Melissa Jay Craig

Intrinsic
handmade paper (abaca, created on a geothermally heated floor)
48 in. diameter

Manifest, O
handmade paper (cast kozo and manipulated abaca sheets) with goatskin vellum, leather, linen thread, hemp cord, bamboo and prismacolor pencil illustrations
18.5 x 13.5 x 4 in. (closed)

Passage
handmade paper (kozo, abaca and recycled linen) with hemp cords and linen thread
10 x 4.5 x 5.5 in.

Melissa Jay Craig’s handmade paper book works, sculptures and installation works are exhibited internationally, and are included in a number of museum collections, artists’ book collections, and rare book libraries. She is also a curator, writer and an award-winning educator. Affiliated with the Chicago Center for Book and Paper Arts from its beginning until 2009, she taught full-time in its MFA program as Artist In Residence.

She continues to offer lectures, classes and workshops at schools, universities, and national arts centers such as Paper and Book Intensive, Penland, Arrowmont, the Center for Book Arts NY, Delaware Center for Contemporary Art, Women’s Studio Workshop, Southwest School of Art and the Morgan Conservatory. Melissa has been awarded numerous grants and residencies, including several residencies at the Ragdale Foundation, the Vermont Studio Center, Catwalk, Jentel, I-Park, and the National Endowment for the Arts studio grant and residency in papermaking at Women’s Studio Workshop. She is represented in the Chicago area by Zia Gallery.

© Melissa Jay Craig