Karen Baldner

Teaching Philosophy:

In my practice as a book artist, papermaker, printmaker and collaborator I spend a lot of production time in shared shop environments. Here I have come to appreciate the unique value of a communal setting  in which many heads and hands come together to develop ideas. These media  come from age-old shop traditions in which artisans worked together. Such an environment has become an inspirational foil for teaching my book arts, letterpress and papermaking classes at Herron.

During my residency I want to share some of my teaching  strategies that extend a shop community into a class room culture. In such an environment skills are developed within a group learning setting and ideation is cultivated communally through discussion of production experiences.  Artmaking is ultimately about bringing ideas into life, an aspect which it shares with many other disciplines, and as such I hope my laboratory-style teaching approach may have some value and application for colleagues in other academic fields.

View Karen's website at karenbaldner.com.