Susan Joy Share

The spring newsletter has just arrived in our offices and we're gearing up for another season of workshops, events and exhibitions. I'll be posting regularly over the next week or so to give you a preview of what we're looking forward to over the next three months. First up! Susan Share.
Susan Joy Share is an artist who has been a member of the Center for many years. She worked as an artist and conservator in New York City for twenty years then moved her studio to Anchorage, Alaska in 1997. Her work combines a multitude of techniques, media and materials from bookbinding, sewing, painting, collage, and sculpture. To give you an idea, here's some images we took from her Featured Artist Project here in 2007.



We were very lucky to have her come to NYC in 2007 as a Sally Bishop Faculty Fellow to teach a master class, give a lecture, and have an exhibition. Her workshop students were thrilled at the time they spent with her, exploring new techniques and mediums.



We're proud to be able to offer a workshop with her again this spring, Combining Structures

This workshop will address ways in which several structures and visual ideas may be incorporated into a single bookwork. Using a variety of materials and techniques, students will combine book, box and folder constructions to create a unique vessel for drawings, photos, prints and/or small objects. We will give special attention to the closures which fasten our books, the ritual involved in opening them, and the configuration of the open book.

Susan is a fantastic instructor and inspiring artist; we're very lucky to be able to have her back to the Center this year.
The class is coming up soon, the weekend of May 7-8, Saturday and Sunday during the day 10 am to 4pm. Registration is here, or by calling 212-481-0295. Space is limited- register now!

Finishing Skills for Leather

Okay, time for a quick vocabulary lesson:
Onlay and tooling are decorative techniques for making your leather-bound books look delightful; in fact, these methods are called “finishing” in the bookbinding trade. Onlay involves extremely thin pieces of colorful leather cut into a shape or design and pasted onto the leather-covered boards.






Tooling is the application of design by use of a hot brass tool – either in “blind,” where the heat alone darkens the leather and makes an impression, or with gold/silver foil. Tooling is often used in conjunction with onlay to create a seamless, almost “quilted” effect on the leather.


If you've worked with leather before, and would like a chance to further your skills, we've got two opportunities coming up really soon in April for you to practice with instructor Shanna Yarbrough:

April 16, Saturday, 10 am to 4pm: Leather Onlay
April 17, Sunday, 10 am to 4pm: Hot Tooling in Blind and Foil.

Join us either day for $150 ($135 Members) or both days for $260 ($245 members)

The Great Wall

Come join us on Friday, April 1st at 6:30 pm and hear from Guy Laramee, who'll be here at the Center to talk about his his Featured Artist installation currently on view at the Center, and the process behind these amazing works. This exhibition features a new body of work by the artist, a collection of eleven altered books dealing with the construction of historical narratives. Laramée imagines a future in which the Chinese Empire has supplanted the American Empire: It is the 23rd century, and the Chinese Empire has endeavored to write the story of the Great Panics of the 21st century, cataclysms that shook the world for more than a hundred years. This is the conceptual setting for a series of eroded encyclopedias that reference both landscape and architecture. He says in reference to this work, "Knowledge is not so much an accumulation as it is an erosion.”

Here are some images:

Fine Press Publishing Seminar Postmark Deadline is Approaching!

Call for Entries: 2011 Letterpress Printing & Fine Press Publishing Seminar For Emerging Writers. The application postmark deadline is right around the corner: Friday, April 1, 2011.

This tuition-free seminar is offered three times a year: spring, summer and fall, for eight writers each session. The upcoming section of this seminar is scheduled for Wednesday through Sunday, May 18-22, during the day from 10 am to 4pm. Those selected must be able to attend the entire five-day workshop. Participants will hear lectures from various professionals in the field – printers, fine press publishers, book artists, and dealers, to get a practical overview of letterpress printing and fine press publishing. They will learn the basics of letterpress printing, both traditional typesetting and options with new technology, by collaboratively printing a small edition of broadsides. This workshop is most suitable for those with little to no previous letterpress experience. This is a great opportunity for writers to get their hands dirty and get some first-hand experience with letterpress. Students learn the basics of hand-set type, how to print letterpress on a Vandercook proof press, what their options are for imagery, how other people are using letterpress in their own publishing activities. We'll take a look at a wide range of printed materials, swap resources, and generally immerse ourselves in the world of printing and publishing. We hope that at the end of the five days, everyone involved will go out and start their own press!

You can download the call for entries here.

Visit to the Cloisters

Member Laurence Fayard sent us these photos from our recent tour of the garden and shed at the Cloisters, including a presentation by Peter Schell who demonstrated the ways natural plant fibers can be processed and used in bookmaking.

Volunteer and student Thea Harting sent in this bit of feedback about the trip:

My favorite part of the tour was visiting the Shed and seeing dyes and pigments that humans have used for thousands of years. It was a privilege to see, touch, and even smell plants at different stages on their way to becoming artists’ materials. Other highlights included watching Peter make cordage from nettle and spin flax using a drop spindle.

Thanks Laurence! Thanks Thea!