Ultimately, the repertoire of the Bindery’s offerings to the public will be greatly enhanced to garner greater interest from the deaf community to see Bookbinding, Book Art and Presentation Packaging as an opportune career path.

The workshop was facilitated by Regents Professor of Art, Charles Jones of Stephen F. Austin State University, Texas. He is principally a printmaker who utilizes the art of the book as an expressive medium for communicating a range of issues and ideas with the viewing public. He provided much insight into how we can be more creative in our processes and applications. He practices and emphasizes that “the best format for learning is through creativity, allowing the individual the freedom to explore around set core principles. Learning is experiential and therefore in order to learn one must understand and know the working of the system of systems”.

The workshop started on August 21 despite threatening weather and ended on the September 1, with a wonderful Open Day. Presentations were made by Mr. Fitzroy Blake of HEART/NCTVET voicing HEART’S commitment to assisting in the development of JAD Binders.

The workshop was made possible through the valuable contributions of Mr. and Mrs. Maurice Facey, Grace Kennedy Foundation, HEART/NCTVET and Bank of Jamaica, the Danny Williams School for the Deaf and Dr. Lewis Executive Board Member of the JAD, a special thanks to Ms. Barbara Thorpe for her encouragement from the inception of the thought and to seeing that we came in within budget!