Clamshell Boxes

Course Code: 25MBM200I

This two-day, in-person workshop takes place at CBA on Saturday and Sunday, July 26 – 27th, from 11AM to 5PM ET.

• Saturday, July 26th, from 11AM to 5PM ET
• Sunday, July 27th, from 11AM to 5PM ET

Please Note: Registration for this workshop closes on July 20th, at 11:59 pm.

About the Workshop:

This in-person class at Center for Book Arts is taught by instructor Maria Veronica San Martin. 

Boxmaking is an essential skill for any bookbinder. The clamshell box is a terrific way to protect and preserve a first edition, an antiquarian book, an artist’s book or a suite of prints. It keeps out light, dust and prevents the wear and tear on the shelf. This class will focus on the basic techniques – accurate measuring, cutting, and gluing. The critical aspect of making a clamshell box is precision in measuring. The 1st tray needs to hold a book or sheets without rubbing but without room for movement. The 2nd tray needs to fit the first. And the cover needs to pull it all together so it opens and closes properly and stands up straight. Participants will come away with a finished clamshell box to hold a book — great opportunity for book artists and bookbinders!

Required Materials:

• A book that you would like to make a box for 
• Height: Anywhere between 1” and 2”
• The book itself should be no smaller than 4”x6” and no larger than 11”x9”
• Bone folder
• Olfa Snap-off knife with replacement blades

All other materials will be provided by Center for Book Arts at no additional cost.

About the Instructor

María Verónica San Martín (she/her), born in Chile in 1981, is a New York-based multidisciplinary artist, printmaker, and educator. A Whitney Museum ISP fellow, she is part-time faculty at Parsons, The New School, and an instructor at the Center for Book Arts and Mixteca. San Martín has also been a visiting professor at Miami University (OH), an instructor at Penland School of Craft (NC), and has led workshops at The MET, Bard College, Trinity College, Veralist, Interference Archive, and The Weeksville Heritage Center. She is a board member of Booklyn, an artist collective and nonprofit.

San Martín’s work engages with the cultural impacts of history, memory, and trauma through archives, artist books, installations, sculptures, and performances. Her work is held in over 80 collections, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Pompidou Center, the Walker Art Center, the National Museum of Women in the Arts, the Whitney Museum, Harvard University, Yale University, Columbia University, the Museum of Memory and Human Rights, and the Contemporary Art Center, both in Chile.

She has exhibited nationally and internationally at The Print Center, Philadelphia; Goethe Institute, Montreal; Un Lugar, Madrid; Fordham University, New York; Trinity College, Connecticut; NAC Gallery, Santiago, Chile; Museum Meermanno, The Hague, Netherlands; Animal Gallery, Santiago, Chile; Center for Book Arts, New York; National Archive of Chile, Santiago, Chile; BRIC Arts Media, Brooklyn, New York; Cultural Center of Antofagasta, Chile; and the Museum of Memory and Human Rights, Santiago, Chile. Her work has also been featured at the Triennial of Poli/Grafica de Puerto Rico: Latin America and the Caribbean; Lincoln Center, New York; Public Art at Rockefeller Center in collaboration with the Climate Museum, New York; the LA Art Fair with the Museum of the Americas, California; the Immigrant Artist Biennial, New York; the International Printmaking Biennial of Douro, Portugal; and the National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, DC. San Martin has received four times the Fondart Chilean Government grants; a Sustainable Arts Grant; two New York Foundation for the Arts grants. San Martin has been performing and talking about her projects “Moving Memorials,” “Dignidad,” and “The Javelin Project,” in museums, public spaces, and cultural centers since 2016.  

All images courtesy of the instructor.