Slow down and take a look: Boise State’s Print Study Room

Room 107 of Campus School is home to a new kind of space for the university. The Print Study Room offers a quiet atmosphere, good light, big tables and access to Boise State's growing collection of artworks on paper - including drawings, etchings, architectural plans, engravings and experimental works such as cyanotypes and Xerox prints.

Creative writing alum Kara Killinger (left), now a communications specialist in the Office of Communications and Marketing and Fonda Portales, curator of the university's art collection. Photo by Luan Teed.

"You don't need to be an artist to use this space. You don't need to be writing a paper. You don't need an agenda," said Fonda Portales, curator of the university's art collection. "You can just come in and look. We wanted this to be a place where curiosity is enough."

While the room is a natural fit for art history and studio classes, it's relevant beyond the arts. Portales has partnered with professors of communication, world languages, history, Games, Interactive Media and Mobile Technology, and engineering, to design activities using pieces in the collection that train students in observation, attention to detail, inquiry, self-reflection and discussion.

"In a field like psychology, as one example, we can look at a work of art to help build empathy. We can talk about the details in a piece that call out to us and what that might mean about our own biases," Portales said. She wants the study room to demystify art and help others see it not just as something that hangs on a wall, but as a tool for academic development.

In a culture saturated with technology, the Print Study Room offers a respite.

"Students are craving time away from screens," Portales said. "Here, you can get close to an object. You can use a magnifying glass. You can notice things you would never see in a digital image."

From storage to study

In 2024, Boise State received a remarkable gift from collector Forrest Geerken: more than 1,000 works on paper spanning the 15th through the 20th centuries, including woodcuts, engravings, etchings and approximately 100 Renaissance drawings.

"The gift instantly doubled the size of our collection," Portales said. "But more importantly, Forrest wanted the collection to stay together - and to be used."

Soon after, Portales was among a small group of curators who participated in The Paper Project at the Getty Museum in Los Angeles. The program taught curators how to handle, conserve and educate about art works. It explored ways to make collections more accessible to modern audiences. "I came back to campus and thought about print rooms and what we would need to do to have our own," Portales said. When Room 107 became available (its past lives include public health clinic and art classroom), she jumped at the chance to make it a home for art.

Portales hopes the open collection will attract visitors from across Idaho. "We want to build community through this, work with people. This is an open teaching space. It isn't just for artists, not just for Boise State, this is a space for experiential learning."

The Print Study Room. Photo provided by Fonda Portales

A student at the center

The Print Study Room offers training for students interested in art careers. Isabel Fuhriman, a drawing and painting major, is the university's collections assistant. In June 2025 she began documenting and researching new works in the collection. It's a meticulous task.

"Some pieces are the best-case scenario," she said. "You can find the artist, the title, where it was printed, sometimes even what series it belongs to. But a lot of pieces are mysterious - no title, no artist, no date."

While Fuhriman doesn't do a lot of printmaking, being around prints has changed the way she understands art history. "You can learn facts in a class, but when you're researching a single object and trying to piece together its story, it sticks in a totally different way."

Isabel Fuhriman with a piece from the collection. Photo by Luan Teed.

One of her favorite discoveries is a printed page - possibly from the 1500s - in old German.

"It took forever just to figure out what I was looking at," she said. "But I learned it might be part of Virgil's - the Roman poet, author of 'The Aeneid' - first writings ever printed in Northern Europe. That kind of research feels like detective work."

For Fuhriman, the position has clarified her future goals: graduate school, an MFA and a career in academic or gallery settings.

"This experience is teaching me skills I wouldn't get otherwise," she said. "It's real collections work. And it makes the idea of a career in universities or museums feel possible."

When she's not researching in the Print Study Room, Fuhriman, who grew up in Boise, sings in the Boise State Vocal Jazz Ensemble. She also assists in the ceramic studio of artist Julia Ballenger, daughter of Boise State Professor Emeritus Bruce Ballenger. Fuhriman also worked on a virtual campus art tour through the Bloomberg Connects app. The tour, designed for children - including an audio guide read by a young reader, highlights outdoor sculptures on campus.

Isabel Fuhriman. Photo by Luan Teed.

Visit the Print Study Room

The Print Study Room, Campus School, Room 107, 2100 University Dr., offers regular public hours, including evening access on Wednesdays. Contact Fonda Portales at [email protected] for more information or to plan your visit and possible activities.

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