Concertina Books: fun easy accordion forms 3 different ways
Adult Course | Registration opens 8/5/2025 10:00 AM MDT
Folding a flat sheet of paper into a concertina (or accordion) form opens up complex possibilities in book design. By incorporating additional folds and cuts, you can create unique solutions for integrating your art or text. In this course, participants will explore in depth and master at least three variations of accordion models with enclosures, including one that combines sewing pamphlet binding with an accordion and creative pockets or frames for small objects and sculptural form. Each morning, the instructor will lead the discussion and present a variety of books and narrative devices (i.e., Kaavad or Storyteller's Box, image courtesy of the Denver Art Museum) with inventive, playful, and poetic qualities to inspire participants' projects. By the end of the course, every participant will have created a one-of-a-kind book.
- Heavyweight paper (e.g., watercolor paper or cardstock)
Decorative paper (photos, prints, etc.)
Bone folders
Rulers
Pencils and erasers
Utility knives or x-acto knives
Cutting mats
Glue sticks or double-sided tape
Sammy Lee
Sammy Lee is an interdisciplinary artist and a proprietor of Studio SML |k (small k) in Denver, Colorado. Her work focuses on spatial, narrative, and sequential qualities in personal and smaller communal history, as Lee incorporates her diverse explorations in art and architecture. Lee was born and raised in Seoul, South Korea and moved to Southern California at the age of sixteen. Lee studied fine art and media art at UCLA and architecture at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and also learned bookbinding under a master bookbinder Daniel Kelm. Her work has been exhibited internationally and can be found in collections at the Getty Research Institute, Bainbridge Island Museum of Art, Spencer Museum of Art, and the Spanish National Library in Madrid, Spain. Lee is recently a resident artist at Redline, currently serves on the Board of Directors for Asian Art Association at Denver Art Museum, and operates a new contemporary Asian art project and residency space called Collective SML | k in Santa Fe Art District, Denver.
Artist's website: www.studiosmlk.com