Esther Smith teaches at Cooper Union

Dikko Faust currently teaches at School of Visual Arts

Course Descriptions

Artists' Books: Alternative Techniques
Make books for fun, fame and profit. Fold a one-minute zine. Stitch a luscious leather journal. Choose luxurious papers for a sumptuous sketchbook or make a book with recycled envelopes and brown paper bags. Whether you are a writer, a scrapbook maker, a political activist or a postcard collector, now you can find your inner book artist. Learn the easy basics of creative bookbinding; including Coptic, longstitch, stabstitch, accordion and pamphlet books, plus simple pop-ups, magic wallets and flexigons. Beginners learn a simple approach to book arts. Experienced artists and binders explore new ways of thinking and using their skills. There will be guest artists and a field trip.

Have Purgatory Press teach a class at your organization!
Sample classes:

Cake Box Books—Esther K Smith
Pop Art meets book arts!
A delightful introduction to longstitch
binding, which you can also use with leather.
You can bring some old leather pants to recycle.
Warning: grocery shopping will never be the same.
And you’ll never throw away another box.

Magic Books and Paper Toys
Amaze your friends with an array of tricky bookforms
from a myriad of traditions: hexiflexigons, magic
wallets, simple popups, origami-based forms,
exquisite corpses, woven pockets, animations,
concertina-based flip/flaps, jewelry books, etc.
Learn these easy structures, making quick models, and
then make them into finished pieces using collage
materials, stickers, buttons and beads, etc.

Letterpress Printing
Learn to set wood and metal type by hand. Set a page, a postcard or a whole book. Print on a variety of hand- and machine-made papers. Courses available for beginners and experienced students.

Experimental printmaking on the letterpress
Edition images from a variety of traditional and experimental plates: photopolymer, wood and linoleum cut, collagraph, texture plates. Learn to incorporate a variety of materials into your work, such as lace, sandpaper, grass, you name it—if it fits on the letterpress we can print it!

Hands-On History of Typography
When is a font not a font? Where is the lead in leading?
Learn typographic history by experience as you hand-set
type and print it on the letterpress. Moveable type ended the Dark Ages and ushered in the Renaissance, the industrial revolution, and literacy for the people.

Instant Artist Books
Make ten books from start to finish. Explore simple
bookbinding from Eastern and Early Western traditions
Make individual and collaborative books, unique books
and small editions—even popups! See the work of
contemporary book artists. and discuss how you can
publish and distribute your own Artist Books.

Purgatory Pie Press:
Dikko Faust & Esther K Smith
19 Hudson St. #403 NYC 10013
212 274 8228