Meet the Artist

Katrina Matthews is a Tulsa-based bookbinder, missionary, wife, and mother to three. Her bookbinding journey began the summer after eleventh grade at Putney Summer Arts Program in Vermont. Late to signing up for classes, she ended up serendipitously being “stuck” with the book arts program for the month.  On arriving home, she knew bookbinding was going to be a part of the rest of her life.

Her training continued at Washington College in the Rose O’Neil Literary House where she mentored for four years under Master Printer and Book Artist T. Michael Kaylor, eventually ending her time there as a Literary House Fellow with a focus in the Print Shop and helping with the production of two limited edition books.  The Print Shop was very much her home at Washington College. Her friends knew her as the Print Shop Girl and Mr. Kaylor as Kit Kat. She often wished she could sleep there instead of her dormitory.  

Over the summers while in college, she held two summer apprenticeships, one of which was under Daniel E. Kelm at the Wide Awake Garage in Easthaptom, MA.  She is known to equate the apprenticeship to a First Karate Kid relationship of first learning to cover the workbench with butcher paper (wax on, wax off) and scrapping any book attempt qwith a defect before diving into a collection of works based off of Keith A Smith’s bindings. With bandaids on her fingers to enable her to pull the thread tightly on the sewing frame and music to dance to, that was another pivotal summer in her journey. Her focus continued in edition binding, usually creating a minimum of 15-20 of each book, and often more.

In the years since leaving Washington College, Katrina became skilled as a creative Out of School Time teacher, bringing art and social emotional learning to children’s museums, public school programming, summer camps, and mixed-aged workshops. Now, in correlation with Liggett Studio, she is joining in the blooming Book Arts Program by offering workshops, ongoing mentorships, and helping to lead the fun Book Dragons club. 

Katrina is also available for private lessons, creative rebindings, original commissions, and edition collaborations. The world of Book Arts is alive, beautiful, and deeper than you’d imagine – start digging and reach out!