and special collections librarian, have partnered in an undergraduate project for a Book Arts class. The project, entitled “A Special Collection,” utilizes the library’s Special Collections as a source of inspiration and information. The assignment requires the students to research and figuratively deconstruct a book of their choosing. The end result is the creation of a unique book inspired by the University’s Special Collections.
During library visits, students have the opportunity to view and learn about a wide range of books from Special Collections – from incunabula (books produced during the first fifty years of the invention of printing) to art exhibition catalogs, from late 19th-century Japanese crepe-paper fairy tales to Barry Moser’s Pennyroyal Caxton Bible published at the end of the 20th century. The books feature novel cover material, multimedia inserts, and a variety of binding styles.
The items in this exhibition represent a small sample of the work created by students in the Book Arts class together with material drawn from Special Collections that inspired them.