Center for Artists’ Books & Inclusive Narratives

The Center for Artists’ Books and Inclusive Narratives (CABIN) is an innovative teaching and research center that promotes the development and exchange of multi-sensorial communication and learning through the ideation, production, and documentation of inclusive narratives. CABIN provides students, faculty, and visiting scholars with direct access to analog book arts equipment and materials research opportunity and for holistic exchange and arts-based ingenuity.

The Gregory Allicar Museum of Art featured artists Alicia Bailey, Aaron Cohick, and Sammy Seung-Min Lee from the exhibition Off the Shelf: Contemporary Book Arts in Colorado for a panel discussion moderated by curators Anna Bernhard and Johnny Plastini, in the Organ Recital Hall at the University Center for the Arts.

The Material Collection is an ever-growing teaching and learning collection aims to provide a deeper understanding of materiality and the processes by which artwork is made.

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Offerings

We encourage artistic inquiry into material culture of the past, current research methods of object-based and digital documentation, as well as speculative envisioning on the future of inclusive cultural literacy.

CABIN programming focuses on formalizing collective interdisciplinary learning across discipline boundaries and the space is available to faculty for curricular support, collaboration, and co-teaching.

Collections, Publications, & Research

CABIN is involved in supporting student initiatives based around book arts, curricular learning with material research, and the growth and use of rare and distinctive book arts collections at Morgan Libraries.

Colorado State University Libraries Archives and Special Collections Department is an institutional partner of CABIN. The Libraries and Special Collections’ Rare Book Collection contains over 20,000 original materials including antiquities, fine bindings, primary and secondary resource materials donated by individuals and organizations. Special Collections has recently expanded to include the Book Arts Collection, a collection that responds directly to CABIN’s mission and focus.

The Material Collection is an ever-growing teaching and learning collection aims to provide a deeper understanding of materiality and the processes by which artwork is made.

Teaching

CABIN faculty furnish opportunities to research book arts in depth through elective classes and independent research support for undergraduate and graduate art students.

Exhibitions & Community Engagement

CABIN is proud to act to foster collaborative community events by providing meaningful opportunities to artists, educators, and all those in creative pursuits related to book arts production.

Off the Shelf: Contemporary Book Arts in Colorado exhibits artists that innovate and defy our conceptual framework of the book and its contents. The artist book, a medium spanning the public and private sphere of creators and viewers, reflects on issues intimate and grand. The diversity of works represented in this exhibition demonstrate the breadth and depth of the book as a potent artistic device.

Carl Wilson taught a letterpress printing workshop at the CABIN. He also gave an artist lecture in the Organ Recital Hall at the University Center for the Arts in conjunction with exhibition of his work, Dead & Lost in Detroit. Carl Wilson is known for his stark black and white linocut prints.

People

Anna Bernhard

Director, Stanley G. Wold Resource Center

Johnny Plastini

Associate Professor of Printmaking
Graduate Advisor of Printmaking

Roberto Muntoreanu

Assistant Professor of Graphic Design

Current Director & Co-Founder

As a trained librarian and archivist, Anna is building CABIN’s collection and providing research support related to artists’ books and craft publication. She also facilitates access to the Materials Library, with a focus on papers, ink, and publication tools, to support the mission and programming of CABIN.

Associate Director & Co-Founder

Johnny focuses on supporting initiatives of physical book arts and the tangible side of printing with students, faculty, and visiting artists. He navigates collaborations with local partners to connect us with the independent publishing and printing momentum that already exists in northern Colorado.

Associate Director & Co-Founder

Roberto helps run the Inclusive Publications Lab, which considers multi-sensorial and multi-lingual publishing as well as the boundaries of digital publications and how we can share diverse narratives more effectively. Roberto also helps manage the student run press that operates out of the CABIN space.

Image of white textured paper with chocolate chip cookies pressed into the surface

Haley Hagerman's V/E Scavenger Series 10" x 7.5" 2021 Materials: Chips Ahoy (N Sherwood St) & paperscraps (CSU) In my work, I aim to utilize only scavenged materials. I mean that in the most literal sense: directly finding discarded/lost/forgotten materials from spaces personally interacted with. Through giving time, space and acknowledgement to mundane or seemingly unimportant things, I hope to help facilitate a heightened awareness to what viewers find themselves surrounded by.

The Eye is a student-produced fine arts publication about art and its making that creates space for creatives to create connections across disciplines through collaboration. This journal is a collection of ideas, images and information which investigates CSU’s Department of Art and Art History while building community and engaging scholarship.