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Columbia College Chicago’s Center for Book and Paper Arts isone of the only graduate programs in the country that offers a specificfocus on paper-making, a specialty that interdisciplinary artsprofessor Melissa Pottercalls “a distinctly American form of fine art.” Students can earna Master of Fine Arts in Book and Paper Arts or in InterdisciplinaryArts and Media, which incorporates traditional papermaking with otherforms of media, including performance and installation art. One recentthesis explored gender issues in society by creating an army of blow-updolls individually encased in translucent paper. “I’m confident insaying that our facilities are probably the best in the world,” saysPotter.
David Jones, the executive director of Anchor Graphics, the school’sfine arts press, describes the ideal student as someone who wants towork to preserve historical techniques while researching and exploringinnovations in the book and paper arts. Exhibits of students’ andprofessors’ work, including a recent show about offset printing forartists’ books, highlight the merging of the old and the new.