In her San Francisco studio, Caydance reviewed the syllabus for her Fall class. Every year she began by loading a cart with artists books, pushing the cart up steep Chestnut Steet and through the school's historic courtyard to the classroom, where she talked about each book and then passed it around.

Artists books are meant to be artworks themselves. Sometimes they unfold like fans or in other unusual ways. Often, like Samuel Beckett and Jasper John's Fiorades/Fizzles, printed on handmade Richard de Bas paper, they are aesthetically satisfying. Sometimes they contain pockets of treasures, or they ask viewers to discover concealed objects in other ways. Japanese artist Ay-O's finger boxes had holes cut in them, so that viewers could insert fingers and feel unseen objects. Some artists sculpt discarded volumes to create objects that disclose only fragments of text. An artists book might even be made with waterproof materials and set sail on inland waters.

Among the works Caydance would load into her cart this year were artists books with personal significance: a signed copy of Ed Ruscha's Twentysix Gasoline Stations; a copy of Characters of Motion that Jill Scott gave her before she returned to Australia; and the original edition of Yoko Ono's Grapefruit: A Book of Instructions and Drawings that she discovered at a yard sale in Berkeley.