James C. Dast

American, b. 1939; taught at UW-Madison 1979
Lives and works in Madison, Wisconsin

Jim Dast was born in Midland, Michigan. He served in the army for three years before attending Michigan State University, graduating in 1964 with a bachelor’s degree in botany and plant pathology. He earned master’s degrees in library science and the history of science from the University of Wisconsin—Madison. During the 1970s, he became interested in library conservation and spent two years as an apprentice at the Newberry Library in Chicago. Afterward, he returned to the UW as the conservator for the libraries. Gary Frost invited him to help teach a night course at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, which led to Dast teaching bookbinding classes, first in the UW Art Department in 1979, and then in his home in the 1980s and 1990s. Many art students, including Jim Escalante, Jana Pullman, Kathy Kuehn, Ruth Lingen, Tracy Honn, and Marta Gomez, also learned how to make a drop-spine portfolio box from Dast. These decorative cases both showcased and protected their artists’ books. “Those art students, they were just alive and enthusiastic,” Dast says of the book artists he taught. “I found the projects very interesting.” Dast retired in 1996, but he regularly comes to campus to prepare for the semiannual book sale that supports the Friends of the UW-Madison Libraries.