BOOK ARTS AT MILLS COLLEGE has been an evolving discipline for 20 years, nearly before the time when that term held much credence in the academic world, if in fact it does even today. All of the teaching that one does in book arts therefore takes place in the context of a field that has so far defied any reasonable attempt to define and categorize it. The best of this is that a teacher of book arts can foster a sense of experimentation and investigation, always aware that the students moving through the courses will some day be the ones to support the establishment of a canon.

In the meantime, what students create as part of their academic experience will in most cases exert a strong influence on their professional work. This student work is of course in turn profoundly influenced by the artists to whose work they are exposed, both through model (books available to them through the library collections) and presence (as visiting artists).

This exhibition will focus on recent work produced by alumni/ae of The Mills College Book Arts Program alongside the artists whose work has influenced them. These influential artists, in turn, will comment on their own work through the juxtaposition of early and new books, exploring their own learning curves.
 

Influencers: Frances Butler, Sas Colby, Susan Johanknecht, Ronald King, Susan King, Margaret Prentice, Anne Siberell, Keith Smith, Ulrike Stoltz, Claire Van Vliet, Kathleen Walkup

and influencees: Karen Bleitz, Kathleen Burch, Marylee Bytheriver, Julie Chen, Lester Ferriss, Ruth McGurk, Bonnie Mcleskey, Melody Sumner, Theresa Whitehill, and Dorothy Yule
 

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