Constituency

The CODEX constituency is broad, growing, and diversifying. It generally consists of professional and amateur artisans and craftspeople; educators and students; artists and designers; writers and poets; academics and librarians; public and private collectors; critics, curators, and scholars who hold an interest in the art of the handmade book. More specifically these include printers, papermakers and bookbinders; printmakers, calligraphers, and book designers; type designers and type founders; manufacturers and vendors of presses and inks; librarians, archivists and conservators; bibliophiles and booksellers; academic and professional educators in the book arts and the history of the book; bibliophilic clubs and book arts organizations; in short, all scholars, artists, collectors and students pursuing interests in both the history of the book and its use as a dynamic contemporary art medium.

Although we believe it is critical to participate in the overall ecology of the vast and growing book arts field (which can encapsulate everything from zines to fine press printing, as well as sculptural bookwork to art book publications), we do tend to focus on a particular area within this rich and varied continuum of art making practice. Although we have a wide knowledge-base of the full scope of work happening in the field, and we do often cross-pollinate with other areas in and adjacent to the book arts — we just aren’t big enough to do it all! To do what we do well, we focus primarily on a range of work that falls into the category of hand-produced editions of artists’ books and fine press books that investigate craft traditions, global book history and materiality, combined with work that has an engaging literary and/or conceptual base. We are craft-based, and although we are set up to teach letterpress printing in our own studios, we fully embrace a range of definitions of what craft can be, including indigenous and modern ideas surrounding craft. Digital media, Risograph printing, and the photocopy machine (just as a small set of examples) can be considered craft in the right hands. We invite all conversations about the history and theory of craft within the book arts as foundational to what we do.