University of Iowa Center for the Book

Congratulations to our Spring 2026 MFA graduates, Clara, Harper, Louisa, Pagie, and Poojana! We are so proud of you and all of the beautiful work you created while you were here. You are all amazing and we will miss you around North Hall!

Congrats to our MFA students who participated in their first-year review! It is such a treat to be able to see all that you have accomplished this year. We can’t wait to see what you do next!

I N L E T : A READING & BOOK ARTS EXHIBITION ✨📖🌀
Thursday, May 7th

Open at 4:30, reading at 5pm

at the Lagoon House
230 N. Riverside Drive

Join us for a celebration of words & books at the Lagoon Shelter House 💌📚

The Lagoon House is rarely open to the public, so this is a special chance to experience the space as well as the work 👀🌿

Featuring work by Maya Arthur, Molly Brown, Abra Conn, Mari Johnson, Poojana Prasanna, Frances Sleger, Bella Spilotro, Audrey Ta**ry, and Shelby Welte ✨

Guests may make a print to take home! 🖨️🎉

The Last Rodeo 🐎📚

Join the UI Center for the Book as we celebrate our graduating MFA class and their exhibition The Last Rodeo, now on view in the K.K. Merker Gallery! Featuring work by Louisa Eastley, Harper Folsom, Poojana Prasanna, Clara Reynen, and Paige Wilkinson, this show marks the culmination of their time at UICB!

🗓 Friday, May 8
🕓 4:30–6:00 PM
🎤 Graduation remarks at 5:15 PM (North Hall lawn, weather permitting)

🤠 The UICB First Year Rodeo will also be on view in UICB classrooms, featuring work by Molly Brown, Abra Conn, Tyler Lofton, Jenna Ross, and Mel Ware!

Come celebrate this incredible milestone and send off our graduates in style!

Congratulations to UICB MFA student Abra Conn on being awarded the MFA Summer Research Fellowship!! 💙🤑🎉

This summer, Abra will travel to Ireland, England, and France to visit medieval castles, including their dungeons and lower spaces, conducting on-site research that will directly determine the structure and physical form of OUBLIETTE, a completed poetry manuscript now being realized as a letterpress-printed artist book.

We’re looking forward to seeing this work come into its final form!! 🤩

UICB MFA student Mari has been awarded an MFA Summer Research Fellowship!! 🎉🌟📄

“Mari is going to stay put in Iowa City for the summer to make a whole lot of handmade paper in the studios and then fashion some of those papers into little creatures. She plans to make a handful of nearby pilgrimages to gather inspiration for an upcoming writing/performance project.”

Congratulations, Mari!! We can’t wait to see what emerges from a summer of paper, creatures, and wandering ✨

UICB MFA student Lionel Zaccardi has won a Stanely Award!! ✨🏆📚

Stanely Awards are given annually to outstanding University of Iowa students for the pursuit of research and learning activities in international studies not available on the UI Campus.

This award will fund Lionel’s ongoing research in punchcutting and typefounding by hand.

Lionel will visit the Plantin-Moretus Museum in Antwerp, Belgium. Founded in the 16th century, it is the last vestige of the Early Modern Print shop in Europe. The Plantin-Moretus Museum still holds punches, matrices, and type commissioned by founder Christophe Plantin.

“I will handle their historic punches cut by the likes of Claude Garamont, Robert Granjon, and Henrik ven den Keere, taking photos and making sketches along the way. This era of typographic style, the French Oldstyle, has been particularly influential for my handcut typeface, Eloina.”

Lionel will also travel to France to meet with and study under master punchcutters Nelly Gable and Annie Bocel 🇫🇷

Way to go, Lionel!! 🎉

Huge congratulations to Ollie .013 on receiving a Digital Scholarship & Publishing Studio Summer Fellowship!! ☀️📚✨

“My project with the Digital Scholarship & Publishing Studio Summer fellowship is to create a book arts tool census and map. The book arts tool map was conceived to connect artists open to sharing resources with others who have project based needs for these tools, such as board shears, presses, and fiber beaters. The goal of the book arts tool map is to support artists through improving access to book arts tools outside of academic institutions by fostering creative collaboration and equitable exchange, illuminating networks of book artists.”

We’re looking forward to seeing this project take shape this summer and beyond! 🎉

💖 Congratulations to Harper Folsom on successfully defending her MFA thesis!!💖

“I’ll Make It a Home” is an MFA thesis exhibition by Harper Folsom. She merges techniques in printmaking and hand papermaking with imagery and materials drawn from childhood. Her work explores the interweaving of memories between family members and offers a tender recollection of childhood, not as distant from the present as it may seem. The artist’s personal memories expand into family history—communal, multi-generational memories existing alongside one another, unfolding all at once. The exhibition and accompanying papermaking workshop will be held at Sacred Collective, a community gathering space in downtown Iowa City.

I’ll Make It A Home
🗓️ April 13–18, 2026
🎉 Reception: Friday, April 17, 5–7 p.m. (with a special surprise at 6!)
📍 Sacred Collective, 213 N. Linn St., Iowa City

🕰️ GALLERY HOURS:
Monday, Wednesday, Thursday 3–6 p.m.
Saturday Noon–4 p.m.

🧺 PAPERMAKING WORKSHOP:
Tuesday, April 14, 1–4 p.m.
Drop in & make your own handmade paper!

✨So much love and celebration for this vibrant, thoughtful body of work. Congrats Harper!!!💗

Congratulations to Clara Reynen on successfully defending her MFA thesis 🌱📖✨!!

Her exhibition, “the radical reading room: planting seeds of radical hope with paper, print, & propaganda,” 🌸📄🖨️📢 brings together print, text, and community-minded practice to imagine new ways of reading, making, and being together.

Join us tonight for the reception from 5–7pm in the K.K. Merker Gallery (ground floor of North Hall) 🎉

Exhibition documentation coming soon! ⏳