Constellation Studios – Kosmos•Art Bookmakers Club
Kosmos•Art Bookmakers Club (K•ABC) is established in 2026 for members and friends of Constellation Studios. We have been teaching and making bookworks since 2014 when Constellation Studios was established, and now a new expansion facility to the studio is ready to open. This enlarged physical presence enables Constellation Studios to offer more opportunities and to develop new programing as we broaden our creative community.
The mission of the Kosmos•Art Bookmakers Club is to foster the creative practice of bookbinding in traditional forms, which include material awareness and making of specialized decorative papers and 3-d handbound books, and to practice new innovative bookbinding structures and consideration of alternative construction and deconstruction concepts on the history and art of the book.
Our group has a dedicated book art studio, a papermaking studio, and metal and wood type and letterpresses, housed at Constellation Studios. Workshops are regularly held quarterly, and guest artists and members teach the workshops. The Constellation Studios gallery has regularly exhibited book works by local, national and international artists. We have a collection of artists books and models for research and study on site and have partnered with the University of Nebraska-Lincoln Love Library Special Collections which has historical and contemporary artists books. Karen Kunc, owner and director of Constellation Studios is an internationally recognized printmaker and book artist, and her Blue Heron Press works from Constellation Studios. She facilitates and teaches workshops including Coptic Binding, Casebound Book, Secret Belgium Binding, The Leather Spine, Altered Books, Novelty books, Clamshell boxmaking, Small Boxes, Paper Marbling, Paste Papers, Papermaking. Local member Hannah Demma also teaches Papermaking workshops. Guest artists/teachers have included national and regional bookmakers: Rhada Pandy, Helen Heibert, Shannon Brock, Maranda Albritten, Bonnie O’Connell, Denise Brady.
Our group is formed in the “guild model “as an association of practitioners who share and preserve knowledge and skills of bookmaking. We are regionally based, and have an open membership (no fees), although participation in workshops carry a nominal fee. Our goals are to develop an inclusive and varied group that encourages making together, raising quality of bookmaking, learning traditional materials, tools, skills. There is a growing awareness of artists bookmaking, that grows from journaling, diary keeping, scrapbooking, the letterpress printing revival, paper crafts, poetry, sketching, reading, and for the preservation/conservation of the book as a cultural and human talisman.
Kosmos•Art Bookmakers Club has a mission to foster the art and craft of book arts:
- bookbinding in traditional forms
- material awareness
- making of specialized decorative papers & prints
- handbound books and innovative bookbinding structures
- alternative construction and deconstruction concepts
- the history and art of the book
No membership fee – quarterly meet-ups – sharing our works – joining in workshops (free or with fee)
