For centuries, traditional Vietnamese papermaking communities have depended on various plant materials local to their region for making handmade paper for spiritual and utilitarian uses. Handmade paper was a way of life connecting ancestral and ecological knowledge together.

While papermaking is still practiced in Vietnam, the history of colonization, war, and rapid industrialization have changed the landscape of traditional practices. Vietnamese papermaking is only practiced within a few communities and is quickly disappearing from generation to generation.

In this workshop, participants will learn traditional Vietnamese papermaking techniques using the liềm seo (bamboo woven screen) and khung seo (two-part wooden frame) to make paper. We will work with dó (pronounced zaw), a perennial tree shrub growing in only Northern Vietnam specifically used for traditional handmade paper unique for its lustrous sheen and durability.

We will work in various sizes—9 x 12’’ and 12 x 18’’—and everyone will have a chance to build their own unique library sample of dó paper. Instruction will cover fiber preparation, hand beating, sheet formation, pressing, drying using traditional equipment, and demos of bark manipulation like bark lace and making thread. Expect to gain knowledge on traditional Vietnamese papermaking techniques and its history to craft related artforms while also expanding your own papermaking studio practice.

Four 50% scholarships are available for people of the Vietnamese diaspora. Please fill out our scholarship application form; tell us a bit about you and how this class would impact you and/or your art practice. Selected recipients will be notified by September 15. Click here to apply.

Prerequisite:
None

Materials to bring:
All tools and materials will be provided.

About the Instructor:
Veronica Y Pham works primarily in papermaking and fiber arts in her studio practice. Her work focuses on traditional craft specific to Vietnamese and Chinese histories to connect ideas of process, knowledge through generational labor, and questions of identity.

The materials in her work often become environmental investigations containing a visual and kinetic language, repeated based on interlacements, linear elements and ecological spatial relationships. Pham continues to work with traditional and contemporary papermakers in Vietnam with a focus on collaborative projects and research. Her favorite materials to work with are milkweed and hemp. 

This workshop will explore the potentials of placing a scroll in a codex bindings cover, considering the mechanics, past uses, and postulating new structures and applications.

Participants will make two 3x6 inch scrolling books that have a paper scroll text block wrapped around wooden dowels, mounted in wooden framework, then bound in a paper covered case binding.

Time will be allocated to decorate the bindings and add text to the scroll. Workshop attendees should come prepared with a short quote for a text.

Basic paper will be provided but it is suggested you bring interesting paper to use for the covers and scrolling text page. You may also want to bring paints, watercolors, pens, rubberstamps, images to collage, etc. to illustrate and add text to your books.

SFCB's Windgate Scholarship Fund is dedicated to providing need-based financial support to individuals interested in learning bookbinding, letterpress printing, and related book arts. Click here to apply.

Prerequisite: Some bookmaking experience is preferred.

Materials to bring: Students are encouraged to bring beautiful paper and art supplies to individualize their work, as well as their own bookbinding tools if they have them.

About the Instructor: Peter Thomas is a book artist from Santa Cruz. He works collaboratively with Donna Thomas, making both edition and one-of-a-kind books. They make the paper, print, illustrate and bind their books, combining the precision of the fine press aesthetic with the structural creativity found in contemporary artists' books. In 2004 Quarry Press published their “More Making Books by Hand,” between 2009-2019 they traveled the country as the "Wandering Book Artists,” and in 2022 The Legacy Press published Peter and Donna Thomas: Bibliography, 1974–2020. 

Discover the magic of Polaroid emulsion lifts in this hands-on workshop exploring one of photography's most tactile and unpredictable processes.

Participants will learn how to separate the delicate emulsion from a Polaroid photograph and transfer it onto a new surface, creating ethereal, painterly images that embrace chance, distortion, and imperfection.

Through demonstration and guided experimentation, this workshop will cover the complete emulsion lift process, from image selection, materials, handling techniques, transfer methods, and preservation. No prior experience is necessary.

Participants will leave with completed emulsion lift artworks, practical knowledge of the process, and the confidence to continue experimenting with this unique photographic technique on their own.

SFCB's Windgate Scholarship Fund is dedicated to providing need-based financial support to individuals interested in learning bookbinding, letterpress printing, and related book arts. Click here to apply.

Prerequisite: None

Materials to bring: All tools and materials will be provided.

About the Instructor: Ria Rajan (she/her) is an Intermedia artist and educator whose teaching emphasizes experimentation, material inquiry, and interdisciplinary making. Working across analog and digital media, she leads hands-on workshops that invite participants to explore experimentation with  image-making, and storytelling through accessible, process-driven approaches. Her workshops combine technical instruction with conceptual exploration, creating accessible, supportive environments for artists of all experience levels.  

The Presentation Album was developed as an answer to a question: how to create a simple album which can house photographs in an elegant embossed page without swelling the book? 

The album is very handsome, with pages made from a good quality card. Each page has an impressed panel to house the photographs; the finished panels resemble the impression of an etching plate. The pages are hinged together on the inside with thick paper strips, and a small amount of PVA is all that’s needed to hold it all together — no need for sewing. The album has cloth joints for strength and an attractive cloth cover, and like the Ideal Sketchbook, opens beautifully flat.

If time allows, students will tool their finished binding with creative lines and circles, using traditional finishing tools and both carbon and colourful metallic foils. 

SFCB's Windgate Scholarship Fund is dedicated to providing need-based financial support to individuals interested in learning bookbinding, letterpress printing, and related book arts. Click here to apply.

Prerequisite: Students should have some experience working with glue and paper/cloth; Bookbinding Core 2 (flat back case binding) or equivalent experience.

Materials to bring: All tools and materials will be provided. Students are also welcome to bring any of their own favorite bookbinding tools.

About the Instructor: Michael Burke (he/him) studied bookbinding with Dominic Riley and paper conservation with Karen Zukor. Michael lives in England, where he teaches bookbinding as well at events across the UK. Michael researches the structures of ancient and medieval bindings and received his Masters degree in the History of the Book from the University of London in 2011.

Michael is a co-founder of Book Camp, an immersive residential bookbinding experience which aims to teach new generations of binders.

Strong, elegant and pleasing to use, this structure is modelled on the nineteenth century artists' sketchbooks and journals, similar to the ones used by Wordsworth and Ruskin as they wandered across the Lake District to draw and write. It is an honest structure made simply and from high quality materials, opens beautifully and is very durable. It can be made at home with no equipment, just a few simple tools, and since it is not 'cased-in' requires very little pressing.

The pages are made from good cartridge paper, ideal for pen-and-ink drawing, pencil sketching or writing. Working from full sized sheets, we will fold and slit the paper to give a beautiful, feathery deckled edge. We will then sew the book with linen thread on strong tapes, and sew in a cloth hinge for strength. The book is rounded, for easy opening, but not backed, eliminating the need for a press. The case, or cover, is made from cushioned boards covered in strong natural canvas that can withstand all the hard knocks associated with going 'out into the field'. Time permitting, the cover is then tooled with carbon and gold to personalise this simple handmade binding.

SFCB's Windgate Scholarship Fund is dedicated to providing need-based financial support to individuals interested in learning bookbinding, letterpress printing, and related book arts. Click here to apply.

Prerequisite: Bookbinding Core 2 or equivalent experience preparing a textblock.

Tools/Materials to bring: None. All tools and materials will be provided. Students are also welcome to bring any of their own favorite bookbinding tools.

About the Instructor: Dominic Riley (he/him) is an internationally renowned bookbinder, artist, lecturer and teacher. He has his bindery in England, from where he travels across the UK teaching and lecturing. He spends part of the year teaching in San Francisco and across the USA. His work is mostly restoration and Design Binding, for which he has won many prizes in the Designer Bookbinders competition. He was elected a Fellow of DB in 2008 and is Patron of the New Zealand Association of Book Crafts. His bindings are in collections worldwide, including the British Library, the Grolier Club in New York and the San Francisco Public Library. In 2013 he won first prize, the Sir Paul Getty Award, in the International Bookbinding Competition. Dominic is a past President of the Society of Bookbinders. Dominic and Michael Burke are co-founders of Book Camp, an immersive residential bookbinding experience which aims to teach new generations of binders.

He has taught masterclasses in the USA, Brazil, Australia, New Zealand, at the Centro del Bel Libro in Switzerland, the Czech Republic, and Canada.