Undergrad Profile: Madeline Bautista Maurer

Madeline Bautista Maurer is a 4th year Environmental Studies Major and Literature Minor at UC Santa Cruz. This year, she is a 2024-2025 Humanities EXCEL Fellow, working with working with Peggy Gotthold and Lawrence G. Van Velzer at Foolscap Press. We caught up with Bautista Maurer to hear about her experience working in the bindery, where she learned the art of crafting books.

Hi Madeline, we are excited to learn more about your fellowship! Let’s start with hearing a bit about your work and who you are partnered with.

I’m an apprentice at a local publishing company, Foolscap Press. Over this school year I’m getting to peek in for most of the process of making a book. Getting to spend time in the bindery and around the printing press with Peggy and Larry has fed the tactile love in me. Their care and dedication to their art has been inspiring, yet their humility is what strikes me most. Even after decades in this book-world, they’ve never claimed expert status, so together we embark on this quest for knowing more, and improving our crafts nibble by nibble.

Foolscap Press does amazing work! What drew you to this opportunity?

I’ve always been drawn to heavy machinery and tools, old things, niche knowledge, and this job melded all of these curiosities so beautifully. I feel lucky to spend my final year at UCSC getting to peer in, and make sense of the book making world. It’s fascinating getting to know books at the level of a single lead letter. And at the same time, zoom out, and think about the purpose a work has as a whole; how the page feels, font sizes, and each thought out component comes together to make the reading experience what it may be.

For those unfamiliar, could you walk us through some of the press and binding processes at Foolscap? It seems like a fantastic lost art.

I’ve learned about how intentional this process is. With anything set to print in the press, thought is put into paper, font, and form; and how all those would complement and make sense with the content.

One of the first tasks I learned was letter distribution. This happens after types been sent and printed. It’s kind of like learning to type backwards. In this process I learned where each letter belongs in its wooden case of the like font and size. I learned a lot in this process; like the sense of A and R being neighboring cubbies, as they often appear together in words. And even the size of each letter box clued me in. Like E’s holding spot being the largest, which reflects its use and frequency in the English language.

And after distributing my fair of defunct projects, when I then moved to setting type, my muscle memory and practice had trained me for where to reach from middle bottom, up and up, and there’s T-H-E! I’ve spent time learning the art of folding, and sewing, and through it all my admiration and understanding of books is watered.

In this unique experience, what are some things you learned that will benefit you in your future endeavors?

SO much. Mainly I’d say my increasing awareness to details, and the practice of patience. I’m a fairly frantic person, I spend my time racing around. I’m learning to combat my impatient tendencies, or desire to hop around, never long enough to immerse myself, by grounding myself in the bigger picture. Peggy and Larry have guided me in this, showing me past projects, or notes and drawn sketches of where my seemingly isolated sewing or folding is working towards.

This ability to hone my attention, noticing small details like the corners of a page, I believe relates to my overall world perception. Just as I’ve learned from soil and insect classes to look beneath my feet at a whole complex world, this experience allows me to appreciate and think about details and craftsmanship. This benefits my curiosity, as I can point to any new object or process that captivates me; oak gall, rust, movies, and begin to unravel or demystify. I feel readied to apply this same zeal or wonder to the new opportunities that come my way.

Thank you so much! To wrap up, could you share some of the ways reading is meaningful to you?

I’ve felt language’s power in getting to explore lands without leaving my housing, being let in on senses of community without seeing the faces of people I feel akin to, and so much more. This apprenticeship has allowed me to grow this relationship with language anew. Through this hands-on experience, I get to roll individual letters over between my fingers. I’m getting to know language on a physical level, in a way that leaves my hands stained, my fingers dented, and it’s so so special.

The Humanities EXCEL Fellowship with Foolscap Press is funded by Porter College. The Mellon Foundation, The Helen and Will Webster Foundation, The Humanities Institute, the UCSC Humanities Division, and individual donors generously support the Humanities EXCEL Program. If you’re interested in learning more about Humanities EXCEL paid internships, please contact hum-experiential-learning@ucsc.edu.