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Writer’s block
Students learn ancient art of Buddhist printing in The Makery By Emily Blake, JMU Libraries communications and marketing coordinator
“i have studied block-printed texts for years as a scholar we all printed our own Buddhist (Clockwise from top left): of Tibetan Buddhism … but I had never crafted my own printing texts and images in class using Student Kat Sparagno cuts her linoleum block; student blocks before,” said Christie Kilby, assistant professor of religion the blocks they made!” Junior Garmendia rolls paint at JMU. Jenkins felt that offering the onto a printing block; ProIn Spring 2021, Kilby and her class visited The Makery, the lino-cutting and laser-cutting fessor Kilby visits a Tibetan makerspace in JMU Libraries, to embark on an unprecedented options helped students engage community; Introduction to Buddhism class displays its assignment. As part of her Introduction to Buddhism class, Kilby more with the process. “I think completed projects. asked her students to create printing blocks similar to those that the most successful part of this Buddhists have made for more than a thousand years in order to workshop was not just that the students were allowed to be creative, print scriptures. “The first printed book in world history was a but that they also had a choice in how they could do that,” Jenkins Buddhist scripture (the Diamond Sutra) printed in China in 868 said. “They could use their hands and physically carve a block print, A.D.,” Kilby said. or they can rely on software and a laser cutter to create the image. Kilby described how she developed the idea for the assign- Some people find hand tools very intimidating, or they get frustrated ment: “My goal was for students to understand the art of textual because they can’t quite seem to capture their idea with a drawing. production in Asia as well as the economics, resources, relation- Similarly, some people find learning a new software, like Adobe Illusships and mindfulness that go into this work. So, on a whim, I trator, a very frustrating process. I think that the act of choosing what attended a Makery workshop that Carlson Jenkins [educational technology to use imparts a sense of ownership over the project.” technologist in JMU Libraries] offered on laser cutting. He was While both the laser-cutting and lino-cutting options offered extremely supportive of my idea, encouraging me and engaging unique benefits, Kilby noted that hand carving the linoleum blocks in an ongoing email conversation gave students the opportunity to about how we could make my idea experience the meditative aspect of “The students who chose happen for my students. He met with ancient Buddhist practice. “The the hand-cut linoleum block this me individually to test out some laser students who chose the hand-cut workshop spoke of how cuts and find images that would work linoleum block workshop spoke of well for my class. In the end, Carlson meditative and therapeutic how meditative and therapeutic the designed and led two different workpractice was,” said Kilby. “In many the practice was.” shop series for my students—one on religious practices, there is a lot of laser cutting and one on lino cutting. repetition that can become a form of — Christie Kilby, assistant professor of religion My students loved the process, and meditation or prayer.”
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PH OTO G R A PH S CO U RT E SY O F E M I LY B L A K E A N D J M U LI B R A R I E S
