minnesota center for book arts

Minnesota Center for the Book Arts: or, A Small Montessorian's Beginning Journey in Bookmaking

If you take a five-year-old to the letterpress studio, she will want to make a book. And if you give her scrap paper from the book arts studio, she will illustrate a story.

If the five-year-old sees the blue of the paper, she will think of rain and want to draw thunderstorms. And if there are thunderstorms, she will want to draw shelter for her bears.

If she draws bears, she will think of her nickname, the bear, and if she thinks of her nickname, she will remember the growls she made as she nursed when she was a baby. If she thinks of being a baby, she will want her mama to tell her the story of her birth again, and if her mama tells that story, she will get all swelly with emotion thinking of those long two days and finally getting to kiss her eggy head.

If she thinks of eggs, she'll also think of chickens and how one day she'd like to keep them. And if she mentions chickens and eggs, her daughter will want to draw a baby bear for the mama bear. And if she draws the baby and the mama, she'll want to tell a story of how much they love each other, and she'll want to learn how to bind it together as a book.

Note: We were at the studio because my dear friend Meryl was working on the two broadsides that accompanied our first two books at Tinderbox Editions (see the results here).