The Jaffe Center for Book Arts at Florida Atlantic University

The Jaffe Center for Book Arts revolves around a central gallery, which houses the Jaffe Collection. Exhibitions, gallery talks, films and performances, and our popular Book Arts 101 presentations all take place inside the gallery in the midst of this inspiring collection of artists' books.

The Book Arts Studio is our setting for teaching workshops and classes in bookbinding, book structures, paper decoration, and other such topics. It includes comfortable work stations, board shears, and numerous nipping presses, in the company of monumental Leonard Baskin woodcuts.

We're pretty confident we have one of the nicest printshops around. The Letterpress Studio is housed in the room that originally held the Jaffe Collection, painted in warm terra cotta with maple floors. Equipment includes a Vandercook 4 proof press, a Potter proof press and a tabletop platen press, all from the twentieth century. A nineteenth century Wesel iron handpress is the central feature in the room. Most of the printing equipment was a gift to us from Brien and Beverly Varnado of Mount Pleasant, South Carolina.

The Letterpress Studio also houses a collection of mid-twentieth century advertising cuts (a gift to us from Lee Kline of Miami) that represents somewhat of a graphic design history of 1950s to 1970s Miami. There is also a growing collection of wood and metal types, and numerous reference books on printing and the book arts. Two wireless Apple iMacs, complete with the latest versions of Adobe Creative Suite software, are in place for design work.

Our Paper Mill, located at one of FAU's historic World War II era T- Buildings on the northeast corner of campus, will be the setting for instruction in hand papermaking topics. Equipment includes a Renna Hollander Beater, vats, felts, moulds and deckles, and a hydraulic press. This building is slated for remodeling, and it will most likely be some time before we will be able to offer classes in papermaking.