Entries will be on exhibit on the 1st floor and balcony of the library through May 10, 2023.

Each year, Special Collections at RISD Library hosts a juried student artists' book contest to promote engagement with the book arts, investigation of the Library's artists' book collection, and creative production in the book form at RISD. The contest and accompanying exhibition attract on average 45 submissions from RISD undergraduate, graduate, and continuing education students. All of the entries are displayed in the annual Library exhibit. A team of RISD faculty members and professional artists serves as juror(s), selecting prize winners from the submissions. All purchase prizes receive a cash reward, and the selected student-made artists' books become part of the Library's collection. This year is the 9th installment of this program.

In 2014 when I first started in Special Collections we began conversations about outreach and the idea of an artists’ book contest was born. The late Jan Baker, Graphic Design Professor was one of the first jurors for the original contest in 2015. After the contest we debriefed and Jan asked what was the greatest obstacle for this contest to continue. I said money. A few months pasted and I was informed that we had received an anonymous gift so that we could continue the contest. I would find out later, it was Jan’s gift.

In Jan’s words “The aim of this competition is to encourage faculty in all mediums at RISD to use the Artists’ Book Collection as inspiration for their classes; in addition, for students to be stimulated by the collection to create their own Artists’ Books.” 

Starting with the 5th year, the contest is named for Jan Baker and Laurie Whitehill, the former Special Collections Librarian. Recognizing their legacy and their combined 60 years of dedication and passion in the field of Book Arts.

Claudia Covert, Special Collections Librarian

Claudia Covert

Special Collections

Fleet Library, 2nd Floor, Room 201

risdspecial@risd.edu

401-709-5923

Purchase Prizes:

• Grand Purchase Prize ($500) How to Tame a Jaguar by Ashley Castañeda  23 IL
• Laurie Whitehill Purchase Prize ($375) 100 days for birth by Danielle Kim 27 EFS
• American Printing History Association - New England Chapter Purchase Prize ($375) Confession by Sihan Zhu MFA 23 PR
• American Printing History Association - New England Chapter Purchase Prize ($375) Wolves by Jacob Davidson 23 IL

Honorable Mentions:

• Honorable Mention ($100) Snorkeling by Jinghong Chen 23 IL
• Honorable Mention ($100) The Sea of Tears by Jingjing Yang MFA 23 PR
• Honorable Mention ($100) Recorded in Fabric by Zoe Maxwell 26 EFS
• Honorable Mention ($100) The Chronicles of Sameri by Sun Ho Lee MFA 23 GD
   

We are very happy to announce that Andre Lee Bassuet is this year's juror.  

Andre Lee Bassuet is an artist, designer and educator based in Rhode Island. She studied printmaking and papermaking in Japan and got her MFA at Osaka University of Arts on a Monbusho scholarship and a Bachelors from New York University in Graphic Communications. Originally from Brooklyn, New York but raised in both South Korea and the USA, she’s lived between two cultures and seeks her roots by exploring work on the body, nature and memory. She has participated in artist residencies at AS220 and Manhattan Graphics Center and exhibited in New York, Providence, Michigan, Florida, Seattle, Red Lodge, Kyoto, Osaka, and Shanghai. Her bookarts are in the Columbia University Libraries, Harvard Fine Art Library, MassArt Libraries, RISD Fleet Library collection, Western Michigan University's Special Collections as well as private collections. She is currently teaching bookbinding and printmaking at AS220 in Providence and will be teaching the Art of the Book at Brown University.

RISD undergraduate, graduate, and continuing education students are

invited to enter an artists' book they have completed in the past year

(December 2021 - December 2022).

The winning purchase prizes will be added to the

Fleet Library at RISD's Artists' Book collection.

Purchase prizes will be announced in March 2, 2023 at 6pm, Reading Room, 1st Floor of Fleet Library at RISD.

• All entries must be original work by the artist.
• Only one entry per student.
• Due to the size of our exhibit cases, if we receive more than 50 entries, the exhibit will be curated by the library staff.

Items not added to the Fleet Library at RISD collection can be picked after the exhibit comes down (May 10) and by the end of the semester (May 26). If this is not possible please contact us to make arrangements.

 Look for the next call in Fall 2023.   Thank you!