- Workshop
Reimagining Illumination: Make Your Own Illuminated Initial
On Tuesday, February 17, SIMS Curator for Digital Humanities Dot Porter and Program Coordinator of Technology and Play Christine Kemp will lead a workshop where we will make our own illuminated initials on parchment using gold leaf and paint.
Hosted by: Kislak Center and SIMS
Reimagining Illumination is a series of workshops designed to interrogate and expand the concept of illumination (i.e., the use of light) in books and manuscripts.
How can we use light to make our books beautiful, interesting, fun, or informative? Through a series of workshops, scheduled over the 2025-2026 academic year, we will investigate this question. Over the course of the year we'll look at books from the Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books, and Manuscripts, and we'll make some of our own. The series will culminate in an open exhibition with manuscripts and books viewed under candlelight, and featuring our creations, too.
On Tuesday, February 17, SIMS Curator for Digital Humanities Dot Porter and Program Coordinator of Technology and Play Christine Kemp will lead a workshop where we will make our own illuminated initials on parchment using gold leaf and paint. If you can't make February 17, the workshop will be held again on April 14.
This is a repeat of a workshop held in October 2025. The sample initial was created during that workshop.
Reimagining Illumination is sponsored by the Schoenberg Institute for Manuscript Studies and will be held in the Vitale II Lab for Digital Humanities & Book History (Van Pelt Library 623)