Connect with the SFU Library’s Dick Kouwenhoven Book Arts Studio, a new interdisciplinary centre for hands-on learning and inspiration through letterpress printing.
A generous gift creates space for learning and creativity
The Dick Kouwenhoven Book Arts Studio, situated in the Media and Maker Commons in W.A.C. Bennett Library, offers an interdisciplinary hands-on studio space for students, instructors, and researchers interested in book-making, book history, and print culture.
The creation of the Book Arts Studio was made possible through a generous gift in 2018 from the estate of Dick Kouwenhoven, founder of the internationally renowned, Burnaby-based commercial printer, Hemlock Printers. The rich opportunities for learning and inspiration in this new space in SFU Library are a legacy of Dick’s lifelong passion for the business and craft of printing and a result of Clara Kouwenhoven’s generosity. The studio contains antique printing presses and related materials previously donated to the Library by members of the fine press printing community.
The studio's six printing presses date from the mid-20th century – along with movable type in both metal and wood, rubber-based printing ink, and paper, they are everything you need to set type by hand and make prints.
Until the 1960s, most text was printed commercially on these kinds of presses.
Welcoming visiting faculty, Andrea Taylor
Following a soft launch in summer 2024, the Book Arts Studio opened in fall 2024, with accomplished artist, printer, and educator Andrea Taylor joining the Library as a part-time master printer/ visiting faculty.
Taylor taught letterpress printing for many years at Emily Carr University of Art + Design, and has been working for several years with the library’s presses in the Media and Maker Commons. An artist with a multidisciplinary practice, her pieces have been exhibited internationally, and are included in collections at SFU, UBC, Vancouver Public Library’s Special Collections, the University of Alberta, and Rutgers University. In SFU Library’s Special Collections, Taylor’s letterpress works can be found under the name of her press, Cotton Socks Press.
“I consider myself a printmaker/sculptor and letterpress printing is a part of my printmaking practice,” she shared. “I write poetry and like to print my poems with handset type. I'm very interested in embodied responses to visual art and the analog nature of the making of a letterpress book or broadside leaves its mark (in every way) in the work. This mark affects the viewer or the person holding and taking in the book.”
Unique space and equipment for hands-on teaching and learning
Taylor collaborates with the library’s makerspace librarian, Mikael Kriz, and with graduate facilitator, Kate Moffatt, to offer letterpress printing demonstrations and host class visits, including interactive opportunities for hands-on learning with the presses.
Mauve Pagé, a lecturer in publishing, has been integrating letterpress printing into her publishing and design courses for over five years in partnership with the Media and Maker Commons team. She shared her excitement about what the expanded and customized space offers for students in her courses in terms of hands-on learning about the history of designing and printing books and other publications.
Taylor also pointed out that along with lots of metal type, we have many drawers of wood type, donated by Turtle Press of Vancouver, as a unique feature of the Book Arts Studio. “It's unusual to have so much wood type available for use in a shared studio like this,” she explained.
Working with students and instructors in Publishing is a natural fit for the Book Arts Studio, but Taylor shared that a wide range of departments and disciplines have booked demos and workshops in the space, including Contemporary Arts, English, Print Culture, Communication, History, Labour Studies, and Education. With its location in the heart of the Media and Maker Commons, there are also many crossover learning opportunities, such as laser cutting or 3D printers.
Inspiring collections of fine press printing
The Book Arts Studio also aligns with a rich collection of fine and private press printing in the library’s Special Collections and Rare Books, featuring unique and inspiring works from our visiting faculty member, Andrea Taylor (Cotton Socks Press), as well as Jan & Crispin Elsted (Barbarian Press), Rollin Milroy (Heavenly Monkey), Jason Dewinetz (Greenboathouse Press), Takao Tanabe (Periwinkle Press), Gerald Giampa (Cobblestone Press), and Jim Rimmer (Pie Tree Press & Type Foundry), among others.
In addition to BC-based fine press firms, Special Collections is also home to the W. Lyon Blease English Private Press Books Collection which features books and ephemera from the English private press movement concentrated between the two world wars. Included are important works from the Ashendene, Doves, Golden Cockerel, Gregynog and Nonesuch presses.
Opportunities for designing and printing projects
In addition to interactive teaching and publishing demos, Taylor and graduate facilitator Kate Moffatt have also established a scaffolded set of orientation and training modules for students and researchers who are interested in building skills with letterpress printing. Once the training is completed, aspiring printers can book appointments, dependent on staff availability, to develop designs, set type, and print their own projects.
We look forward to welcoming you into this new space in the Media and Maker Commons, as we continue to offer opportunities for creativity, learning, and growth.