During the Spring 2023 semester at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire, Professor Meagan Marsh Pine taught the Art Department course ART 384 Artist Books: Image & Text. This 3-credit course is an interdisciplinary exploration of art in the book form. It examines the conventions of the written word, the image, and image-text relations and explores book structures and designs through bookbinding demonstrations and hands-on practices.

Students in the course worked on a semester-long project with the Special Collections and Archives Department of McIntyre Library entitled “Image and Text Recreations”. Students were tasked with identifying rare books and manuscripts from the archive’s collection to reimagine in a unique and artistic way. Topics explored include architecture, recipes, a County Coroner’s Docket, Violet Leigh, Old Abe, railroads, logging, Tornado Watch, UW-Eau Claire choir, naturalization, Effie Elsie Converse, and Robert Frost. A reception was held to celebrate the creation of an exhibit of the students’ work, titled “Back To The Archive”, on the first floor of McIntyre Library on May 4, 2023, where it remained until September 2023.