I’m Stephanie, and I’m deeply passionate about fostering the innate creativity of kids and adults.

As a lifelong book artist, I love facilitating bookmaking for people of all ages - because when people make books, they want to fill them!

I’ve been leading simple bookmaking workshops for more than 25 years for ages 4+ (my oldest student was 88, in a bookmaking residency I did at a senior center!).

I pride myself on clear instructions, often involving storytelling aspects or fun analogies to not just help learners follow along easily during class, but remember how to make them on their own later.

During the pandemic, I was honored to be chosen by the Kennedy Center to design a lesson and create a video for their Teaching Artists Present online library, to creatively engage kids and families during lockdown. This was a wonderful opportunity to encourage people to engage with their imaginations through simple artmaking.

Thanks to that video, the Link Centre in Tupelo, Mississippi found me and brought me to Mississippi in February 2023 for a week-long school residency as the Link Centre Artist-in-Residence. This article, published in the Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal, highlights my week-long bookmaking residency with 6th graders at Milam Elementary School.

This is just one of many school residencies I’ve done (all others have been in NY and PA).

What might students make with me?

The gallery below includes images of books created in a variety of bookmaking classes - most by learners ages 7-12 in library-based workshops.

The more complex projects were created in longer family programs, or in teacher training workshops.

There are even more possibilities than pictured! I’m always happy to design cross-curricular book projects (eg, the purpose of one school residency was helping the kids make a book to house stories they’d already written for ELA class).

Side note: I’m also in my 25th year as a contractual museum educator for the Metropolitan Museum of Art. I take great delight in facilitating group conversations about art!

I'd love to connect to discuss how I might add bookmaking to your programming;
please feel free to email me to discuss the possibilities!

I hope to speak with you soon.