Julie Leonard, Professor and Director of Graduate Studies at the University of Iowa Center for the Book (UICB), has been awarded the College Book Art Association's Distinguished Career Award.

"Her career encompasses over 36 years of sustained, meaningful, and deeply broad educational and artistic activity. Julie has played lifelong and significant roles in many of the organizations that have come to define and celebrate our field, such as: the Penland School of Craft; the University of Iowa Center for the Book; the Paper and Book Intensive; and notably as a founding member of this organization, CBAA," said Sara Langworthy, Director and Associate Professor at UICB, in her letter of nomination. 

"As my advisor during my MFA Book Arts studies at the UICB, Julie … saw in me the potential to teach. …something I never expected to experience. Teaching book arts has become a major part of my life and creative practice, and I owe that to what Julie saw in me." —Sonia Farmer, former student

Now entering her 25th year at UI, Leonard built the bookbinding curriculum at the UICB from the ground up and was instrumental in designing the UICB MFA degree. She has been a major contributor in the design and evolution of both the graduate certificate and MFA programs, and from 2022–2024, she served as UICB Director. Since 2010, Leonard has also shepherded, fundraised for, guided, and promoted what is now known as the Book Art Research Database (BARD) of the UI Special Collections Libraries.

"Her work as a book artist spans genres and media, ranging from experimental play with language in her recent mesostic poetry works, which incorporate handmade paper sculptural pieces, letterpress, digital bookwork, and artist book form; fine edition binding for handprint book publications; graphic design of books, catalogs, and posters; one-of-a-kind artist book works," Langworthy says. "The field of book arts education as it exists today would not be where it is without Julie Leonard’s contributions. Julie is undoubtedly deserving of recognition from such an esteemed group of her peers and in my estimation is, wholly, entirely, and without question deserving of the CBAA Distinguished Career Award."

Recognition by the College Book Art Association

The mission of the College Book Art Association (CBAA) is to support and promote academic book arts education by fostering the development of its practice, teaching, scholarship and criticism. The CBAA Career Awards seek to recognize individuals whose accomplishments continue to have a significant impact on the teaching and study of book art.

The Distinguished Career Award is granted to an individual who has contributed sustainably and significantly to the development of the field over the course of their career. Such impact may be demonstrated through diverse means: education, mentorship, artistic practice, publication, collection curation, founding or sustaining organizations, exhibiting or selling book works, forming connections between fields, broadening book art’s visibility, and otherwise influencing or expanding what we understand as book art.