Center for Book Arts

Tuesday Typefaces: Caslon Openface

2012-01-31T07:00:00.000-05:00

Of the hundreds of typefaces that the Center for Book Arts has in its collection, there are 22 different variations of Caslon, named for William Caslon I (1692-1766), the great British type designer. Caslon's typefaces were inspired by Dutch Baroque types, commonly used types in England at that time. They are characterized by short ascenders (the portion of a lower-case letter that extends upward, above the letter's x-height) and descenders (the portion that extends below the baseline), and bracketed serifs (the decorative detail on the end of some of the strokes of each letter).

Caslon's designs were immediately popular and used for many important printed works, including the first printed version of the Declaration of Independence. After his death, the use of his types diminished, but they experienced a revival in the 1840s as a part of the British Arts and Crafts movement. New versions based on his original 18th Century designs spread, sometimes having little or nothing in common besides the serifs and the name. Today there are many typefaces called "Caslon" with some other distinguishing element, which reproduce the original to varying degrees.

The Center's collection includes several different variations on Caslon, including Caslon 540, issued by American Type Foundry in 1902; Caslon Openface, issued by Barnhart Brothers & Spindler in 1915; and Caslon Antique, a decorative American typeface that was designed in 1894 by Berne Nadall. Despite the name, Caslon Antique is not actually a member of the Caslon family of typefaces at all, since it has little to do with the original forms designed by William Caslon. Nadall's foundry, Barnhart Bros. & Spindler, renamed the face in the mid-1920s.as a a marketing maneuver to boost the popularity of a previously unpopular typeface by associating it with the more popular Caslon.

Many of our variations on Caslon can be classified as display faces, suitable for headlines and posters and other occasions that call for a decorative touch. These faces are perhaps not suitable for an entire novel, but may be perfect for a title page or invitation.

A wonderful part of working at the Center for Book Arts is the ability to use (or simply look at) all the different styles of type that it has to offer. With the electronic age, it is easy to take it for granted that each typeface was designed by an artist who took each letter into consideration. Each piece of type, crafted in metal or wood, is a work of art in itself, and it is great to take the time to appreciate that. Caslon Openface is just one, so join us next week for another!

-Christina Squitieri

Have any stories about your favorite (or least favorite) typeface? Want to give us suggestions or comments? Comment on this post, email us at info@centerforbookarts.org, visit us on Facebook (/centerforbookarts) or follow us on Twitter (@center4bookarts). Can't wait to see you there!

Monday Methods: The Headband

2012-01-30T07:00:00.000-05:00

Welcome to the Center for Book Arts' first edition of "Monday Methods"! Today we'll be talking about a very small element in nearly every hardcover book printed today: the headband.

Headbands, which appear on the head and tail end of a book, were originally a functional part of the book-binding process. They were used to connect and hold sections of a book together, and the slight protrusion also protected the part of the spine (where the book was sewn) that was left unprotected by the front or back cover. Nowadays in commercially-bound books they are usually purely decorative, yet are still so tied to the aesthetic of the hardback book that it would be strange to see one otherwise.


A round-back book with a headband

Headbands for hand bookbinding today can either be purchased already-made on a roll and then glued onto the spine of the book as-is, as at left in the picture; or sewn by hand with silk thread. Headbands can be made out of any colors you choose, but often they consist of two. The pre-made headbands that beginning students use in Bookbinding I are made of a piece of cloth with a round, embroidered bump of color at one end. Modern books that are mass-produced have reams of headbands made on a machine, which are also attached to the book after the pages are put together.

Artists at the Center for Book Arts sometimes choose to make their own headbands from scratch, and every once in a while a weekend class is given on how to sew your own. Sewn headbands can be made in striped, chevron, and other patterns. The silk thread is sewn in a pattern around a stiff core and laced into each section of the book itself as it is made, so that the headband is fully integrated into the textblock itself. A fantastic resource on the subject is Headbands: How To Work Them, by Jane Greenfield & Jenny Hille (Oak Knoll Press, 2008).

If you have any hardcover books in your house (including dictionaries), I encourage you to take a look at them. Do they have headbands? What color are they? Odds are, a hardcover book does have them, and you may not have noticed them (or appreciated them) before! An important part of bookmaking before our time, the little headband continues to be a part of bookmaking today.

We hope you enjoyed the first day of our new blogging adventure! Please comment below with suggestions, questions, or stories about headbands (did you look and realize your old copy of Hemingway has the same headband as your copy of the DaVinci Code? We want to hear it!). You can also help start a conversation on Facebook (/centerforbookarts) or Twitter (@center4bookarts). Can't wait to see you there!

-Christina Squitieri

Coming Soon to the CBA Blog: Daily Columns!

2012-01-24T13:36:00.000-05:00

Hello, everyone! The Center for Book Arts Blog is going to be making some exciting and new changes soon. Starting next week, we will be posting daily! Each day is going to have a theme, giving you the chance to learn more about the CBA, what we do, and what you can learn here. Here is an outline of what each day will look like:

Methods Monday: Think bookbinding and printing are things of the past? Not true! The methods we use at the CBA are still used (though to a much larger scale) in modern book production. Start your week off with a cup of coffee and a look through the bindery and printshop to see how similar your copy of Twilight is to what we do (and teach!) every day.

Typeface Tuesday: Did you know the CBA has over 800 different fonts in our printshop? These different typefaces and sizes are used by local artists to create everything from poetry chapbooks to thank-you cards. Tune in as we explore the history, artistry, and usage of one each week.

Wednesday Exhibitions: The Center for Book Arts has exhibitions in its gallery space, presenting the work of contemporary book and letterpress artists all over the country, and these books are ART! Each Wednesday, take a look at what people today are doing with paper and ink. Your Kindle may be good for breezing through the New York Times on the subway, but I can guarantee it can't come close to these innovative and beautiful pieces.

Thursday Terms: Taking a class at the CBA with definitely enhance your vocabulary. Methyl cellulose, signatures, and em dashes are common in daily conversation. Ever want to know what these words mean and how they apply to book arts? Stop by on Thursdays for a taste of what you can learn—even in our intro classes.

Friday Insights: The Center for Book Arts doesn't just have open houses and gallery openings. We're here 6 days of week, and daily artists rent studio space and work on their projects, classes are taught, and administration gets done. Check in on Fridays to find out what happens on the day-to-day basis here (and perhaps even interviews with artists!)

As the Center for Book Arts Blog transitions to our daily format, we encourage feedback from our readers. Is there anything you particularly like? Dislike? Have ideas for new columns? Let us know! Feel free to drop us a line either in a comment to one of our posts or email us at info@centerforbookarts.org. Thank you and we hope you enjoy this new and exciting page!

Paper Marbling

2012-01-20T11:00:00.000-05:00

Coming up next month, we're proud to offer the opportunity to learn the traditional technique of paper marbling. On February 11th, Steve Pittelkow will join us at the Center to share his expertise in the art of Turkish Marbling. Pittelkow's interest in marbled paper stems from a longtime desire to personalize his own bookbinding with distinctive papers. He teaches extensively and enjoys revealing the secrets for successful marbling. Over the years, he has experimented with a wide variety of paints and papers in a quest for materials that allow students a rich and satisfying marbling experience.

Paper marbling is a method of surface design, used to create colorful patterns similar to smooth marble or stone. Marbled papers are popular used as endpapers in books, and can personalize your work with an energizing hit of color. Turkish marbling involves suspending colored pigments in a water bath, and then manipulating the colors into a pattern using combs, rakes, brushes or other implements. The pattern is then transferred to a prepared sheet of paper. There's a great essay here on the different types of marbling techniques, both Eastern and Western methods, and a discussion of how to classify marbled papers, as well as a beautiful database of different kinds of marbled papers, organized by type of pattern, for your visual enjoyment.

Once you've browsed their collection, you hopefully are itching to try it for yourself. Registration is here for next month's class; students will learn to mix the bath and colors, prepare paper, and practice many traditional patterns. This 'at the tank' class will provide each student with many papers for use in future projects.

Crafting a Narrative

2012-01-17T15:47:00.002-05:00

Artist Iviva Olenick is back at the Center February 4-5, Saturday and Sunday, with a class that focuses on the narrative possibilities of working in fabric. Crafting a Narrative is a weekend immersion in fiber techniques, including text-based embroidery, basic applique and fabric collage techniques, and image transfer methods. She says "The goal is for students to incorporate new techniques into the creation of a soft "book" in unconventional form, or a piece of narrative artwork".

Iviva is a Brooklyn-based visual artist who embroiders daily. She works in series, blending illustration and text in autobiographical embroidered textiles. You can see more of her work here. and on her embroidered blog.

Registration for her class is here: don't miss out!

New Programs for a New Year!

2012-01-13T17:15:00.000-05:00

Have you taken a look at our website recently? We've updated both the classes and events pages with all the exciting things we have planned for the New Year. Some highlights include:

A Paper Marbling workshop on February 11 with master of the art, Steve Pittelkow
The return of the Caterpillar Stitch on March 17-18
Experimental Letterpress! An immersion into the world of H.N. Werkman with Lynne Avadenka as your guide. March 16-18.

Paper like leather, Bark like thread:Korean Paper Techniques with Aimee Lee. Feb. 4-5.
The opening of our Winter Exhibitions! January 18th is the opening reception for Fine & Dirty: Contemporary Letterpress Art, as well as two new Featured Artist Projects by Ethan Shoshan and Patricia Ward.
Celebration of the Chapbook 2012: Featuring readings, panels, workshops, and a book fair. Events here at the Center on Wednesday, March 28th and at CUNY Grad Center on March 29-30.
Talks on the history and practice of typography: with Barbara Henry, Russell Maret, Micah Currier, and Jesse Ragan.
And more! Artist Talks, our Winter Open House, Book Arts Lounge.....

There's so much going on you won't even notice the cold! (You can thank us later for filling your calendar for you.) What are you looking forward to this year?

Thank you!

2011-12-16T16:28:00.000-05:00

Thank you for taking a workshop this year:

Thank you for coming to an artist talk:

Thank you for attending a reading:

Or coming to an Open House:

Or the Annual Benefit!

For supporting our artist residencies:

And our exhibitions:

And bringing your students here to learn more:

The Center for Book Arts Annual Fund helps us to continue everything that we do in 2012. You can learn more and donate here.

New York Types

2011-12-06T12:31:00.001-05:00

For all you letterpress enthusiasts, the Center is participating in a letterpress show opening next week on Thursday night. NEW YORK TYPES, running December 15, 2011 through January 6, 2012 at the Art Directors Club in Manhattan, is presented in collaboration with New York Writes Itself (NYWI), a new ongoing series of creative productions fueled by the people of New York, and Leo Burnett New York.

NYWI is designed to connect the people of New York with the city’s creative community. The foundation of NYWI is a website that acts as a running archive called ‘The Script’, where people can record New York moments. Locals registered as “scribes” can submit short-form content like unique quotes, characters, and scenes they witness in New York. NEW YORK TYPES is the first in a planned series of creative collaborations based off of this script.

Nine artists from the Center for Book Arts (Roni Gross, Barbara Henry, Tim Fite, Jennifer Putvin, Amber McMillan, Kara Lack, Richard O'Russa, Alisa Ochoa and Sarah Nicholls) are participating in this group letterpress show. Several different printshops around New York -- including Swayspace, the Center for the Book Arts, The KDU, Peter Kruty Editions and Tarhorse Press -- worked to produce limited editions based on a collection of NYWI ‘Script’ entries to interpret in his or her own letterpress style, bringing the real words to life letter by letter. The artwork is for sale in limited editions of 10, with a total of 500 pieces for sale.

NEW YORK TYPES opens with a party on Thursday, December 15, 6:30 pm-10:30 pm EST, at the ADC Gallery, 106 West 29th St., NYC. The exhibition is made possible through support by Leo Burnett NY, Dewars, Boxcar Press and French Paper. The exhibition runs until January 5, 2012, free and open to the public. Gallery hours Monday-Friday, 10:00 am-6:00 pm, closed December 23-30. For more information, please visit http://www.newyorkwritesitself.com/2011/10/new-york-types/RSVP here http://www.facebook.com/events/270664696319545/

Book Arts Lounge: Wearable Narratives

2011-12-01T14:18:00.001-05:00

You don't have to get a tattoo to wear your story! Book artists adorn anything and everything with words -- clothes and jewelry are no exception. Join Shanna Yarbrough tomorrow night at 6pm for December's Book Arts Lounge, which focuses on Wearable Narratives.

After a brief tutorial and introduction to materials, attendees will have an opportunity to make a personal statement through words or images that can be worn. We'll have on hand the tools and textiles needed to embroider a mini-narrative on a cloth bracelet or brooch, or to write/draw your message in a miniature book pendant.

This project is perfect for gift-making: this well may be the most enjoyable and least expensive holiday shopping trip you've ever taken!

Suggested Admission: $10 / $5 members; RSVP here.

Material meets Minsky!

2011-11-09T16:22:00.000-05:00

We were lucky enough to host a combination book launch/talk/hands-on workshop with the inimitable Richard Minsky last Friday night, November 4th. Minsky's new work: The Book Art of Richard Minsky has just been published by George Braziller (you can get a copy here.) Minsky read from the book, talked about his career in the book arts, shared his views on the design of book covers, and generally wowed the assembled audience. It was a lovely night with new and old friends. Here's some photos:

Thanks to guest Richard C. Levy for these photos.

Broadside

2011-10-25T16:47:00.001-04:00

Broadside, a photo by Center for Book Arts on Flickr.

Kimberly McClure's broadside for Paolo Javier, hot off the press and waiting to be trimmed. Come to tomorrow night's reading at the Center at 6:30 and you can take one home with you! Javier will be reading with Corina Copp, hosted by Anselm Berrigan. Tomorrow night, October 26th, 6:30pm.

Blackletter Variations

2011-10-22T16:34:00.000-04:00

Join us in November for master calligrapher Karen Gorst's new class in Black Letter Variations. Black Letter and its variations, shunned in post WWII era as the black sheep of typography, are now the height of fashion, appearing on popular clothing and advertising.

Used in manuscripts and documents throughout Western Europe for centuries, this script form developed many different forms in different countries, and especially became associated with Germanic countries. Black letter script forms were adapted over the years to metal printing type, and eventually to digital fonts. These days, black letter is enjoying a moment in the sun. If you're looking for exciting samples of black letter in use, take a look at Fraktur Mon Amour, designer Judith Schalansky's love letter to black letter typography.

For the calligraphy student, black letter, known for its straight, rhythmic small letters and contrasting flamboyant capitals, is the perfect first lettering style to learn. The disciplined letter bodies are adorned by free-flowing flourishes and provide a platform for both beginning and advanced students to explore the swash and rhythmic dance of the broad edged pen. Those who have studied broad edged pen calligraphy before can focus on letter variations or chose to learn one of ten different calligraphy styles.

Karen Gorst is a calligrapher, manuscript illuminator and book artist who has been practicing her craft for more than 20 years. A co-founder of the Gabriel Guild, she is a visiting instructor and lecturer at many institutions, including the Pierpont Morgan Library, the Penland School of Crafts, the Craft Students League, the Cloisters and Wellesley College.

Register now and secure your slot in our five week exploration of all things black letter! Time is running out; complete registration details are here. Class starts promptly on November 8th and runs for five Tuesday evenings at 6:30pm.

A visit to Dobbin Mill

2011-10-20T18:08:00.000-04:00

On Saturday, October 15, on the Greenpoint/Williamsburg boarder, members at the Friend level and above of the Center visited the studios and home of Robbin Ami Silverberg and Andras Böröcz. Guests toured Dobbin Mill where Robbin makes her own handmade paper. The tour also included a visit to her garden where plants are grown to be converted into raw material for papermaking. The group also toured Andras's and Robbin's studios, where both shared and explained several new works. Guests enjoyed a lovely reception in their home that was graciously sponsored by Osteria Il Paiolo, a local favorite restaurant, at 106 North 6^th Street.

This event is one in series of private events for members at the Friend ($100) level and above. The next tour will be in January at the private Library of David S. Rose. If you would like to upgrade your membership and become a Friend so you may enjoy these free activities, please contact the Center at (212) 481-0295

Collective Bookmaking at the Reanimation Library

2011-10-14T15:14:00.001-04:00

Coming up next month: A unique opportunity to use the resources of the Reanimation Library to produce a collective artist book. Please join us for this exciting bookmaking experiment!

On November 5-6, The Center will hold a two-day workshop in Collective Bookmaking with the Reanimation Library. Participants will spend Saturday at the Library in Brooklyn with Founder Andrew Beccone, where they will devise the physical and conceptual structure of a book by gathering images and text from the library's collection. This found material will constitute the primary source of the book's content. On Sunday, the class will meet here at the Center where they will assemble the book with the assistance of CBA staff. Each participant will receive a copy of the finished book.

Located near the Gowanus Canal, The Reanimation Library is a small, independent Library open to the public. Its non-circulating collection of books have fallen out of routine circulation and have been acquired for their visual content. Outdated and discarded, they have been culled from thrift stores, stoop sales, and throw-away piles, and given new life as a resource for artists, writers, cultural archeologists, and other interested parties. Works in the collection are freely made available to visitors to use as a departure point for new creative work, and the library provides two scanners and a copier for visitors who find something they'd like to take with them. The Library aims to be a resource for the production of new creative work, to encourage collaboration, and to explore links between the digital and analog, among other worthy endeavors.

The library is generally divided up into three main parts: the main body of the collection, the Primary Collection, which consists of various outdated, obsolete, and otherwise discarded volumes on subjects from psychology to theater design, mathematics, dentistry, plant cultivation and much, much more; the Reference Collection, which brings together creative projects which rely on found sources, including exhibition catalogs, writing and art projects, and reference works on book design and typography. The third part of the collection, the Copyright Collection, addresses the pitfalls and legal issues that artists and writers working with found material may confront, containing works that discuss copyright law for a general audience.

Their recently updated website includes many, many samples of the library's holdings and allows you to browse the collection by volume or by image. I could spend many hours looking through these tantalizing snippets, and am right now planning a trip to the library myself. So what are you waiting for? Registration is happening now, please join us!

Emily Martin: Theme and Variation

2011-10-13T11:13:00.001-04:00

We're super excited for the talk we're hosting this Friday night, October 14, at 6:30pm with Emily Martin, book artist, printmaker and educator. Her Featured Artist Project Theme and Variation is up in the foyer gallery right now. The selected works represent some of her work in print, as well as some sculptural books. Images and ideas repeat across many of the pieces, whether in print or in book format. She says about these works:

Sometimes I start with an idea for a book
sometimes the prints come first. And often
while pursuing the first idea I see another
approach to the same idea. I am intrigued by the
possibilities of these related but independent
pieces. Differences in formats focus the viewer’s
attention in different ways.

Emily Martin lives in Iowa City, Iowa, USA where she has her studio and also teaches atthe University of Iowa Center for the Book.
Her work is in public and private collectionsthroughout the United States and internationally, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; The Victoria andAlbert Museum, London; The Museum of Contemporary Art of Chicago; The Marvin and Ruth Sackner Archive of Concrete and Visual Poetry, Miami Beach, Florida andothers.

She'll be teaching a workshop this weekend on Carousel Books- October 15 and 16, Saturday and Sunday-and there's still a few spots left in the class if you'd like to join us! There's more information about that here.

2011 Poetry Chapbook Reading

2011-10-11T17:09:00.002-04:00

Thank you to everyone who made last week's Poetry Chapbook Reading possible. It was a truly enjoyable event, and the books this year were particularly stunning. Thanks to all the poets, artists, organizers and volunteers who helped make it happen: Series curator Sharon Dolin, 2011 Judge Kimiko Hahn, winner Nehassaiu deGannes, Honorable Mentions Sue Burton and Mark McKain; and the artist who produced our glorious publications: Ed Rayher from Swamp Press; Ana Cordeiro and Brigid Ewald; Kyle Holland and Phoebe Bachman.
There’s a set of photos from the event on our flickr site here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/centerforbookarts/sets/72157627739163461/with/6231274207/

Photos by our new volunteer Lena Adasheva, who also videotaped the reading, which we will hopefully be posting on our website soon as well.

The Night Hunter-this Friday

2011-10-01T11:34:00.000-04:00

We’re really looking forward to the next Book Arts Lounge coming up on Friday October 7. Poet Nancy Campbell will visit us, to help guide us through her collaboration with Roni Gross and Peter Schell, The Night Hunter, a beautiful limited edition artist book.

Roni Gross has this to tell me about her process in working on this project: “The structure of this poem is called a pantoum. It calls for the lines of text to repeat in a particular order in the stanzas and so I decided to assign a color to each line. The reader is cued in to the repetition of the language as each board is turned over and the colored lines are revealed. I intended the drawn lines to abstractly allude to a landscape. Both the form of the poem and the structure of the book (a palm leaf) originated in Southeast Asia. In developing this work we wanted the reader to have a experience with the book which would give sensory information about the life of the hunter in a barren landscape.”

The collaborators will talk about their project, which began in response to Campbell’s residency in the most northerly museum in the world, on a remote island off the west coast of Greenland in the winter of 2010. Campbell wrote a series of poems about the environment, of which one, The Night Hunter, received a Norman MacCaig Centenary award.

You can see more images of their collaboration here.

Nancy Campbell will read from her work and also talk about yet another wonderful book: How To Say ‘I Love You’ in Greenlandic, her abecedarium of the evocative Arctic language. She says on her website: “The Greenlandic language – famous for its many words for snow – expresses the Arctic ecosystem better than the writings of any climate scientist. It is indispensable for our understanding of the environment, yet UNESCO declares several of its dialects to be in danger of extinction.” To help slow the extinction process, Lounge guests will have the chance to print and take home Greenlandic flash cards as keepsakes.

Learn more about Nancy Campbell on her blog. Roni Gross's portfolio is here. And Peter's work can be seen here. We hope you can join us for this special celebration of both oral and print cultures. Join us from 6 to 9 pm on the 7^th; tasty snacks and refreshments will be served. $10 suggested donation at the door, $5 for members.

Collection Spotlight: Jim Pernotto's "Upper U.S. Papermill"

2011-09-10T15:00:00.000-04:00

Continuing our examination of unconventional materials and methods used in the creation of artist’s books, is Jim Pernotto’s Upper U.S. Papermill. I selected this work because of the interesting binding, as well as the juxtaposition of the leaves of paper.

Pernotto’s work spans a good chunk of time and makes use of all media. His foundational experimentation in expression came in the form of papermaking and printmaking, though he now paints and uses various mediums in order to explore recent fascination with the nexus of science and myth. Interweaving time and space, the viewer pulls apart meaning from context. Convergence of themes seems to be how Pernotto finds success in his compositions. In Upper U.S. Papermill, created in 1975, we see the concept of book as a radically bound object from another consciousness. Pernotto does not deem a conventional vertical binding necessary to understand content. He opts for a a form resembling a curved, toothy smile, the stitching mimicking sutures in skin. The grin widens to allow movement, while the corners restrict the opening.

The content of Pernotto’s book is just as unconventional. The intersections and angles created by the papers have a chaotic melody to their interaction, making the layered masking tape composition all the more at home in a hyper 3D context. The comic book characters who have been operated on with ballpoint pen seem less defaced and marred… than corrected into a new harmonious existence with their surroundings. The dyed handmade paper has the look of a botched litmus test done with blood. A squinted eye strikes this viewer with a second of hazy confusion: “Instructions? Directions? Discarded street origami made by a newspaper that’s weathered the gust of a passing bus and bled at the hands of a brief downpour?” Pernotto’s work achieves balance amidst chaos and shows the possibilities of artistic expression within a medium that has flowered from rigidity into expressive fragility.

Collection Spotlight: Maryann Riker's "Dreams"

2011-09-08T16:35:00.000-04:00

Unconventional materials used in a dynamic way to create both the environment and subtext to storytelling are especially engaging. Maryann Riker uses vellum and acetate to create a narrative in her piece Dreams.

Riker uses blue and white mottled vellum as end paper, forming a backdrop for the four clear acetate leaves of her book. One can guess that she wishes to mimic sky and clouds. Perhaps she is referencing adages of dreamers having their head in the clouds, or an evolving, dynamic space that seems finite in cliché, but infinite in practice. On clear acetate she has printed partial compositions which, when layered upon one another, become a collected image of snapshots, an outline of a house, and the phrase “Dreams/ Forever Omnipotent/ Always Elusive.”

Riker’s composition relies on the reader to open the book, and through the turning of each page, subtract an image, constantly transforming the overall image into a new message to take away. The images suggest a wandering mind seeking stability. The house is rendered as an outline, showing the frame only. Other images appear within this structure. The snapshots show people, who do not connect intimately with us as readers, and who appear to struggle against the restraints imposed by the architectural structure. Riker’s quote “Dreams/ Forever Omnipotent/ Always Elusive” refers to the notion of a full fledged fantasy within the constant confines of reality. The images are printed on clear material, drawing parallels to the negative space our dreams inhabit.

What does it mean to use acetate and vellum in lieu of paper in a book? The flipping of a page is fluid against the fingers, yet the motion is stiffer because the acetate is less flexible. The pages are less likely to suffer creases at the hands of readers. Vellum is traditionally made with mammal skin, but in modern use, and in this case, it is plasticized cotton. Plastic, when stored properly, is less vulnerable to rogue elements than paper, and using plastic instead of paper also defines a choice of permanence on Riker’s part. She manipulates a material that exists indefinitely. Paper, on the other hand, can be broken down and re-purposed pretty swiftly by any paper-maker. The turnover rate in commercial paper recycling is also much faster than that of plastics, with less loss of material, and less energy used during conversion. This whole concept seems to reflect on the “omnipotent”--and enduring--nature of dreams. The evolution of a dream is sometimes more about steam than realization.

Find out more about this piece here.

-Rebecca Kish

Open House This Saturday 9/10 from 2-5pm

2011-09-07T14:11:00.000-04:00

This Saturday, September 10 from 2 – 5 pm is our Fall Open House/ Closing Party!

Come help us kick off the Fall Semester with a special Saturday Arts Book Lounge.

The schedule is as follows:

All Day: Brigid Elmer and friends will be binding chapbooks in the Bindery, and Ana Cordeiro will be printing in the printshop

2:00: Jennifer Verbit will be demonstrating some simple pop-up engineering.

2:30: Kimberly McClure will be printmaking on the etching press.

3:00: Sarah Mcdermott will be demonstrating simple binding techniques.

3:30: Yukari Hayashida will also be demonstrating binding techniques.

Come check out their crafts and preview the fall course line-up. Staff will be available to talk about the Center's programs, advise students about workshops being offered this fall, and discuss our exciting ongoing renovations. Refreshments will be on hand.

It is also the last day to view our summer exhibitions, Multiple, Limited, Unique: Highlights from the Permanent Collection of The Center for Book Arts and The Un[framed] Photograph. Artists Heidi Neilson, and Franco Marinai, showing in the The [Un]Framed Photograph will be on hand to talk about their work.

3:30: Franco Marinai

4:00: Heidi Neilson

Admission is free and open to the public.

Here’s some details about some exciting new courses we’ll be offering in the fall:

In the Bindery:

DIY Bookbinding - Do you have a book you'd like to bind? Bring your pages to class and bind them into a traditional, sewn cloth-covered book. You could bind your novel, thesis, drawings, digital photos, field notes, children's art, recipes, family history or even blank pages to make a sketchbook or travel journal. November 19th with Susan Mills.

Black Letter Variations - Black Letter and its variations, shunned in post WWII era, are now the height of fashion, appearing on popular clothing and advertising. Students will learn broad edged pen fundamentals while applying them to black letter forms. Nov 8 -Dec 6 with Karen Gorst.

In the Printshop:

Rock and Roll Letterpress - Explore the unlikely lover affair between rock and roll and letterpress and discuss the benefits of small press printing for DIY music production, promotion, and merchandising. Design and print a fantasy concert poster using polymer plates, linoleum block, and wood type. October 29-30 with Tim Fite.

We look forward to seeing you all!

Collection Spotlight: Maddy Rosenberg's The Mini Book of Death

2011-09-01T13:03:00.000-04:00

From artist Maddy Rosenberg comes a 2008 accordion book titled The Mini Book of Death. Rosenberg presents us with a white fold out book in which quotes about death stand starkly in the middle of each page. The expression of many artists’ fascination with death has made its way into a variety of formats and perspectives (for irony and humor think Arnow, for a worldview of the death of women look at Silverberg). The energy that Rosenberg impresses upon the page is that of wisdom and enlightenment. The dark ink of the quotes is swallowed by the enveloping white, and the dimensions lend a feeling that such wisdom is to be carried around and absorbed into the subconscious, a petite business model of the balance of life and death.

“As a well day spent brings happy sleep, so life well used brings happy death” – Leonardo da Vinci

"Death is nothing to us, since when we are, death does not come, and when death has come, we are not."- Epicurus

Maddy Rosenberg is an artist that works in several media. She paints with oils, prints, draws, and creates artists’ books, installations and toy theater. She also has a history of working with The Center for Book Arts. In 2010 she curated her third exhibition at CBA, Narrative Sequences. She is involved in numerous arts initiatives, including her DUMBO gallery, Central Booking, which shares our passion for bringing book arts to the public.

Visit Maddy Rosenberg’s website here.

View this and other works of Rosenberg’s here.

-Rebecca Kish

Collection Spotlight: Eileen Arnow-Levine's Danse Macabre

2011-08-25T15:00:00.000-04:00

In our Fine Art Collection is Danse Macabre, another chapbook by the darkly humorous Eileen Arnow-Levine. This book is 16 pages, staple and saddle stitched, contains offset lithography and illustrations. The subject matter is a modern take on Danse Macabre, or the Dance of the Dead. Arnow claims to base her work specifically off of Hans Holbein the Younger’s woodcuts, which portray various people of all occupations being led by a skeleton.

Holbein’s work is the most popular of the initial records of Danse Macabre, being created in the 1520’s and executed in 1538, though records of this conceptual expression reach back 100 years prior. Arnow borrows the format of Holbein’s work, framing the episode with a thin black border and captions to describe the nature of the drawing.

[From Holbein's woodcuts circa 1520's]

[From Arnow's Danse Macabre, 1989]

Arnow’s success lies within her ability to provide relatable satire for the viewer. The serious nature of the original woodcuts were inspired by the plague, but Arnow’s take on a different type of plague while holding true to the idea of death’s immediacy. The Commutation depicts a young woman during her commute, hanging onto a strap facing death, who is also hanging on so he doesn’t fall over. The arduous and repetitive nature of commuting back and forth while inhabiting a liminal public space is appealing to Arnow’s sense of modern community. Arnow takes a common issue such as movement and updates it from Holbein’s modes (which range from walking, to ship, to plowing a field).

Arnow’s work also divorces us from Holbein’s religious focus, driving us to recognize the plagues of popular culture, such as drunk driving. Though Arnow’s grim humor is certainly one of the most noticeable facets of her work, credit must be given to her consistent homage to foundational aspects of book arts and antiquated formatting. Other examples of this, and more works are available on her website.

Collection Spotlight: Stephanie Brody-Lederman's "A Modern-Day Cowboy"

2011-08-23T14:58:00.000-04:00

In our fine arts collection is a book called A Modern-Day Cowboy, by painter and book artist Stephanie Brody-Lederman. This book is unconventionally bound at the top with two brass paper binders, evoking the style of a reporter/steno notepad, or--more fitting for the book's symptomatic character--a medical chart.

[click to enlarge]

Brody-Lederman tackles the subject of everyday experience while straddling the line of private vs. public interpretation. The book is a written record of one individual’s experience, and Brody-Lederman illustrates the text with various media and moody colors. In this piece, she uses stamps to execute variations on the image of a business man. Her application of sprayed and brushed paint encloses the subject, yet simultaneously works to imply a disconnect. The borders of the page serve to render the content episodic.

[click to enlarge]

Brody-Lederman has said that her works are inspired by the everyday, and the subject matter[1] here alludes to the tight grip of consumerism and the culture of possession. In reference to her character “Howard:” “He felt uncomfortable unless he was in the fastest moving lane” could refer to the divorce of man and machine rendered by anxiety as a sensory experience. Brody-Lederman’s work, though concretely serving as record, implies an emotional, personal response found in the diary-like curvature of dashes and often smudged cursive. While earlier works may rely more heavily on the symbolic[2], current paintings up on Brody-Lederman’s website indicate an ongoing, but maturing relationship with icons through a different medium.

You can read more about this piece here.

[1] Gomez, Edward M. Art in America; Sep2008, Vol. 96 Issue 8, p171-171, 2/3p

[2] ART REVIEW; Two Who Transform The Ordinary Into Icons. New York Times [0362-4331] yr:1992 pg:20

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-Rebecca Kish

Collections Spotlight: Martha Carothers' You Bet

2011-08-13T13:00:00.000-04:00

Martha Carothers' book You Bet is a pamphlet bound book of ten leaves. The paper is hand made and the cutouts are in the style of the four suits of a deck of cards (diamond, club, heart, spade). The text shown is meant to be a prompt in the style of “You Bet,” such as “You bet your life."

Perhaps the most interesting component of this book, from a craft standpoint, is Carothers clever embedding of thread within the paper. The thread acts as both a veil to the next page and a filler when lifted into the light, partially reconstructing the solid space that was excised.

Paper cutouts are a versatile means of altering a book, that can be used to create anything from extremely basic formal and abstract shapes to an intricate world constructed within negative space. Here Carothers opts for the subtraction of paper into easily recognizable shapes, but complicates the space through her use of embedded threads.

Currently available for Fall registration at the Center for Book Arts are our classes Short Cuts which explores different paper cutting techniques, pop-ups and silhouettes, as well as Fables and Fairy Tales: Paper Art Workshop which explores the art of the Victorian-style tunnel book. Both classes offer a 3D approach to paper construction and encourage you to flex your creativity.

To read more about this work, click here.

Rebecca Kish

Collections Spotlight: North American Hand Papermaking 1976, Richard Minsky, et al.

2011-08-11T10:28:00.000-04:00

We are proud to be in possession of a compilation of papers featuring some of the best-known and most celebrated papermakers of recent history, bound by CBA founder Richard Minsky. Featuring over 32 artists, this portfolio of various papers is accordion bound and unfolds into a lengthy 51 feet for presentation purposes.

Each artist's entry includes the artist’s handmade paper on the left, and a photo and statement on the right. Because of the nature of the binding, each work can be viewed as an individual document, independent from the portfolio.

Amongst the included artists is the late Douglass Morse Howell (1906 – 1994) who became discouraged with the archival quality of paper in the 1930’s and eventually went on to open up his own paper studio, printing small editions of his work onto uniquely crafted papers. Experimenting with different components, textures, and colors, Howell used home grown flax, pure linen and local spring water. While not initially popular in book arts circles, Howell proved himself time and again, passing his knowledge on to many worthy students and producing his work proudly.

Also included: Roland Poska, a pioneer in papermaking who has been committed to the diversity and experimental components of paper since the purchase of his first grinder in 1967. Founder of the “Fishy Whale Press,” Poska focused mainly on the forms and energy of nature, and is currently involved in the Great Human Race Initiative, a proposal to end prejudice and violence and achieve respect for all. His work makes use of the “deckle edge,” asserting the beauty and balance in that which is uneven.

This work serves as a collected document of diversity and innovation. Both traditional and experimental techniques are represented, providing a contrast and making this volume a source of American papermaking history. In two volumes (this being the first), the one-of-a-kind construction lends the feeling of importance to a new era of paper preservation.

At The Center for Book Arts, one of our Fall Classes available for immediate registration is Portable Papermaking. Learn how to set up a papermaking studio in a confined or nontraditional space, while churning out sheets of your own creation. Explore this ancient art in a traditional cadence or experimental rhythm and create paper that suits your own aesthetic.

On Howell:
http://www.laurencebarker.com/article_papertrails.html

On Poska:

http://www.lituanus.org/1987/87_4_06.htm

http://sacredartpilgrim.com/collection/view/53

Collection Spotlight: Robbin Ami Silverberg's "All About Women"

2011-07-31T16:40:00.000-04:00

Our exhibition Multiple, Limited, Unique, on view at the Center until September 10, includes the work All About Women, created by Robbin Ami Silverberg. This book is a pamphlet concertina and number 7 in an edition of 20. The papers used are handmade and painted, varying in color, weight, and composition from leaf to leaf. The text was printed using an archival inkjet printer.

Silverberg tackles anti-woman rhetoric on a global scale, collecting derogatory proverbs into four categories- death, sex, knowledge, and good/evil. Although she has chosen to print some of the text in upper and some in lower case, the delivery is uniform across the page and clustered in patterns through clever use of repetition.

Silverberg is concerned with the traditional perception of how the work and existence of women is equivocated to worth, and the common thread of oppression as expressed across the continents. One of Silverberg’s other works, a very literal piece titled Proverbial Threads, riffs on this idea through the formation of bobbins. In All About Women, however, Silverberg examines the proverbs by printing them onto crafted paper, binding them in concertina fashion to provide flexibility for the viewer’s inspection.

On Robbin Ami Silverberg’s website, she writes that her work “conceptually focuses on word cognition and interlinearity, with an emphasis on process and paper as activated substrate.” Examining the paper, one can see that the darkly colored balance of painted shapes performs a somber delivery. Blacks and dark blues make up a majority of the paper’s coloring. Paired with the proverbs, this book is a meditation on paper’s influence on the impact of letters and message delivery.

With this book, Silverberg demonstrates the mastery of her craft alongside words like “The women’s side of the house. The side without knowledge.” Silverberg exposes the preposterous nature of gender expectations and exploitation, while also reflecting on the word’s ability to restrict and govern human behavior.

To view this work, please come to The Center for Book Arts before September 10th and see it in our exhibition: “Multiple, Limited, Unique: Selections from the Permanent Collection of The Center for Book Arts.”

To read more about this work, please click here.
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-Rebecca Kish

Renovations at the Center for Book Arts

2011-07-27T13:18:00.000-04:00

A series of exciting renovations are taking place at the Center for Book Arts! Being addressed first: A new HVAC system, which is a much needed update for the Center. It will address the issues of climate control, air quality and noise.

One of our new units being hoisted into place.

The installation of the new HVAC system will ultimately make the Center for Book Arts a safer and more comfortable place to print, bind, take classes, and peruse our galleries.

Draped printing equipment and the installation of ducts.

The Center for Book Arts may have to periodically close its doors to the public, and we appreciate your patience during this time. We'll keep you updated as to emergency closings, as well as the status of our galleries. Work will take place during the day, so evening and weekend classes will not be affected. We still have a small amount of studio space, but its best if you call us ahead of time. Artist talks will go on as planned.

A population of ducts being stored in the second bindery!

While the HVAC is being installed, The Un(framed) Photograph has been temporarily taken down, in order to protect the works of art. The exhibition will be on display in its entirety for the artist talk on the evening of July 27. The exhibition will be open to the public by the end of next week at the latest, and hopefully much sooner. Multiple, Limited, Unique remains on display. Visitors to this exhibition are encouraged to visit on Saturday, when no construction will be taking place.

Carefully draped front gallery space.

The new HVAC system will enable us to better control the gallery climate, helping to protect the works of art. The second phase of the Center’s renovations, set to take place next year, will involve the construction of new gallery walls and doors, the creation of a separate collections storage/reading room, a renovated foyer and bathrooms, and the installation of new lighting throughout the space.

The third and last phase of renovations (to take place in 2013) will be to construct and install new storage units throughout the Center. Shelving units with custom doors and access features built specifically to accommodate the Center’s specialized tools and equipment will benefit our artists and students.

All of these renovations will are helping to make our space a safer, more comfortable place to view, create, and store works of art. Thank you so much for your patience as we renovate our space, and we will keep you updated as much as possible.

First Impressions - The Un(framed) Photograph: Artist Members Annual Exhibition

2011-07-17T13:17:00.001-04:00

Thalia Husain is a volunteer at the Center for Book Arts. Here, she shares her impressions of one of our current exhibitions, The Un(framed) Photograph.

The Un(framed) Photograph, one of the current exhibitions on display at the Center for Book Arts, focuses on how the art of photography, the photographic process, and related media such as video stills are used to convey content, form, text, and image with a broader context of book and related arts. Featuring current members of the Center’s artistic community and other invited artists, the exhibit includes a variety of media including books, sculptures, mixed media installations, new media, and performance art.

I enjoyed the exhibit and was surprised by the continuity of the pieces given the range of media utilized. Even while including video installations and audio pieces, the collection was united by a sense of form and text that one associates with traditional book arts. However, the addition of photographic elements added a sense of visual poetry and movement to each piece and gave dynamism to the exhibition as a whole. One of my favorite pieces was “Cloud Book Study” by Heidi Neilson. The piece consisted of a book and a short video, and the video shows the book being paged through at high speed. The high speed reveals a time-lapse film of clouds across the pages of the book, in which each page spread is a single frame of the film. The film shows the movement of the clouds across the sky in a way you couldn’t achieve by thumbing the book on your own. (see picture below)

I also found the themes of social commentary, landscape and urbanism, and pop culture running through the show to be both relevant and interesting. Among these, I thought “Farewell My Homeland”, a book of photographs printed on silk, powerfully portrayed the fear, hope, and despair experienced by people forced to leave their homeland. For me, the message was solidified through the contrast of the dark imagery with the lightness of the silk medium. Another one of my favorite pieces was “DUMBO Comic” by Paul Clay, which explored the history of Brooklyn's DUMBO district in comic book form. Using a familiar and inviting storytelling method, the artist provides a unique commentary on urban planning, quality of life, and the visual impact of the street level built environment. (see picture below)

Overall, I found “The Un(framed) Photograph" to be both thought provoking and beautiful. I really enjoyed the interactive side of the exhibit, and would encourage everyone to come and see it for themselves!

The Handwritten Text

2011-07-14T16:20:00.000-04:00

Coming up next week:
Embarrassed by your handwriting, but like the look of a hand-written text? Want to use handwriting to create a one-of-a-kind book, but would rather use someone else's? Join us next Saturday, July 23 for The Handwritten Text, a one-day intensive designed to shake up your handwriting. Under the expert tutelage of Karen Gorst, students will experiment with different pens and speeds of writing, learning about the tone and voice of their writing. Karen will encourage all to think about the rhythm of what you write, and about the form of each letter. By the end of this workshop, you'll have a new relationship with your handwriting and learn to develop writing that is fit for a manuscript!

Karen Gorst is a calligrapher, manuscript illuminator and book artist who has been practicing her craft for more than 20 years. A co-founder of the Gabriel Guild, she is a visiting instructor and lecturer at many institutions, including the Pierpont Morgan Library, the Penland School of Crafts, the Craft Students League, the Cloisters and Wellesley College.
You can find complete registration details here.

Expand your printing vocabulary: Do It Yourself Polymer Plates

2011-07-08T13:30:00.000-04:00

Van Lier Learning Series Part Two:

Do It Yourself Polymer Plates

In 2010-11 the Center awarded three year-long scholarships to Kimberly McClure, Sarah McDermott, and Benjamin Reynaert as part of the Edward and Sally Van Lier Scholarship for Advanced Studies in Book Arts, funded by the New York Community Trust Van Lier Fund. This program is intended to support individuals who have demonstrated a commitment to the artistic endeavors in the book arts, and to provide opportunities to emerging artists committed to developing careers in the book arts field. This summer we’re offering a series of three workshops with our scholars-in-residence. Students may sign up for the entire series or just for one class, each taking place on a Saturday during the months of July and August.

The second installment of this series, Do It Yourself Polymer Plates is coming up the end of this month, with Sarah McDermott. Sarah's workshop is designed to expand your options for image-making on the letterpress, and to skirt the time delay and expense often involved in sending away for polymer plates. Over the course of a fun and full day we will make polymer plates from scratched negatives, rubylith cut-outs, and solar exposure methods, without sending away for negatives or plate making. These techniques result in a variety of line qualities and textures that can be used for both images and hand-lettering. We will experiment with combining techniques as we go through the steps of preparing negatives, exposing the plates (via both an exposure unit and the sun), washing them out by hand, and then printing them.

Previous letterpress experience is recommended.

Coming up on July 30, Saturday, 10 am to 4pm
With Sarah McDermott

Complete registration details are here.

Collection Spotlight: Recovery: The Hospital Drawings of Alfonso Ossorio

2011-07-03T15:00:00.000-04:00

One of the larger works in our collection is a book called Recovery filled with matted drawings by the artist Alfonso Ossorio. Created in 1995, this compilation of drawings represents the body of work created as Ossorio pushed through his illness.

Each of his drawings is mounted and matted on Stonehenge and stamped with contiguous numbers coinciding with their appearance in the book. The drawings all contain twisting and weaving colors of cyan, orange, or magenta and hold the viewer to a mostly subconscious thread of continuity, a base level of mood. This is perhaps what makes the absence of these colors so noticeable towards the end of the illustrated series.

[click to enlarge]

Recovery represents the combined efforts of many people. The book itself was designed impeccably by The Center for Book Arts founder Richard Minsky and contains a lovingly historical and analytic purview of Ossorio’s life and artistic processes by Dr. Lewis Thomas. Praise of his legacy as an artist, benefactor, collector, and friend is stated at the very back of the book. Throughout the pages, writing and collaborative efforts are documented silently without affixed names, but on the very last page are the signatures of all of the contributors. (Collaborators include: Rose Slivka, Lewis Thomas, B H Friedman, and Richard Minsky (CBA).

Recovery is an excellent example of the book as a vessel for visual expression. The superb matte job of each print lends a clean scope to the brightly colored and intensely non-linear works they contain. From the perspective of recovery, each drawing either overwhelms the viewer with an overload of a mind in a crisis or the sparse lines of absolute conviction within expression. There is an undeniable parallel between the book as a vessel and Ossorio’s famous work in the medium of assemblage. The idea of making a statement by balancing visual components is part of all artistic media. The book is one that remains true to the idea of preserving this balance to continually inspire.

Read the colophon and find out more about this work: here.

Read an interview with Alfonso Ossorio: here.
Don't forget to attend the opening of Multiple, Limited, Unique: Selections from the Permanent Collection of the Center for Book Arts: Wednesday, July 6, 7 - 9 pm!

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Rebecca Kish

Collection Spotlight: Heidi Neilson and Chris Petrone’s “Uniform Paper”

2011-07-02T12:04:00.000-04:00

Soon to be on display in our show, Multiple, Limited, Unique is the piece Uniform Paper, created by Heidi Neilson and Chris Petrone. Many of our recent spotlights have discussed the interdisciplinary aspects of book making, but hardly touched upon the art and versatility of paper making. With this piece, Neilson and Petrone show us how we can take a common visual vocabulary and transform it into another physical vocabulary.

Uniforms sourced from the artists' personal collection, as well as sites like Ebay, were dissembled into their most basic fibers and reconstituted into leaves of paper to be bound. The artists’ idea of what we consider a uniform transcends the traditional scope of the military and working professional. Here we encounter diapers, prison jumpsuits, a wedding dress, a brownie jumper, and ballet costume. When breaking down the various materials of these uniforms, the separation of fibers and fabrics becomes more striking. When re-condensed into a paper form, the uniform colorways are destroyed and a new composition is struck.

[please click to enlarge for a better understanding of composition and texture]

The materials that are not made of 100% cotton are of note because of the unpredictable nature of their resettling. The school uniform is a perfect example of this: the fibers retain their integrity concerning color, but leave us to imagine their origin. School uniforms also vary from school to school, utilizing many different simple styles and marks of differentiation. These have more independent agency than something like a prison uniform, which utilizes a jumpsuit fit and a common traffic cone orange to express the purpose of simplicity. The leaf of paper made from the jumpsuit retains its striking color, but unlike the school uniform, settles without much reconfiguration.

Also interesting is the artists’ choice to use a diaper. We rarely think of a diaper as a uniform, but the diaper's inclusion in this book suggests that, like the other uniforms, it can be a form of social control and an indication of status.

All of these uniforms are meant to label the wearers in some mode or another, but collect into one book the various stages and decisions the wearers have made. There are uniforms that signify choice in profession, various forms of government control, moral choices, and social commitment (wedding dress, school uniform, brownie jumper).

The physical act of breaking down of a uniform and making it into a surface for writing seems appropriate for each story that the fabric could potentially hold. Upon each page is letterpress printed type acknowledging what the paper is made of. The book is bound in the Coptic style, something that denotes simplicity and longevity.

To read more about this work and what each leaf is made of, click here.

-Rebecca Kish

Van Lier Learning Series Part One: Drypoint!

2011-06-30T14:48:00.000-04:00

In 2010-11 the Center awarded three year-long scholarships to Kimberly McClure, Sarah McDermott, and Benjamin Reynaert as part of the Edward and Sally Van Lier Scholarship for Advanced Studies in Book Arts, funded by the New York Community Trust Van Lier Fund. This program is intended to support individuals who have demonstrated a commitment to the artistic endeavors in the book arts, and to provide opportunities to emerging artists committed to developing careers in the book arts field. This summer we’re offering a series of three workshops with our scholars-in-residence. Students may sign up for the entire series or just for one class, each taking place on a Saturday during the months of July and August.

The first one is coming up very soon:
Drypoint– Intaglio for the Book Minded
Drypoint is the most immediate of the Intaglio techniques, one that is well–suited for book imagery. It is a simple non-toxic process of drawing directly on a plate, using a scribe to create a burr that prints as a soft velvety line. The students will work on small copper plates. Because both sides of the copper plate can be used, each student should be able to work out a loose narrative of thought, the way one does through sketching. Students will learn the proper way to edition a print, and Kimberly will provide a printing guide for students who want to turn their prints into signatures of a book.
Coming up on July 9, Saturday, 10 am to 4pm with Kimberly McClure
Complete registration details are here

All images by Kimberly McClure.

Collection Spotlight: Shana Agid's "Hunger is the Best Sauce"

2011-06-30T14:09:00.000-04:00

Shana Agid’s work Hunger is the Best Sauce: From Oranges by John McPhee is a beautiful Coptic bound book with covers of copper. Inside, one is presented with an unusual pagination and a bevy of replicated prints. While the guts of Agid’s book contain food for thought, the title of this work also holds multiple meanings and references.

“Hunger is the best sauce” is a quote from Cervantes’ Don Quixote. The intention of the statement is that when one is hungry, all food is more appetizing because of the urge to eat and the chemical reaction that is intensified by hunger.

[click to enlarge]

The second part of the title refers to quotations pulled from John McPhee’s book Oranges, published in 1967. Some quick background: McPhee’s book explains the taste and variation of physical attributes of the fruit. McPhee describes the nuances of flavor, growing possibilities, and the fact that color does not dictate taste (that is: the outside is no reliable indication of what is within, an age old matching game of presentation versus actuality). He also provides a historical history of the fruit. When the connotation of McPhee's work and Cervantes' commentary come together, they provide a background for the idea of the mind's ability to influence expectations.

The title, though an abbreviated summation of contents, implies that the contents of Agid's own work has an imperfect and varying exterior, while the inside reflects a full spectrum of styles, media, and textures. The Coptic binding hearkens back to at least the 2nd century AD, while the various prints and unusual pagination within, rather than adhering to the style of the cover, present a diversity of personal choice. The subject of prints range from studies of the face to the study of object integration.

While Agid's choices of prints are varied, they are anything but accidental, seeking to pay homage to a diversity that the works represent. The apparent traditionalism of this book makes the contents and title that much more inviting of close study.

To learn more about this work, please click here.

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-Rebecca Kish

Collection Spotlight: Juana Valdes' "Black Ship"

2011-06-29T12:35:00.000-04:00

The Center for Book Arts prides itself in the unique and diverse works created by our Artists in Residence. Juana Valdes is no exception: her seemingly simple work [black ship] is rife with opportunities for interpretation and admiration of technical skill.

Juana Valdes was born in Cuba and arrived in the United States in 1971. She was raised in Miami and works in New York. As an artist, she is interested in storytelling and the use of mass produced goods as an element in artistic expression. Valdes works in a variety of media, including installation, sculpture and prints.

[please click to enlarge]

Though Valdes’ letterpress print on linen is smaller than her photographic installations or sculptures--many of which utilize wall space and combine the elements of wood, water and light--her message is bold in ink upon linen. Here she uses two elements of seemingly basic communication. Her choice of linen (as well as its dimensions: 15 1/2 x 16 inches) reflects the shifting meanings suggested by a material that is stable to print upon, but known for its versatile uses.

Linen has a place in antiquity as well as a changing role in the modern market. While used for such sacred rites as burial and religious ceremony in Egypt, it was up until recently a decorative formality of men’s dress. As we move forward through the new century, the labor intensive production of linen sees more of a place amongst fine clothing, coveted for its cool and airy qualities on skin of those who can afford it. We can assume that Valdes’ choice of linen as the medium in which to print upon was inspired not only by love for the fabric, but also by her knowledge of the historical value and journey that it has taken in our society.

The merging of the print of the ship and linen by letterpress is another relationship which Valdes is bringing together to suggest a journey and historical preservation. The black ship symbolizes travel and industrialization, as well as slavery and globalization. Transportation by sea and trade with far away lands dictated the new values of commodities, pinning humans and organic resources side by side. The properties of ink and linen seem easy to appraise when considering the raw nature of their elements and origins, but the new relationship formed through the artist's planning and art of letterpress create a whole new message.

Though this specific work of Valdes' tells us so much about the merging of properties and ideas of personal and public voyage into a transitory space, her website offers insight by way of expanding upon this concept through installation and sculpture.

Please visit Juana Valdes’ website here.
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-Rebecca Kish

Collection Spotlight: Phillip Zimmermann's "Yellow Pages"

2011-06-25T15:31:00.000-04:00

Phillip Zimmermann is an artist who uses the book form to express his concerns with mass media, politics, and the damaging effects of accrued worry that occurs as a result of a public forum.

He often manipulates photo images (1) within his work that lead the viewer to recognize the effects of media. [Please read about his most recent effort- a book of images gathered as a prayer book for border injustice – here]

[click to enlarge]

Zimmermann’s “Yellow Pages” mimics the utilitarian, information-heavy design of the phone book for which it is named.

The format of Yellow Pages appropriates the structured chaos of a phone book's graphic design and applies it in a manner that makes the viewer recognize cause and effect of form, font, and low-tech dot-matrix graphics. Each verso presents a page as it occurs in a real phone book index, while each recto presents the artists manipulation of an image found amongst the listings. These make use of clever cropping and enlarging, along with other alterations and manipulations. The result is a blown up version of a highly trafficked ad utilizing cheap inks with the message: "For Years To Come You’ll Cherish These Informal Photos.."

Zimmermann finds a surprising expressivity within the limited format of the yellow pages, prompting the viewer to question the integrity and mechanics of production and how it is archived amongst us. Typically, the yellow pages are used to locate businesses which can provide a necessary service, and the massive listing is produced and replaced each year. By cataloging the nature of this cycle, Zimmermann creates an area in which this process is archived and taken into consideration. No longer is the process dismissed as a single occasion affair, but stored to be informative…long after the normal dictation of consumer approved expiration dates. Zimmerman created this work in 1979; since that time, the Yellow Pages have taken on a new meaning, as a reference to pre-Internet communication.

Zimmerman's book, an exploration of an everyday archive, has been archived (by us!) and kept as a work of fine art, subject to being appropriately recalled and glanced upon with fondness or indifference.

You can read more about Phillip Zimmermann’s other works and archived material here.

(1)

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-Rebecca Kish

Collection Spotlight: Donna Maria deCreeft's "Gourd Book with Asemic Writing."

2011-06-24T15:00:00.000-04:00

One of the most appealing qualities of artist books is that they offer the possibility to recreate and innovate within a form that has been used for centuries. Structurally modifying a book into a work of art aims to recognize a book’s potential as an object of communication, while remaining true to the legacy of various craft traditions.

Donna Maria deCreeft’s “Gourd Book with Asemic Writing” is an example of a work which remains true to the concept of the book as a structural container of words. In fact, her book is primarily a container of that which can not be translated into the literal. The piece is a visual inquiry into the question of what it means to consider an object a book.

[click to enlarge!]

Much can be gleaned from deCreeft’s artist statement in which she says (about books): “I think them of as containers for collections of ideas and images that I’ve gleaned from literature, mythology, science, philosophy and psychology.” deCreeft also mentions the influence of her childhood memories on her desire to recreate the sensory experience of a book: “Embedded within the text were exquisite engravings of unimagined creatures and objects. Leafing through it was like entering a cabinet of wonders.” The visual representation, rather than the actual text, is the focus of her memories. deCreeft also mentions the tissue thin paper of a repaired and outdated dictionary- even the smell of the rabbit-skin glue used in the binding.

The writing in deCreeft’s gourd book reflects the recalled memory impressions of a child. The handwritten, calligraphic swoops and small fluid markings present only the pattern of communication. Rather than text, it is an abstract representation of text. It is apparent that this pattern, this universal language of marking, is deCreeft’s own communication with the viewer.

As adults accustomed to mass produced books, we are accustomed to the cheapest bindings and the blandest type as rule of concrete communication. Here, we are offered a gateway back into an experience that prioritizes touch and vision over the interpretation of textual information.

This post would not be complete without praise of deCreeft’s asemic writing. As a mode of communication that is sandwiched between the abstract and legible, the interpretive nature of her glyphs is astounding in its Arabic construction of universality. Our minds are trained to pull meaning from symbols, but even in relation to books- what we take away is often stored in recall that relies heavily on image association. Our memory creation is uniquely personal. Here, deCreeft is subtracting the overt meaning of comprehensive text and presenting a visual takeaway- a memory creation less interpretive regarding the concrete nature of contents and more based on what the memory wills into existence.

---------------

-Rebecca Kish

Summer Art Study Tours: Color-From Mineral to Manuscript

2011-06-23T15:41:00.001-04:00

The Center is excited to continue its series of Art Study Tours this summer. Come with us on a series of off-site, behind-the-scenes visits at various institutions, collections, and artists’ studios around the city. This summer series will focus on color and the uses and making of pigments. Consisting of 3 visits throughout the city this July and August, students may sign up for all three in the series or just for one class, each taking place on a Thursday afternoon. Here's what we have planned:

Thursday, July 28th, 3pm
Illuminating Fashion at the Morgan Library and Museum.

Visit this special exhibition and discover the uses of color in medieval manuscripts with an expert in the field, Karen Gorst. Drawn from the Morgan's collections, over fifty illuminated medieval and Renaissance manuscripts and early printed books are featured in the exhibition. Join us and discover the difference between the depictions of contemporary fashions and the actual colors used in clothing of the time period. Students will discuss from a historical perspective the process of making paints and dyes. The exhibition will be used as a backdrop for a discussion on the different artistic techniques employed to produce the color in medieval manuscripts and on fabric from the medieval period.

With Karen Gorst, Master Calligrapher and Illuminator

Thursday, August 4th, 3pm
Producing Pigments with Michael Price
Join us and visit the studio of Brooklyn artist Michael Price, an expert in the preparation and application of natural and mineral pigments as well as traditional Renaissance painting techniques. During this visit to his Dumbo studio, students will witness the magic of how crystals and rocks can become beautiful pigments and learn more about the Renaissance palette.
With Michael Price, Artist

Thursday August 11th, 3pm
Color and Conservation at the Met
Join us for a behind the scenes visit to the conservation lab of the Thomas J. Watson Library at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Learn about the role of color in the conservation of books and printed materials and the techniques used by conservators to match color in the materials they are working with.
With Mindell Dubansky, Preservation Librarian, Metropolitan Museum of Art

Course Fee: $180 for the series/$150 for members
Individual Session: $60 per session/$50 for members

Call us at 212-481-0295 or register through our website.

AND ALSO If you're interested in the topic and want to hear more about color and even make some of your own pigments to use and keep, we've also got a full-length workshop coming up in August with Karen Gorst: The Origins of Color, August 20-21. Find out more here.

Collection Spotlight: Helen M. Brunner's "Primer: Ritual Elements (Book One)

2011-06-23T15:00:00.000-04:00

One notable highlight from the Center's Fine Arts Collection is Helen M. Brunner’s Primer: Ritual Elements (Book One).

Brunner assembles an oddly symmetrical host of materials into a composition of a seemingly rough-edged D-I-Y style pamphlet binding. The nature of the text is cryptic, providing more of a visual context than a narrative.

One of Brunner’s pages contains a skepticism pertaining to media, stating:

“THESE NOTES ARE NOT TO BE

TRUSTED PICTURES ARE NOT TO

BE TRUSTED LANGUAGE

IS NOT TO BE TRUSTED”

creating a visual rhythm through repetitive text and torn, obscured images.

Here, Brunner characterizes all media as a biased and risky informer. The implied message is our willingness to trust notes, pictures, and language can be treacherous. And who could disagree? The weight of Brunner’s message is not argued in a neatly formatted journal essay, but thrown across pages in a composition that deliberately avoids the conventions of informative communication.

The images also imply the replication of media into an undecipherable and cloudy state. We can’t trust the shapes of the object to dictate meaning, just as we sometimes can’t rely on language to accurately describe a situation or to report fact.

In Primer: Ritual Elements (Book One), Brunner plays with the conventions of titling. A primer is a very basic guide, a stepping stone to a larger interpretation of the world. Here, we find the opposite of what we’d expect. The guide is neither instructional nor intended as an introduction to a topic, but a personal conjecture on account of the artist. Brunner implies that the ritualistic reading of images and texts on the basis of trust is the key to interpretation and the touching stone for a “book two.” While warning us that pictures and text cannot be trusted, she asks us to trust her: to trust her work, her ethic, and her method of compilation and construction.

To read more about this work: Click here.

-Rebecca Kish

Call for entries: Fine Press Publishing Seminar for Emerging Writers

2011-06-23T11:10:00.001-04:00

The new call for entries for the next session of our ongoing Fine Press Publishing Seminar for Emerging Writers is posted. This five day intensive hands-on workshop introduces writers to the basics of hand typesetting and letterpress printing. Students set their work in type and print and share an edition of mini-broadsides with the group, while learning about the history and flexibility of the medium. Visiting artists and publishers come in to speak to the group about their own work, their methods of production and their ways of distributing their books to an audience.

All of this is tuition-free for those who are accepted. We've been running this program since 2003 and we're very proud of the work that's come out of it. Students are encouraged to start their own press, and to incorporate handmade elements in the works they produce.

The next section of this seminar is scheduled for Wednesday through Sunday, September 14-18 from 10 am to 4pm. This workshop is most suitable for those with little to no previous letterpress experience.Writers from culturally diverse backgrounds are especially encouraged to apply.

The complete guidelines are available now on our website under Opportunities: here.
Application postmark deadline for this coming session is July 15, 2011.

Collection Spotlight: Shervone Neckles' "A Soldier's Story"

2011-06-22T13:13:00.000-04:00

Shervone Neckles is the creator of A Soldier’s Story, a double accordion foldout book residing in our Fine Arts Collection.

Borrowed from the palette of army fatigues, a simple spread of muddied, low chroma greens play host to a digitally printed close-up of a soldier’s face. Upon unfolding the accordions, replications of soldiers spill into a redundancy of dissectible body parts. Each leaf is sliced into quadrants. This sectioning of the soldier can be read as a reference to the loss of limbs, while the dotted lines which form perimeters around each soldier are reminiscent of the paper dolls common in childhood role-playing games.

Also significant is Neckles' decision to place a computer cursor over the image of a soldier. This detail opens up a wide variety of interpretations that comment on media, technology, game play, and selection. Can a soldier be as simple as a copy and paste line of coding? Perhaps the marker is a comment on the computerization and rapidly advancing technical ability that our society has entered, while remaining true to our history of violence and opposition.

[click to enlarge]

Present everywhere is Neckles’ concern for loss of life that comes inevitably with war. The reference to paper dolls fosters the childlike conception of how troops are moved and played by a force beyond their control. Because the soldiers lack individual identifying features, Neckles writes the story the same way each time. The Soldier’s Story is one of no individuation, just movable, dispensable, players.

Neckles tries to counteract this in her practices as an educator and artist. She prides herself on being involved in youth advocacy through the interactive application of arts. By bringing multiple means of expression to youth, Neckles gives a voice to at-risk communities, raising awareness of value systems and contradictions. A Soldiers Story was created during a time of military action (2007), but will remain a physical reminder and reference to a universal hurt.

For more about Shervone Neckles, click here.

For our listing of this work, click here.

Collection Spotlight: Gary Richman's "Doctor Dogwit’s Inventory of Provisional Alignments."

2011-06-14T17:42:00.000-04:00

Gary Richman’s work tends to be dark and socially critical, an assemblage of media that illustrates the failure of communication. In “Doctor Dogwit’s Inventory of Provisional Alignments,” Richman uses photos, diagrams, text, and ephemera to create interpretive compositions.

One interesting aspect is Richman’s placement of works on the page. Displayed on the left page are images and hand-drawn media. On the right page are text blocks that narrate the images in order from left to right. The formulaic acknowledgment of images-on-the-left and text-on-the-right reminds one of storybooks or explanatory illustrations. One must conclude that the narrative bits were composed either after (or simultaneously) with the composition of images, a direct negation of the idea of an illustrated story.

[click to enlarge]

As for content, the collective juxtaposition of dogs and humans, along with the finished product of a craft project (birdhouse) suggest an opposition of the natural versus the constructed. There seems to be a thread of "wellness" as related to pleasure seeking, contrasted to the manually constructed “correctors." Arts and crafts, as pleasurable and leisurely activity, are in contrast with the clinical and expository medical photo of one braced through modern medicine and innovation. There is modernity in the steel components of a support structure that is focused on stabilizing the human body.

[click to enlarge]

Richman’s text has an anecdotal quality. Characters are named and stated mater-of-factly, and developments are as short and specific as the corresponding photos, drawings, and diagrams. There is an aspect of Americana in the boldness of dictation. The very direct sentences suggest an adult version of “Spot” or "Dick and Jane" books. The visual vocabulary informs the nuances of the characters in these 6 line blocks of text.

See our archival listing of this work here.

See another work of Gary Richman’s here for comparison and contrast.

-Rebecca Kish

Summer letterpress classes at the Center

2011-06-14T17:04:00.012-04:00

Have you always been meaning to learn to set type? To print something letterpress? To play with wood type? One of the most popular classes on our schedule is consistently Letterpress I. These courses provide the building blocks for studies in Letterpress Printing and are great for everyone from the serious student to those interested in getting their feet wet. This summer we have two sections coming up, one on Tuesday nights starting July 5th and another for a week during the day in August, the 8th through the 12th. Students will learn the essentials of good presswork including inking, imposition, and impression and move on to discuss typefaces, paper, incorporating illustrations and adding color. You will develop your own small projects such as broadsides or cards. Bring words and ideas to class and be ready to roll up your sleeves!

Letterpress I is a prerequisite for renting in the printshop, so if you get hooked on printing you can continue on after the class is over and work on your own projects.

There's still availability in both sections; check out the registration details here and sign up for a class this summer.

Panorama Concertina

2011-06-09T16:58:00.000-04:00

Join us for a one-day immersion in the panorama concertina! Alice Austin will be joining us on Saturday June 18th for a workshop on this intriguing structure.

A panorama is any wide-angle view or representation of a physical space, whether in painting, drawing, photography, film/video or a three-dimensional model (such as a book). In the mid-19th century, panoramic paintings and models became a very popular way to represent landscapes and historical events.This particular book structure allows for the depiction of space and movement over a series of panels, thus the name.

The panorama concertina, designed by Hedi Kyle, is an accordion book with a series of floating panels. Alice will take her students through a series of quick writing exercises to generate some ideas; your books will be able to follow a short narrative. The center of each panel is cut and folded to allow for movement. Starting with a relief printed surface, artwork for the panels can be made in class using mylar stencils or rubber stamps, or can be photos, drawings or prints that you bring with you.

Completer registration info is here.

Collection Spotlight: Bruce McLean's "Retrospective: King for a Day and 999 other pieces..."

2011-06-07T11:13:00.000-04:00

Bruce McLean is a Scottish performance artist./ painter who brings depth to public actions while simultaneously mocking the pretensions of the art world. Given a one man show at the age of 27, McLean has not ceased production in the public eye since, delivering a hodge podge of projects that contain brilliant dark strokes amidst a flailing humor. Whether using his body to express the limits of gallery dimensions and the works of his predecessors and professors, or applying the bold juxtaposition of high chroma shapes to canvas, McLean worships mood and the ability to create a previously unnoticed dimension.

In “King for a Day and 999 Other Pieces” McLean puts forth a retrospective of his pieces, titling all of them. It is important to recognize McLean’s humor in something that is usually taken so seriously. A retrospective signals transition and accomplishment. The word itself requires to search the archives of one’s production and inspect components as if reappraising or qualifying. However, because of the book's release date in 1972 and the accompanying photos of McLean playing jester as a performance artist, mocking his allotted space and attention, we are aware of the retrospective as the beginning of a long career.

The seal on “King for a Day and 999 Other Pieces” lends a casual tone to an initial encounter. (On our copy, it is, of course, broken.) It still reads: “"Another Major Breakthrough Piece / Note Casual...”

The interior of the book is filled with stills of McLean’s performance art, coupled with a list of titles that are presumed to accompany actions/movement.

Examples:

32 Disposable Piece

33 Throwaway Piece

50 Song, joke and dance piece

These titles suggest free association and spontaneity, as opposed to maddening deliberation. The titles inform gently and comprehensibly. Dumbed down? More like an assertion of the necessity of transparent titling.

Within the binding of the book is a white piece of string along with a needle. A drawing upon a piece of notebook paper has also been inserted into the book. Our copy contains a sheet with straight edge lines upon a grid, with shaded areas and numbers that connote measurements or ranges.

The design and informal weight of the content makes this one of our favorite books at The Center for Book Arts! Click here for more information.

(Further reading on Bruce McLean.)

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Rebecca Kish

Collection Spotlight: Masumi Shibata's "UED"

2011-06-05T18:02:00.000-04:00

In our archives (and soon to be on display!) is Masumi Shibata’s “UED.” “UED” stands for Uncertain English Dictionary. Shibata’s creative vision not only incorporates design and clean and sturdy case bound technique, but the content is crucial in its necessity to form a connection through a universal symptom of disconnect.

The "UED" is a gathering of cultural diversifications of the English language and seeks to inform the reader of a growing acceptance of an umbrella of linguistic interpretations- a culture not created from the deviation of one root, but a celebration of differences. Gathered and prepared for a new articulation, the UED provides space in which to practice writing out new understandings, as well as pronunciation of words.

The Uncertain English Dictionary varies from a standard index in that it is not the consensus of a consortium of authorities, but the expressed opinion of one individual. Shibata makes no excuses for this primary authority, instead seeming to offer a window into his language, with hopes that the wide reach of non-verbal inferences will be apparent to the viewer. Below the title is both the assertion of Masumi Shibata as Editor in Chief and the logo of MasumiEducational, the branding under which Shibata’s other efforts fall.

[click to enlarge!]

The graphic design component is also significant. Shibata uses the clean and non-threatening efficiency of Helvetica, yet skews the writing by clean cutting it in half and re-assembling stalks of stems, bowls, arms and legs. The result is a hard to identify combination of fonted flurry, negating the simplicity and asserting the disconnect that the viewer/reader must work through to extract meaning. The definition, however, is expressed in clear and simple language. Shibata may be playing with the role of graphics in our interpretation of language, or merely leading us through a process that shows us the patience of decoding symbols, leading us through mental exercise.

Read more about the components of Masumi Shibata’s “UED” here.

-Rebecca Kish

Collection Spotlight: Marian St. Laurent's "Mind Games for 2: An Adult Activity Book"

2011-06-02T16:54:00.000-04:00

When a book's design informs its contents (and vice versa), a beautiful balance is struck for the viewer (and in this case, participant!)

According to Marian St. Laurent, “Mind Games for 2: An Adult Activity Book” was inspired by “Andy Warhol coloring books and my mother.” While we have no reference for the maternal influence over St. Laurent’s vision, we can easily draw parallels between the bold composition of type and the inviting outlines and ease of interaction of Warhol’s outlines.

St. Laurent’s outlines are altogether a participatory venture. The book is designed to be used as a tool for adult interaction, yielding new or significantly reinforcing information about each partner (or opponent). The table of contents page includes the warning: “Using lies of manipulation without the consent of your game partner at this stage will undermine trust and damage the end result of your work together. Proceed with caution or you could end up with a life long enemy.”

While the books design is reminiscent of games played in an atmosphere of simplicity and intimate fun, but the text in preface of each game is serious and cautionary. The game formatting is in the form of a diagram, or chart. Input leads to analysis, and the flow of shapes implies the ramifications of question and answer. Basic shapes, often used to teach children simple mathematics and interactive play technique, are applied on an adult level. The time spent with the game is meant to yield a result, bringing us from infancy of knowledge to a maturity of interaction and conclusion.

St. Laurent tells us that the book is for adults. Adult activities bring numerous thoughts to mind, including the fact that a certain level of brainpower is required to achieve a result that is separate from an elementary understanding of the world and its properties. The intimacy and honesty encouraged by the game provides the option of a bridge to sexual understanding.

The most notable aspect of this book upon initial evaluation is its sense of structure, rules, and formula. The game is meant to last from 10 minutes to whenever both parties feel they have reached a conclusion (an arguably infinite amount of input is suggested.) Children are known for their distorted sense of time, as they play to learn and learn to play. Paradoxically, timed games can be so absorbing that participants lose their awareness of the passage of time, even in adulthood.

The title is a facet of this work that informs both the whimsical construction and frighteningly frank nature of the game's objective to the viewer/participant. The phrase “mind games” stems from a pop psych term that relies heavily on neurotic input and selfish results. “Mind games” also describe a puzzle or brain teaser that requires undivided attention and investment of skills. The implication of a game yielding the result of a winner and a loser, along with the suggestion that the mind’s strength is responsible for swaying outcome, is a daunting challenge that makes the warning of lies falsifying an “end result” a concept strictly for adults.

St. Laurent’s use of colorforms aside, the weighty nature of the instructional material and engaged "play" is completely reliant on the motives of the participants and the desired outcome. Possible outcomes range from irreparable disagreement to new understandings, sexual intimacy, or newly made bonds between almost perfect strangers.

Please click here for more details on this piece.

-Rebecca Kish

Japanese Bookbinding

2011-05-26T16:40:00.001-04:00

We're super-excited to welcome Yukari Hayashida back to the Center on June 11-12 for Japanese Bookbinding, her two-day intensive in a variety of Japanese binding techniques. You'll use lovely traditional Japanese papers and fabrics to produce side-sewn binding and through-the-fold structures, as well as a folding cloth-covered case for your new creations. The end result is a beautiful, boxed set of books.

Yukari works as a bookbinder and book conservator; she is originally from Japan and currently resides in New York City. Complete registration information is here; you can register online or over the phone (212-481-0295).

Psst!: June courses are just around the corner! Make sure to register early so you don't miss out!

Collection Spotlight: Dennis Ashbaugh, Kevin Begos, William Gibson, Carl Foulkes, and Peter Pettingill’s “Agrippa (A Book of the Dead)".

2011-05-26T14:34:00.000-04:00

This highly prized work envisions a modern interpretation of the ancient Egyptian funerary text containing spells to assist the dead on the journey into the afterlife.

William Gibson is a science fiction writer born on the South Carolina coast. Having been abandoned by his father when young, he relocated with his mother to a small town in Virginia."The Book of the Dead"’s poetic text focuses on a fleeing role model, modeled after Gibson’s father. ("Agrippa" is the name of a photo album that Gibson’s father kept.) Throughout the poem we observe snapshots of Gibson’s relatives and childhood. We experience the simplistic plastic forms of toys and the innocence of small town Main Street, then to be transported to a secluded and extracted existence in Canada.

Gibson also focuses on the nature of photographs as physical memory capsules and how their captured history is like the resting and patient violence of a gun. Pieces of damaged, struggling, and rebuilt lives are collected and stored, then buried. Gibson provides his own visual record, recorded on a 3.5” floppy disk and stored in a holding space within Agrippa: Book of the Dead. The self destructive coding in the disk recalls the destructive path one decision can make.

“Now in high-ceiling bedrooms,
unoccupied, unvisited,
in the bottom drawers of veneered bureaus
in cool chemical darkness curl commemorative
montages of the country's World War dead,

just as I myself discovered
one other summer in an attic trunk,
and beneath that every boy's best treasure
of tarnished actual ammunition
real little bits of war
but also
the mechanism
itself.”

(Please read the full text here.)

From William Gibson’s Website:

Introduction to AGRIPPA: A BOOK OF THE DEAD
By William Gibson

"AGRIPPA, A Book of the Dead" is a longish poem written in 1992 for a multi-unit artwork to be designed by artist Dennis Ashbaugh and "published" by art-guy Kevin Begos. Ashbaugh's design eventually included a supposedly self-devouring floppy-disk intended to display the text only once, then eat itself. Today, there seems to be some doubt as to whether any of these curious objects were ever actually constructed. I certainly don't have one myself. Meanwhile, though, the text escaped to cyberspace and a life of its own, which I found a pleasant enough outcome. But the free-range cyberspace versions are subject to bit-rot, it seems, so we've decided to offer it here with the correct line-breaks, etc.

"Agrippa" is the name of the particular model of Eastman Kodak photograph album my father kept his snapshots in.”

----------------

Dennis Ashbaugh is known for incorporating DNA designs into his artwork. Inspired by Gibson, Ashbaugh folds the merging of coded material (in this case computer code) with the self-destructive 3.5” floppy into the book, while setting up the more permanent notion of genetic coding as life's design. Genetic code serves as a record of both life and death, but code exists as a staying, unique identifier beyond mortality.

Our copy of Agrippa: “The Book of the Dead” is number 35 in an edition of 95. More information on the binding and construction of this book is available here.
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-Rebecca Kish

Collection Spotlight: Vincent Torre's "Tribute to William Addison Dwiggins."

2011-05-20T12:54:00.022-04:00

This specially bound and printed book is part of our Fine Art Collection and contains a variety of essays about the innovative typographer and designer William Addison Dwiggins.

William Addison Dwiggins (1880 – 1956) was originally a designer focusing in advertising. As time went on, this typographer and talented graphic artist became particularly interested in the integrity of trade-books and innovation in type design. An early publication of his called “An Investigation into the Physical Properties of Books”[1] (1919) made it clear that he was fed up with the book industry compromising the aesthetic role of the book in order to market it and profit from it. Believing the kingpins of the designing forefront were ill informed and unable to grasp the importance of design in trade paperbacks, Dwiggins formed a creative partnership with Alfred Knopf and created over 280 books for him.[2] Dwiggins is credited with coining the term “graphic design.”[3] A type enthusiast, Dwiggins is responsible for the production of 5 complete typefaces: Metroblack/Metrolite, Electra, Caledonia, Eldorado and Falcon.[4]

According to Torre’s Amazon Author profile: “Vincent Torre is an author, designer, and artist living in New York City. His books are in the collections of the New York Public Library, British Library, Yale Library, University of Sydney, Australia, and elsewhere.” Torre has contributed other works to our archives. Titles and images are available here.

Contained within this book is a compilation of essays in tribute to Dwiggins on the 100th anniversary of his birth. Authors include: W.A. Dwiggins, Dorothy Abbe, Warren Chappell, Charles E. Skaggs, Meyer Miller, Harry F. Howard, John O.C. McCrillis, Dwight Agner, Robert D. Scudellari, Paul Shaw, Mary M. Ahern, and Vincent Torre.

In the full text provided to "Extracts From an Investigation into the Physical Properties of Books as They are Published" we can see Dwiggins's concerns about the book industry's sacrifice of art in order to expand on production (i.e. plating all books with the chance they might be re-printed) and making the book conform to a rule of thickness. Dwiggins's background in advertising led him naturally to apply his visual sensibilities to the work of typography, resulting in affordable book design available for the average reader. Dwiggins's dedication to excellence in the book form is continued by the Center's work in the present.

[1] Full text provided at the link.

[2] A Time Line of American Typography

Lorraine Ferguson and Douglass Scott

Design Quarterly
No. 148, The Evolution of American Typography (1990), pp. 23-54

[3] Livingston, Alan and Isabella., 'Dictionary of graphic design and designers'. London: Thames and Hudson, 1992

[4] http://www.adcglobal.org/archive/hof/1979/?id=264

-Rebecca Kish

Center for Book Arts Poetry Chapbook Competition

2011-05-17T18:08:00.000-04:00

Congratulations to Nehassaiu deGannes, the winner of this year's Poetry Chapbook Competition. Her manuscript, Undressing the River, was chosen from a pool of over 350 entries by Kimiko Hahn to be produced in a limited edition of 100 hand bound, letterpress printed chapbooks this summer. Hahn said about the work: “Nehassaiu deGannes' version of history, both personal and social, is as fervent as it is elegant. Undressing the River is a unique collection of inspiring voices.”

We have also selected two other manuscripts for honorable mention: Bulletproof by Sue D. Burton of Burlington, Vermont and ABCs of Endangered by Mark McKain of Altamonte Springs, Florida. A poem from each of them will be produced as a letterpress broadside by artists at the Center. All three, along with Kimiko Hahn and her co-judge and founder of the series, Sharon Dolin, will join us in early October for a reading to celebrate their publications.

The Center's Poetry Chapbook Competition has been going strong since 1996; past winners have included Ailish Hopper, Jeffrey Skinner, L.B.Thompson, and Rachel Zucker. You can see examples of past books in our bookstore here.

Poets! Submit your work for this year's contest; the deadline every year is December 1; current guidelines are up on our site here. This year's judges are Phillis Levin and Sharon Dolin.

Collection Spotlight: Janice Hartwell's "Chromosome Consideration."

2011-05-17T15:35:00.000-04:00

Janice Hartwell’s “Chromosome Consideration” utilizes the style of an accordion book to provide a continuous flow of both text and images. In this piece, Hartwell examines the variations in X and Y chromosomes, commenting on characteristics and traits that are possible in chromosomes gone awry. Deviation is not Hartwell’s main focus though- her work brings about the questions concerning complications that genetic engineering, eugenics, and human interference with inherited qualities provides.

“Chromosome Consideration” offers a good example of the interdisciplinary works involved in bookmaking. Hartwell has previously taught printmaking and has always demonstrated interest in implementing and developing new technologies. Particularly intrigued by the photograph, Hartwell received a grant in the 1970's to develop a technique for a high intensity photographic enlarger.[i] In this book, we see photos manipulated through computer technology available in the early 1990’s. The work is also laser printed, making the outcome of the image low resolution. Considering the subjects are portions of human faces, we are able to be loosely interpret features and otherwise defining characteristics by that lack of definition in the dot matrix. The accordion style allows the viewer to pan over a more unified composition. The eye is manipulated into seeing the photos hugging the text and negative space. The wrap-around cover delivers “Chromosome Consideration” as a conceptual completion, a contradiction to the open ended nature of the work contained.

*We urge you to click these photo to enlarge them for a closer look.

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An excerpt from accompanying text: “XXX Chromosomes: This individual appears to be a normal female, but with the extra X chromosome exhibits unusually high libido and is predisposed to behavior commonly prescribed for women in XXX rated films and video. This individual is performing a role inherently created by males bearing XY chromosomes. This individual is probably susceptible to socio-sexual hypnosis, is malleable and seeks domination by members of the XY chromosome group."

[i] http://www.1020art.com/artist-hartwellj.php

-Rebecca Kish

Instructor Spotlight: Barbara Henry

2011-05-14T15:46:00.000-04:00

Coming up in a few weeks, we're looking forward to Linoleum Prints with Barbara Henry. Barbara has been printing special projects at the Center since 2004, and was for over 20 years the curator at Bowne and Co. at the South Street Seaport. She is a letterpress printer, typography, type historian, printmaker, poet and artist who publishes her own work under the Harsimus press imprint, and also collaboratively makes artists books with Barbara Mauriello.

Her class on June 4 and 5 will explore the medium of linoleum carving and its myriad uses, from simple patterns to complex color compositions. Linoleum is a perfect accompaniment to type, and a great way to add color to the page. It can be used to tell a story, to illustrate or to decorate, and can be printed on the Center's Vandercook Proof Presses or at home on a kitchen table. The class will look at historical examples and learn techniques for transferring images, for registration, color mixing and layering and combining linoleum with other media such as watercolor, gouache and acrylics. Join us for a fun and informative weekend of printing! Registration is here; class size is limited.

Collection Spotlight: Guy Laramee's "Archaelogy I."

2011-05-14T13:59:00.000-04:00

Another highlight of the Center for Book Arts Fine Art Collection is Guy Laramee’s “Archaeology I.”

“Archaeology I” is an altered book which has been sandblasted to create new topographies and textures. Called into question are: man’s quest for finding his roots, man’s need to map and hold visual reassurance over his surroundings, as well as the way that books lend themselves to these disciplines (cartography, archaeology, and higher learning), and the unity of these fields as a personal and public history.

Laramee (Canadian, 1975 -) draws from many creative disciplines to express himself. His fields include, but are not limited to: instrument construction, sculpture, musical composition, dance, painting, and writing.[1] With such a wide variety of inspirations and outlets, the unfolding interpretations of “Archaeology I” seem to fit the idea of harnessing many mediums to increase the potential for what the viewer can take away.

Laramee’s creation method for “Archaeology I” is a hands-on method of sandblasting. Through his choice of which books to alter, and his work with each particular book, new meanings appear for consideration. Laramee changes the meaning of the original narrative by rendering them forever physically changed.

The subtle textures that seem naturally rooted in the leaves of text urge us to consider the organic origins of paper, the use of ink on paper, and how we as humans take from the earth to document both it, and ourselves. The reference to the respected discipline of digging and unearthing seems to urge us to excavate a meaning that suits our personal narrative, or proverbial unwritten book. Furthermore, our texts are not concrete in their existence. The ability to alter core texts and render ourselves understandable is a concept that Laramee makes present and tangible.

-----

Guy Laramee recently had an exhibition at The Center for Book Arts called: The Great Wall which ran from January 19, 2011 to April 2, 2011

[1] http://www.philasculptors.org/globalwarming/bios.htm

-Rebecca Kish

Friends of Bowne

2011-05-07T16:00:00.000-04:00

On Thursday, May 5th the grassroots organization Friends of Bowne held a party/exhibition/organizing meeting at the Arm in Williamsburg, to raise awareness about the current and future state of Bowne & Co., Stationers, the irreplaceable re-creation of a small nineteenth-century printing and stationer's shop in Lower Manhattan. As part of the financially troubled Seaport Museum New York, it was closed on February 14th of this year by museum leadership. The future of Bowne's historic collections is unclear and the evening was an opportunity for former employees, volunteers, friends and interested parties to come together to raise awareness about the shop's situation. Friends of Bowne has this to say on their website:

Now, as its parent institution, the Seaport Museum New York, struggles financially, the future of Bowne and its significant collection is uncertain and potentially at risk of disappearing altogether.
Friends of Bowne is a group of individuals who care about what happens to Bowne & Co. It is a public platform for sharing news, ideas, and support, in an effort to ensure Bowne receives the stewardship it deserves. Mainly, it is a way to keep the idea of the shop open, even as its doors are closed, because we believe the survival of Bowne & Co. will help make New York City a richer, more interesting place.

The museum includes a variety of iron hand presses, jobbing platens, various small pieces related to 19th century job printing and stationery, specimen books, and a large collection of foundry type. Most presses are operational and are used in the production of everything from invitations to limited edition fine press books. You can sign a petition, find sample letters to send to local representatives, learn more about Bowne, what you can do to help, and the ongoing state of the Seaport on the Friends of Bowne website.

Collection Spotlight: Nancy Morejon's "Ana Mendieta."

2011-05-07T15:39:00.000-04:00

Among other things, we're currently preparing for this summer's exhibition of highlights from the Center's collection of artist's books.. We thought it would be nice to post occasional highlights from the collection, to raise awareness about the collection in general and the upcoming exhibition in particular. Our online collections database, an indexed, searchable online resource that contains the Center’s historic, eclectic (and growing) collection of approximately 2,000 artists' books and prints created by artists and publishers of regional, national, and international significance is available online here. Our new workstudy Rebecca Kish had generously volunteered to pen the occasional article focusing on specific books for us on our news page.

The Center for Book Arts is the proud possessor of book created by Cuban poet and literary icon Nancy Morejon in homage to the earth and body works artist Ana Mendieta in our archive, one of several Cuban artist books donated to the Center in recent years.

Nancy Morejon, (1944-) poet and creator of this homage to Ana Mendieta, lives and works in Cuba. She was the first Afro-Cuban woman to earn a B.A in Cuba and has had ongoing interest in voicing the situations of women within her society. She has written poetry about Mendieta (2003) celebrating her as an outspoken and unbroken spirit who has inspired the lives of many with an understanding of the female and human condition spirited from an almost inexhaustible palate. [1]

Ana Mendieta (1948 – 1985) was a Cuban multimedia and performance artist who flourished during the late 70’s and early 80’s, but met with a tragic fate after falling 34 stories to her death in 1985. An immigrant from Cuba in 1961 at the age of 12, Mendieta struggled with her exile and trying to find her rightful place in society by communicating mindfully and bodily with different landscapes and varied terrains. She symbolically took on the struggles of women often silenced in her era, turning her body into an instrument for creation. Mendieta’s focus on drawing from the earth and within was an inspiration to many women who had struggled with identity, abuse, and alienation.

In this particular work, Morjeon uses the book form to open a new chapter of understanding and homage. The silhouette on the cover harkens back to Mendieta’s expression of vitality and the feminine through the female figure. In conjunction with natural elements, this piece aims to reclaim both land and physical space. The materials used in the creation of this book are those which Mendieta was in constant communication with during her lifetime. Her name blazes above a silhouette with a thin layer of heavily ground earth pigment applied to each letter. Yarn, a common and versatile fastener that transcends economic strata, holds the light silhouette fast to a dark background. Photocopied cutouts of “sacred heart” style illustrations of a heart, branch, dove, cross, leaf, lantern and butterfly hover near the joints and over the chest of the silhouette. Crushed eggshells reside on the perimeters of these cut-outs and coupled with the recycled paper lends itself to the cyclical nature of ongoing female struggle.

Inside the book, Morejon has provided the viewer with a fold out poem that ruminates on the alleged suicide of Mendieta. The poem is dark and full of a reverent melancholy that celebrates Mendieta’s vitality. Whether Medieta’s spirit was at the height of celebration and fueling her art, or experiencing some of the lowest oppression, Morejon seems to call on the viewer to celebrate the memory of Mendieta through an variety of materials, its assemblage itself an homage to the deceased artist.

-Rebecca Kish

[1] http://www.culturebase.net/artist.php?3300

Instructor Spotlight: Karen Gorst

2011-04-23T17:12:00.000-04:00

This spring we're pleased to offer two workshops with long-time Center for Book Arts instructor Karen Gorst. Karen Gorst has been working as a Calligrapher and Illuminator for more than 20 years. A co-founder of the Gabriel Guild and former President of the Society of Scribes, she is a visiting instructor and lecturer at many institutions, including the Pierpont Morgan Library, the Penland School of Crafts, the Craft Students League, the Cloisters and Wellesley College. Her amazing in-depth knowledge of paper, ink and Medieval and Renaissance art techniques was featured recently in the Scriptorium, part of the recent Three Faiths exhibition at the New York Public Library. (You can see images from the exhibition on her website, here.) We took a trip to the library this winter to see the exhibition and have a guided tour with Karen and were blown away at the depth and breadth of the information she gathered together in one room.

We're looking forward to two workshops this spring with Karen: the first, Adhesives, Size and Varnishes: A Cooking Class is coming up on May 7th. Get out your pots and pans! This workshop focuses on making traditional adhesives from scratch and how to use them. Experiment with hide glue, bone glue, starch, paste, garlic glue and more. We will not be using eye of gnute but we will use fish eyes! Whether you are a survivalist at heart, or are simply interested in the origin of things, this is a day to remember.

Karen will also be teaching Copperplate Calligraphy and Beyond, starting May 2nd and running for five Monday nights. Students will learn the fundamentals of using the pointed pen for writing copperplate calligraphy. This beautiful style, used in the Declaration of Independence, is now used for weddings, logos, and White House Invitations. Beginners will learn the basic letter shapes and fundamentals of spacing. Those who have previously learned Copperplate will refine their lettershapes, spacing and focus on the practical aspects of using copperplate for one-of-a-kind pieces and for reproduction. Students who have already learned copperplate and wish to continue with different lettering style may choose of one of ten pointed pen or broad edged pen lettering styles.

Students interested in the art of illumination and the practice of calligraphy should really take some time looking through her website: http://www.gorststudio.com/ which contains many short clips, lessons, images and other materials.

Benjamin Reynaert

2011-04-22T17:00:00.006-04:00

Fallen, 2010

One of the best aspects of working at the Center is the lively community of artists working in our studios. There's a mix of experience and backgrounds, with volunteers new to the Center working alongside experienced bookmakers, poets working on chapbook projects, artists thinking through new techniques, and avid letterpress printers finishing off some job work. This past fall we were lucky to welcome several new artists to the Center, as part of the Van Lier/ Stein Scholarship program. Katie Baldwin, Benjamin Reynaert, Sarah McDermott and Kimberly McClure have been with us since September, using the space and taking classes to develop new bodies of work in the book format. I asked one of our current Van Lier scholars, Benjamin Reynaert, to talk a little about his experience at the Center. Ben originally studied architecture at The Rhode Island School of Design. Upon graduating he interned in the bindery at Bloodroot Press in Ann Arbor MI and has since taught bookbinding, papermaking and book arts related workshops at a variety of universities, libraries and institutions in New York and southeastern Michigan. He is on faculty at Hollander's School of Book and Paper Arts where he co-founded their Artist Residency Program in 2008. Ben says:

The Van Lier/Stein Scholarship has been an incredible opportunity for me as I continue my work in the book arts. The scholarship has allowed me to take many classes where I have either sought out to learn specific new skills or where I have wanted to re-learn some of the basics from a different instructor’s perspective. It’s always great to learn something new when you least expect it! Through the Center, I have also had the opportunity to teach which has been an important aspect to my career.

I have been able to devote more time to develop my work and experiment with new ideas in letterpress printing and binding. I’m having a great time being involved here and look forward to seeing you around! For more info about what I’ve been doing, please go here: benjaminreynaert.carbonmade.com

I'm looking forward to the fall, when we'll be featuring more work from all four artists in our gallery space. To learn more about the program, (and to apply for next year! Postmark deadline is May 2.) see here.

Now updated: Our Collections Program Online Archive!

2011-04-20T17:54:00.001-04:00

For the past two years, The Center for Book Arts has been working on creating a Collections Program that catalogues our diverse holdings of Fine Art, Reference, and Archival materials. Our Archives are now available to the public via our easy-to-navigate website (accessible here). You can search through over 2000 of our various works by using refined subject paths for people, organizations, object types, and places, located in the left-hand toolbar.

The Fine Art Collection includes works that challenge the notions and boundaries of book arts and related media (i.e. papermaking and prints); contemporary interpretations of the book and related media as art objects; and examples of traditional bookmaking practices. By far our largest collection to be cataloged thus far, the Fine Arts Collection holds intriguing, accessible, and interdisciplinary works. One such work that typifies the unique combination of technique and media ingenuity is John Risseeuw’s 1973 work “A Suite of Typographic Edibles”:

This work was originally letterpress printed, embossed, and silk screened on seven unbound, round sheets of handmade paper; serving as a letter to the viewer.

Another work that shines light on the diverse nature of our Fine Arts Collection is “Annunciation” by Rachel Zucker, winner of our 2002 Poetry Chapbook Collection. Represented from our archive is a CBA copy 2; Number 68 in an Edition of 100, signed by the poet:

This Chapbook is Pamphlet bound; hand stitched binding; tan specked wrappers with printed illustration and tipped in title/author panel on front cover and boasts the collaborative talents of the poet, designer Roni Gross, and illustrator Peter Schell. The text was set in Perpetua, a face designed by Eric Gill and letterpress printed from polymer plates and printed on Magnani with an insert of Khadi Himalayan, and Indian jute paper covers with assistance from interns at the Center for Book Arts. This piece is exemplary of the community that The Center of Book Arts is able to foster.

In our Reference Collection you’ll find an accurately captured (and zoom-in-able) bevy of instructional manuals and reference books; exhibition catalogues; materials such as models, maquettes and engraving blocks created for teaching purposes or as stages of production of the Center's publications; artist member files; and studio equipment, type specimens and type. Topics and specimens are displayed in a wide range of languages and styles, proclaiming their provenance, school of thought, and year of conception.

Rare materials from international exhibitions, such as Erika Lakat and Gyula Fülop’s catalogue from the 1994 2nd International Artists’ Book Exhibition, are displayed along with their dates and contents.

Our Archives Collection includes materials and ephemera that document the history of the Center's programmatic and administrative operations such as exhibitions, classes, literary and publication programs and promotional materials.

This summer we invite you to examine and visit our holdings up close. Our exhibition: Multiple, Limited, Unique: Highlights from the Permanent Collection of the Center for Book Art runs from July 6th - September 12th and is organized by Alexander Campos, Executive Director, Jen Larson, Collections Specialist, and the Collections Committee.

We invite you to take advantage of the accessibility of all three of our archives and visit the Collections Program Website often as we continually update each section with new works and found works. By making these works and archives available to you, we hope to open up a dialogue about the importance of book arts. Our archived items have particular value to scholars and artists. With that in mind: If you are interested in viewing particular holdings, The Center for Book Arts collections are open by appointment and welcomes qualified researchers, artists, curators, educators, and students. To make an appointment, please call the Center: (212) 481-0295, or email: info@centerforbookarts.org

-Rebecca Kish

Van Lier/ Stein Family Scholarship Application Deadline May 2.

2011-04-19T16:25:00.014-04:00

The application deadline for this year's Edward and Sally Van Lier/Stein Family Scholarship Fund for Advanced Studies in Book Arts is coming up on May 2. We'll be awarding three scholarships to young artists who have demonstrated a commitment to the artistic endeavors in the book arts. The purpose of this program is to provide opportunities to emerging artists committed to developing careers in the book arts field, and to further the growth of this artistic profession.

The award includes a cash stipend plus a materials budget and 24 hour access to the Center’s printing and binding facilities for a full year. Artists also receive a tuition waiver for courses throughout the year, planned in conjunction with the staff. Experienced printers and bookbinders will be available to advise the artists on issues of materials and techniques as they arise. Scholars will be required to complete an artist project by the end of the scholarship period, with an exhibition in our gallery space in the fall of 2012.

This year's scholars Katie Baldwin, Kimberly McClure (pictured above), Sarah McDermott, and Benjamin Reynaert have been working in the studios since September, and we're eagerly looking forward to seeing the final results of their work. They've all been great additions to the daily life here at the Center, and they've all benefited from the time and support provided to develop a new body of work.

Artists are invited to submit applications postmarked by May 2, 2011.
Application guidelines are available here.

Opening Reception Friday Night April 15

2011-04-14T17:42:00.025-04:00

Join us this Friday night, April 15th from 6 to 8 pm for the Opening Reception for our three spring exhibitions:

Main Gallery: With Food in Mind
Organized by Nicole Caruth, Independent Curator and Critic

With Food in Mind looks at artists' use of food as subject matter or medium in book arts, print, and digital media. The exhibition is inspired by the current food climate (i.e. how food is cultivated, distributed, consumed, and discussed today) and includes over 40 works that span the last twenty years.

Featuring work by: Nava Atlas, Carissa Carman, Atom Cianfarani, Conflict Kitchen, The Counter Kitchen, Critical Art Ensemble, John DePol, Mindell Dubansky, EIDIA, Joy Garnett, Martí Guixé, Heather Hart, Barbara Henry, Gretchen Hooker, Marisa Jahn, Susan Johanknecht, K Yoland, Robin Kahn, Isabelle Lumpkin, Emily Martin, Scott McCarney, Katharine Meynell, Aleksandra Mir, Elaine Tin Nyo, Hugh Pocock, Susan Roma, Leah Rosenberg, John Ross, Steve Shada, Mara Scrupe, Maya Suess,Tattfoo Tan, Robert The, Rirkrit Tiravanija, and Noa Treister.

Also on view:
Featured Artist Projects:
Barbara Page: Book Marks
The centerpiece of this project is a card catalog library file which records the artist’s reading history over the past half-century. The Center’s Featured Artist Project Series provides a critical forum for artists working primarily in the medium of book arts to showcase a recent or cohesive body of work or create a site-specific installation.

2010 Artists-in-Residence Workspace Program
Works by Tal Halpern, Wayne Hodge, Katarina Jerinic, Jennie Jones, and Angie Waller.
Every year the Center for Book Arts invites, through a competitive process, five emerging artists working in a variety of media, from video to performance art, to participate in a year-long residency studying bookmaking techniques. Works on view were produced over the course of last year during their residency at the Center.

Reception is free to the public.

Boxes for Books

2011-04-12T16:52:00.022-04:00

Once you've started making books, the natural question to ask next is, how to protect the precious fruits of your labors? It's a harsh, dirty world out there. Luckily, there's a class coming up in a matter of weeks that can help you out. The week of May 2-6 Laurel Parker will share with us all she knows about Boxes for Books.

Learn a variety of box styles for storing books, prints, and other precious items. The "boite simple" is a very simplified book box, without squares. We'll learn how to make a single-bottom, and a double-bottom version with stepped joints. We'll also make a lined slipcase, a clamshell box, and time permitting, a riser for very thin books or prints, pockets, and walls with a cut out. We'll use a variety of materials and discuss archival conservation materials, binder mechanisms, insets, and titling.

Complete registration details are available here.

Laurel Parker is a bookbinder and boxmaker, living and working in France. She has a diploma from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and a BFA from Tufts University. She is currently teaching workshops at the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Rennes, France. You can enjoy learning more about Laurel here.

Japanese Natural Colorants for Paper

2011-04-07T17:42:00.002-04:00

We're super excited about this workshop: Japanese Natural Colorants for Paper, coming up next month on May 14-15, Saturday and Sunday. Artist, dyer, and papermaker Tatiana Ginsberg studied at the University of Iowa Center for the Book before spending two years in Japan on a Fulbright research grant investigating traditional naturally dyed Japanese papers. Studying at one of the oldest dye studios in Kyoto, she learned the art of dyeing paper in brilliant colors for temple festivals, sutra copying, and other uses.
The focus of her study, the Japanese tradition of kusakizome-gami, naturally dyed paper, extends back over a millennium. The bright and subtle colors derived from plant materials are safe and pleasant to work with and harmonize well with natural fibers. Historically used not only for their beauty but also practical purposes ranging from insect repellents to waterproofing, they have numerous applications for book arts. Join us for the weekend and learn to prepare dyestuffs from a number of plant materials; how to size and treat papers; how to dip, brush, resist dye, and understand the effects of different mordants. She's a fabulous teacher and we're very much looking forward to the class.

Tatiana's own work integrates traditional techniques with contemporary forms, encompassing installation, prints, books, and drawing. You can learn more about her work and see images here.

Collagraphs with Maria Pisano

2011-04-06T18:02:00.002-04:00

Book artist Maria Pisano joins us this spring for a four-day immersion in the realm of the collagraph: a collage printmaking process where you apply a variety of materials (fabric, paint, glue, textured mediums, paper, etc.) to a piece of cardboard or wood to form a low relief. The plate is inked and can be printed on an intaglio press. It's an incredibly flexible technique, letting you layer texture and pattern together. Maria will talk about different methods of both making plates and printing a collagraph plate: both intaglio and relief will be explored. The use of inks, brayers, colors, papers, etc. will also be covered, along with the many variations of prints one plate can yield. By using printmaking and bookbinding techniques, the students will investigate how these methods can be used to enhance their own unique personal artistic expressions, by working with sequence, narrative and the exploration of the book as an evolving form.

The class runs for two Fridays, April 29th and May 6th, and one weekend, May 14 and 15, 10 am to 4pm each day-plenty of time to work on your plates and develop your imagery. You can register online here.

Maria Pisano is the director of MGP Studio Arts Gallery. She publishes her books under the Memory Press imprint, and you can see examples of her books, including her collagraph work, here.

This week! Annual Benefit and Auction on Friday

2011-04-05T11:12:00.000-04:00

We’re counting down the days to the Center’s Annual Benefit and Silent Auction coming up on Friday, April 8, from 6:00 to 9:00 pm. That's this week! This year, the theme is “Signs of Life,” inspired by a Victorian naturalist’s desk, and the event will include live music, hors d’oeurves, and fragrant, botanical cocktails. Our esteemed honorees are Carolyn Chadwick, Bookbinder, Boxmaker, and Educator; Daniel Kelm, Founder of the Garage Annex School and Wide Awake Garage; and Steven Steinberg, Proprietor, New York Central Art Supply.

The silent auction features work by accomplished contemporary artists, including Yoko Inoue, Victoria Burge, Delphi Basilicato, Béatrice Coron, Barbara Henry, Angie Waller, Catya Plate, and Bryan Baker. You can preview the auction on our website here and make bids even if you can't attend the event.

Tickets start at $100, which includes one raffle ticket. The raffle prize is a limited edition diptych print by Shani Peters (below). You can buy tickets over the phone by calling 212-481-0295, or online here. All funds raised go towards general operating expenses, and help us continue to bring excellent book arts programming to the public.

Eat, Drink, Print, Box!

2011-04-02T12:25:00.001-04:00

We're eagerly looking forward to an exciting two-part workshop coming up this spring. Presented in conjunction with our delicious spring main gallery exhibition, With Food in Mind, organized by Nicole Caruth, we're happy to welcome two masters in the field, Barbara Mauriello and Barbara Henry, who will share their talents with us over two separate weekends:

Eat, Drink, Print, Box-Part I will focus on the recipe box, as designed by Barbara Mauriello. In 2 days we’ll make 2 boxes, playful in both their structures and their materials. One box is a brilliant mix of patterned papers pasted over boards; its triangular flap, and the button-and-loop closure, make it an easy convert into a pocketbook. The second box, covered in cloth, unfolds like a portfolio. Both boxes are sized for recipe cards, but both can also become containers for photos, prints, letters, books -- you will learn how to cut out boards to create an edition for future projects.

You can fill your new Recipe Boxes with recipe cards produced and swapped in Eat, Drink, Print, Box-Part II in our printshop May 7-8 with Barbara Henry. Bring a favorite recipe to fill your Recipe Box. You will learn to set it in type and print an edition (to keep & to swap) either on the Vandercook proof press or the Center's platen presses. Add decorative flourishes in pochoir or linocut.

Barbara Mauriello is a book artist who has a bookbinding studio in Hoboken, NJ. She makes artists' books, teaches bookbinding and boxmaking, and collaborates with visual artists and writers in producing limited editions of their work in the book format. She is a visiting instructor at the International Center of Photography, the Newark Museum, the Paper and Book Intensive, Haystack Mountain School of Crafts, and the Penland School of Crafts, and is a frequent guest lecturer at the School of Visual Arts. You can learn more about her work here.

Barbara Henry is the proprietor of Harsimus Press in Jersey City, NJ, a master printer and printing historian. She prints special projects for the Center for Book Arts. She was Curator of Bowne & Co., Stationers from 1985 until 2004, and her work is in many libraries and special collections. She and fellow printer Roni Gross published The Vandercookbook in 2009, celebrating the 100th anniversary of the Vandercook Proof Press. This collaborative publication featured the work of master printers from around the country.

Part I: April 30-May 1, Saturday and Sunday, 10 am to 4pm
Barbara Mauriello $245 members/ $260 non-members

Part II: May 7-8, Saturday and Sunday, 10 am to 4pm
Barbara Henry $245 members/ $260 non-members

Call 212-481-0295 to get a special discount for taking both parts of the course.
Registration information for all spring courses is here.

(Image above is from Scott McCarney's A Selection of Cards from the Collection of Lela McCarney, 2007, one of the fabulous works included in our spring show.)

Susan Joy Share

2011-03-31T12:10:00.039-04:00

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

2011-03-30T13:54:00.030-04:00

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

2011-03-26T17:05:00.000-04:00

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!

2011-03-24T12:20:00.009-04:00

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

2011-03-17T17:27:00.020-04:00

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!

Chapbook Festival

2011-02-26T10:50:00.019-05:00

Join us for the Third Annual Chapbook Festival, happening this week March 2-5, 2011, at venues throughout the city. We'll start things off Wednesday night, March 2 at 6;30 pm with a panel discussion with Ed Go, Co-Editor, Other Rooms Press and Wennie Huang, Visual Artist; Mary Walker Graham and Robert daVies, Rope-a-Dope Press; and MC Hyland, DoubleCross Press. They'll take us inside the collaborative process, talking about their experiences producing works that combine the visual and the verbal, and the rewards and challenges of working collaboratively.

Events continue at CUNY Grad Center,(365 Fifth Ave at 34th Street) March 3 and 4 with a bookfair of chapbook publishers, workshops for writers, a reading of prize-winning Chapbook Fellows, and a roundtable and launch of Series II in Lost & Found: The CUNY Poetics Documents Initiative.

We'll be holding hands-on Book Arts workshops for Writers here at the Center all day on Saturday, March 5. Join us for a hands-on immersion in bookmaking. Participants can choose to set their words in metal type, or try their hand at some basic binding structures. Prior registration is required, by calling (212) 481-0295. There will be a $20 material fee payable at the door.

Also on Saturday, at Poets House, there will be an event What the Chapbook Means to Me with Jen Bervin and Anna Moschovakis. Visual artist and poet Jen Bervin and Ugly Duckling Presse editor and poet Anna Moschovakis discuss the way the chapbook has shaped their work, sharing highlights from their own collections and the Poets House archive.

The complete schedule of events is here.

Art Study Tours

2011-02-17T15:56:00.000-05:00

We're trying a new kind of program out this winter, which you may have noticed: Our series of five Art Study Tours, which bring you behind-the-scenes into various institutions, collections, and artists’ studios.All five events this winter focus on paper, parchment, and plant life as raw material for tool making. Students can sign up for the entire series or just for one class, each taking place on a Thursday afternoon during the months of January to March. We kicked the series off with a trip to The Scriptorium- part of the Three Faiths exhibition at the New York Public Library.

Master Calligrapher and Illuminator Karen Gorst curated the Scriptorium, as an accompanying educational tool, and she brought the arts of parchment making, ink and pen making and illumination to life in her presentation about these materials and their role in the production of fine medieval manuscripts.

Member Laurence Fayard sent us an email after the tour: "It was an incredible opportunity to listen to Karen's explanations about Vellum and pigments in the special exhibition Scriptorium. Her talent in Illumination shown in one of the videos, as well available online, is a performance in itself. The major exhibition Three Faiths is a treasure that must be seen more than once." (Thanks Laurence!)

Our second event was February 3rd, at the Grolier Club, a gallery talk and presentation with

Ann Kalmbach, Co-Founder, Women’s Studio Workshop and Terez Iacovino, Artist, about the exhibition Hand, Voice, & Vision: Artists’ Books from Women’s Studio, at the Grolier Club. After a tour of the show, we learned more about the Women's Studio Workshop's ArtFarm Project, which was developed to experiment with various plant fibers not usually associated with hand papermaking. The project has been in operation since 1999; we got to see work made at the studio using fibers grown in the program, and learned more about how the program has developed. (There's a lot more information here, if you're interested.)

Next up is a studio visit to Dobbin Mill papermill, the base of operations for Robbin Ami Silverberg: artist, hand papermaker, and proprietor of Dobbin Mill Books. Dobbin Mill is a hand papermaking studio located in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, founded in 1989. Her studio offers spacious facilities: a professional papermaking studio, an artist book studio, a courtyard for working outdoors, and a papermaker's garden. The focus of the work in the Mill is the production of Silverberg's artwork. It additionally produces the paper used in Dobbin Books' artist book collaborations. We'll be meeting there to learn more about her work, and about the hand papermaking process on Thursday, February 24, at 3pm. You can register online here, or by calling the Center. If you'd like to learn more about Robbin, her website is here.

Coming up next month: a tour of the Garden and the Shed up at the Cloisters, and also the Thaw Conservation Center at the Morgan Library & Museum. Yee-haw!

Independent Study

2011-02-11T16:16:00.010-05:00

Do you have a project in mind that you'd like to start working on? Are you looking for a formal structure in which to develop new work? I've got the perfect solution: Independent Study, coming up next month with instructor Susan Mills.

This class is for everyone who enjoys working independently in the bindery. The open studio structure creates a positive environment for exploration, discussion, consultation, crits, and project development. Students will have full access to the Center’s binding tools and equipment to use to develop their work, and the feedback and guidance of an experience binder.

Susan Mills is a bookbinder who has operated her own bindery since 1990. She teaches hand bookbinding at Nova Scotia College of Art and Design and her book works can be found in institutions and libraries throughout the United States and Canada. You can see some of her work here.

This class is offered over four Sundays in March, 3/6, 3/13, 3/20, and 3/27, during the day, 10am - 4pm. You can register online here.

Image: Edition of artists books by Susan Mills.

Bookbinding II

2011-01-29T14:35:00.007-05:00

Have you taken a bookbinding class and wondered, what's next? Have you seen those sample cards of bookbinding leather and thought to yourself, ooh, ahh, lovely? Do you have secret fantasies of curling up in front of a fireplace, brandy sifter in hand, and your own personally bound library of leather bound tomes at your elbow? Well, you're in luck, because Bookbinding II is on the horizon. Join us for a full week in March for an immersion in traditional leather binding techniques. Learn the difference between sewing on cords and sewing on tapes! Learn the difference between a hollow tube and a tightback! Pare your own leather and sew your own headbands! It's all coming up March 14-18, here at the Center for Book Arts. Complete details and registration here.

Winter Open House

2011-01-27T13:38:00.000-05:00

It's time again for our annual Winter Open House- a stellar opportunity to introduce yourself to the book arts, to get a taste of the year to come, to sneak a peak at our studios, tour the winter exhibitions, ask questions, see some book arts projects in action, pick up a newsletter, and meet some of our faculty and members. It's free! and it's all coming up Saturday, January 29th from 2 to 5pm.

The Center's artists and instructors will be here demonstrating hand binding and letterpress printing techniques; we'll pull some examples of works made by artists in our studios from our collection, and staff will be here to answer all your questions about our classes and programs. It's also a great opportunity to visit the winter exhibitions: the main gallery exhibition Everything in Time, organized by Tate Shaw, and our two Featured Artist Projects: Guy Laramee The Great Wall and Mara Adamitz Scrupe I Own This Land. Please join us!

Winter exhibitions opening reception tonight!

2011-01-19T13:53:00.011-05:00

We're putting the final touches on the installation of our Winter Exhibitions; join us tonight, Wednesday, January 19 from 6 to 8 pm for the opening reception for all three.

Main Gallery: Everything in Time
Featured Artist Projects:
Guy Laramee: The Great Wall
Mara Adamitz Scrupe: I Own This Land

Free to the public.

Artist Talk: Ear to the Page

2010-11-10T12:12:00.005-05:00

On Wednesday, November 3 we were happy to host a talk in conjunction with the main fall exhibition, Ear to the Page. Organized by James Hoff and Alan Licht, Ear to the Page explores the interaction between sound and book art. The exhibition is on view at the Center for Book Arts through December 4, 2010. The curators invited Allen Ruppersberg and Kenneth Goldsmith to speak at the Center about their work. Artist Angie Waller, one of the Center's current Artists in Residence, was in the audience and happily sent us her report on the evening's discussion:

In the context of the Center for Book Art’s Vandercook presses and drawers of lead type surrounding us, it was enlightening to explore the act of collecting the obscure and outmoded with tonight’s presenters.

Before this evening’s talk, I was not aware that Allen Ruppersberg’s LP collection had formed the foundation of the Spoken Word archive on Ubuweb.com. Kenneth Goldsmith, Ubuweb’s founder, described how Allen would lend him obscure LPs that he would in turn copy for his own archive. An example of the collection – Learning to Count by Jim Roche represents an artist with whom no one at tonight’s talk was familiar, yet only 30 years ago was performing at the Whitney Museum and Venice Biennale. Jim Roche’s ramblings, inspired by “Southern crackers” and Pentecostal preachers, are vile. Now you can download them from Ubuweb (http://www.ubu.com/sound/roche.html) and they will be filed in your iTunes catalog between Jay-Z and Justin Timberlake. Be careful if you turn on shuffle in the company of others!

Goldsmith sang from his book Head Citations (2002). The contents are his subjective selections from the web site kissthisguy.com (the archive of misheard lyrics). Humorous indeed, it also reinforced the question of which objects the collector deems worthy of collecting.

Ruppersberg does not use digital tools to make his work, but his recent installation is distributed in a way inherent to digital culture. Where Ubuweb has pages of pdfs available for download, Ruppersberg’s The Never Ending Book Part 2 presented at Greene Naftali Gallery last spring dispersed its pages as Xeroxed copies loosely stacked in cardboard boxes for visitors to take home and assemble in their own “book.” In both examples, the artifact is stripped of its context and re-catalogued by a new collector.

Like a physical archive, there is not a librarian for Ubuweb. When asked if he would consider adding a framework to Ubuweb that would assist users in navigating its vast resources, Goldsmith’s reply was absolutely not. He doesn’t want to be a “tour guide” or have “community.” I agree these are terms that web culture uses to a nauseating degree.

Perhaps the lack of textures that we associate with the archive acquired through junk shops and garage sales can be supplanted in the digital realm through massiveness and versatility. Where we are conditioned to look for the context of objects in libraries and museums using catalogs or didactic wall texts; the intrigue of the physical and digital archive are the subjectivity of the collector and the open-endedness left for the viewer.

Bishop Faculty Fellow Barbara Tetenbaum

2010-10-30T18:02:00.013-04:00

Here at the Center we're all eagerly awaiting the arrival of this year's Faculty Fellow Barbara Tetenbaum, who will be teaching a class on November 19-21 called "Artist Book Strategies: Exploring Music and Musical Scores".

Every year the Center for Book Arts invites an artist/ instructor from outside of New York to teach a master class and to give a formal lecture in New York City. This year's fellow Barbara Tetenbaum has been printing artist books under the imprint, Triangular Press, since 1979. She says of her recent work: “In the last 10 years I’ve been focusing on books related to music, either directly or formally, and work that exposes the role of the reader and how they uniquely respond to a given text or set of images. I am also working outside of the book form, but in ways that are informed by the book: text-based installations and a short animation film produced from images produced on the Vandercook.”
The participants in her three day master class will work with a self-selected piece of music and create a series of books in response to guided exercises and examples. Students will come away with an understanding of the vocabulary of music and how it can serve their bookmaking practice, information on refining various hand skills, and 1-3 finished books.

She'll be speaking here at the Center on November 19th at 6:30pm; there are still slots available in her workshop; details and registration are here.

Fall is here!

2010-09-16T13:23:00.029-04:00

September brings with it:
1. One (successful) Open House/ Closing Party! Thanks to everyone who attended last Saturday's open house, and special thanks to the artists who shared their work with us, Beatrice Coron, Colette Fu and Katie Baldwin. We had a great crowd and a lot of fun.

2. New Exhibitions! We've started installing the fall exhibitions. The opening reception for Ear to the Page, Catya Plate's Featured Artist Project Clothespin Tarot and Barbara Tetenbaum and the Triangular Press: Recent Works will be next Wednesday night, September 22, at 6pm.

3. New Classes! Pop Up Paper Engineering is coming up next weekend, September 25-26, with Laura Bellmont. Register now! Here's all the info you need.

4. New Publications! Chapbooks are being produced right now for the reading on September 29, at 6:30. Alexander Long will read from his winning manuscript Still Life, and we'll also hear from judges Terrance Hayes and Sharon Dolin, as well as our Honorable Mentions Jennifer Perrine, Deborah Flanagan, and Hadara Bar-Nadav.

5. New Events! The Center for Book Arts is pleased to be part of the Maker Faire, on Sunday September 26th, 10 am to 6pm at the New York Hall of Science in Queens. Maker Faire is a newfangled fair that brings together science, art, craft and engineering plus music in a fun, energized, and exciting public forum. The aim is to inspire people of all ages to roll up their sleeves and become makers. The Center will be in attendance showing off our bookmaking prowess in the Library of the Hall of Science, so please some and say hello! There's more information on their website.

Rubber Stamp Non Sequitur

2010-08-10T16:42:00.017-04:00

Please join me this Friday, August 13th from 6 to 9pm for this month's Book Arts Lounge!

Using erasers and carving tools we'll carve our own rubber stamps, construct a hodge-podge assortment of words and phrases and stamp our way into some simple instantaneous books. Bring your own found text- hand made signs, lost pet notices, advertisements, informational pamphlets, tracts, spam messages, directions for use- or borrow some of ours. We'll go over the basics of rubber stamp making, string together some nonsensical phrases and produce some basic tri-fold pamphlets.

Book Arts Lounge is a monthly hands-on art-making event series, featuring a wide range of book arts techniques. Join us on the second Friday of every month for a new installment.

$10 suggested donation/ $5 members; all materials provided.

Visual Poetry

2010-07-02T12:08:00.000-04:00

We're super excited to welcome book artist Pamela Moore to the Center next weekend, July 10-11, Saturday and Sunday. Students in Pamela's workshop Visual Poetry will focus on how to translate the verbal elements of poetry and prose into a visual language. Over two days students will consider a variety of possibilities for housing short texts in informative or symbolic enclosures (or apertures). Students will examine the books and images of two renowned Spanish visual poets and discuss the way they employ objects, imagery, text and photography to create powerful visual metaphors. This class offers an exciting opportunity to examine how text and form can work together in the book. Each student will create a highly personal work that illustrates sensitivity to his or her own literary or poetic selection. .More details and registration info are here.

Pamela Moore has studied studied the arts of fine binding and book conservation at the Conservatorio de las Artes del Libro. She has been the recipient of an NEA grant, as well as an IAPN cultural exchange grant. Moore has lectured and taught in schools, private studios and institutions across Spain as well as in France, Greece and the Czech Republic.

This class is the first program this summer in conjunction with our exhibition Poems and Pictures: A Renaissance in the Art of the Book, organized by Kyle Schlesinger, which examines the fundamental relationships between form and content, visual and language arts, and seeing and reading. Both this exhibition and our summer members show, I will cut thrU, open next Wednesday, July 7th and run through September 11th. We're hoping you can join us for the opening next week, and for Pamela's workshop next weekend.

Take a Letterpress Class this Summer!

2010-06-19T10:56:00.004-04:00

Summer courses are starting up soon- if you've always wanted to learn the basics of letterpress, now's your chance. We have classes for every skill level. The first session of Letterpress I is starting up at the end of the month, so register soon! Get the basics under your belt and learn the difference between inking and impression, metal and polymer. Bring words and ideas to class and be ready to roll up your sleeves.

We're also excited to offer a whole week full of artist books with artist Sarah McCarry the week of August 2-6. It's an ideal opportunity for artists and writers to stretch their skills combining text and image on the printed page. Students will learn the basics of printing hand set type and linoleum blocks on the Vandercook, and learn a few basic binding techniques.

There's a few different opportunities for you to learn exciting new image-making techniques in the printshop this summer: Collagraphs with printmaker Yasuyo Tanaka (Aug 21-22) and Monotypes with Sara Jett (July 31-Aug 1). Stretch your visual language! And we're super excited for what's coming up in July: one half of the dynamic design duo Enormous Champion, our dear friend Jordan Provost will be teaching us the basics of Polaroid and Emulsion Transfers (July 17-18).

So there's little excuse not to print something this summer. Class listings are online now right here.

Vandercook Maintenance

2010-06-05T13:26:00.007-04:00

We're welcoming Paul Moxon, Vandercook historian, promoter, user and educator this week. His weekend workshop Vandercook Maintenance (June 12-13) is a twelve-hour immersion in the care and feeding of these precise pieces of machinery. Moxon has spent the past several years sharing his accumulated knowledge on these presses, and emphasizing that keeping your press in good order and understanding how it functions is essential to good printing. If you print on a Vandercook, own your own press, are looking to buy a press, this is invaluable knowledge.
Aren't in the area and can't leave the state? Have to have lunch with your mother next weekend? He's also got a website containing a wealth of information for those interested in the subject, including a blog, where press owners can post questions and offer advice; it's a treasure trove of information. Is your press making a funny noise? Ink ending up in inappropriate places? Help is out there.
There's only a slot or two left; give us a call if you'd like to join us, or register online here.

June Classes

2010-05-27T14:45:00.011-04:00

June classes are around the bend! We're lucky next month to welcome Barbara Mauriello back to the Center for a week-long sewing intensive. A Sewing Marathon: All About the Pamphlet will explore over a dozen variations on a theme: simple, decorative sewn bindings, all in handmade paper wrappers, and housed in simple boxed sets. This is a perfect class for artists, writers and designers looking for an accessible but striking way of presenting their work.

June 14-18, Monday through Friday, 10 am to 4pm.

You can register here: http://www.centerforbookarts.org/classes/classdetail.asp?classeventID=1044

Spotlight: 2009 Artists-in-Residence

2010-05-15T10:44:00.007-04:00

We're really excited this week to present a talk with four of our five artists-in-residence from 2009; Terry Boddie, Gautam Kansara, Shani Peters and James Walsh will each present recent work related to their residencies here at the Center. Please join us on Wednesday, May 19th at 6:30pm for this stimulating discussion.

Each year the Center invited five contemporary artists with no background in book arts to explore bookmaking using the resources and facilities at the Center. Artists are provided with a stipend, materials budget, workshops on bookmaking and unlimited access to the studios for a year.

Residents this year worked on a wide range of projects: from sculptural experiments in the book form, to codex editions, books embedded with mp3-players, posters, prints and books with video. Our residency program is designed to promote experimentation in book arts, and to make links between the traditional techniques that we teach and the contemporary role and practices of the artist.

In this way, we all end up learning more about the ways books relate to other kinds of artistic productions. I like to think of the Center as a social hub for the various groups of people interested in making, looking at and talking about books and print culture, and inviting a new group of artists to come in and add their contribution to the mix of perspectives is one of the things that keeps the community alive in the studios.

I hope you can join us on Wednesday; if not, you can check out the exhibition that's currently up in our studio galleries of the work of all of our 2009 residents, which will be on view through June 26th.

May workshops!

2010-04-27T12:57:00.013-04:00

Spring is in the air! We're looking forward to a full schedule this spring. Join us this month for more exciting book arts workshops than you can shake a stick at!

A perfect introduction to the season: this weekend Karen Gorst is offering
The Origins of Color: Many color names hint at the color's origins. Sienna is earth from the area of Sienna, Italy. Sap green really does contain sap. Burnt umber really is heated. During this workshop we will learn the basic processes for making traditional pigments. We will levigate earth, grind malachite stones, make colors from vegetable sources, and precipitate lakes. Once the colors are made we will use our pigments to make paint and ink. After taking this workshop you will never look at a tube of paint or ink in the same way! You may even find yourself gathering natural materials for pigments on your next vacation.
May 1-2, Saturday and Sunday 10 am to 4pm
Karen Gorst, Instructor
Tuition: $260/ $245 CBA members.

Sound and Light! Hooshang Partovi is back again this year for our perennial favorite: How would you like to make an electric book with special effect devices? This course devotes two days to making books with Direct Current (DC) electricity. Students will learn how to install batteries, buzzers, light bulbs, and micro-switches, as well as the fundamentals of electricity and the techniques of wiring, soldering, and attaching miniature parts to book covers or text blocks in a hardcover book. You will wire one or, time permitting, two books during this weekend course. Some bookbinding experience is recommended but not required.
May 15-16, 10am – 4pm, Saturday and Sunday, 10am – 4pm
Hooshang Partovi, Instructor
Tuition: $260/ $245 CBA members plus $35 materials fee

The Hidden Art of Kozo Paper
Book making, paste paper and art come together in this two-day workshop packed with innovative and inspiring techniques for using kozo – thin, strong, and pliant handmade mulberry paper. You'll learn a nontraditional process of laminating kozo to other sheets of paper or Tyvek without wrinkles or bubbles, for use in making stiff paper book covers. You also learn to make lush, layered, unique two-sided artwork using blind "gesso drawing" in combination with paper waxing. An application of beeswax transforms the kozo, which becomes translucent — so that the images on both sides, underneath the waxed kozo, pop out. You'll learn how to make shifu (paper thread) from a single sheet of paper; and paper tabs and ribbons. The class focuses on processes and new skills and ideas useful for subsequent book projects rather than on creating a specific object; however, students will make one or two small books and other projects. For all levels of experience.
May 8-9, Saturday and Sunday, 10 am to 4pm
Rory Golden, Instructor
Tuition: $260/ $245 CBA members

Relief Block Printing for Beginners: Lino & Xylo
This class is about the differences between linoleum and wood, selecting and sharpening carving tools, and the very basics of printing. Participants in this class will have the opportunity to experiment with hand-carving on both linoleum and wood blocks using the instructors collection of tools. A small edition of prints from one of their creations will be made on a Vandercook proofing press. This is an introductory level course meant to give students a chance to work with a variety of tools and materials which will allow them to then make educated purchases for their own tool boxes and future projects.
May 15-16, Saturday and Sunday, 10 am to 4pm
Bryan Baker, Instructor
Tuition: $260/ $245 CBA members

Exploring Laced and Tacketed Books
Account books and blank books have always needed to open well, hold up to heavy use, and be portable. Lacing and tacketing are both historical bookbinding techniques that were used to construct non-adhesive bindings that functioned well, creating exposed structure that is both very durable and decorative. This class will introduce students to these historical record keeping structures, and allow time to construct one parchment covered tacketed and laced blank book.
Previous bookmaking experience recommended.
May 22-23, Saturday and Sunday, 10 am to 4pm
Chela Metzger, Instructor
Tuition: $260/ $245 CBA members

You can register for all of our workshops online at www.centerforbookarts.org/classes or by calling 212-481-0295.

Thank you!

2010-04-09T14:52:00.008-04:00

Much thanks to everyone who helped make this year's Annual Benefit and Auction a success-in particular: Roni Gross for overall design and good cheer; Courtney Booth for an exciting! live! auction! event! Richard Minsky for playing host; Karen Gorst for certificate design; all of our volunteers and workstudy for serving drinks food and generally being helpful; Russian Standard Vodka; Les Chauds Lapins for delightful entertainment; all of the artists who donated work to our fantastic auction; Alex Campos for leading the way; Delphi Basilicato for framing excellence; Star Black for photographic evidence; our generous sponsors; the Benefit Co-Chairs; our Board of Directors for spreading the word...am I forgetting anyone? Oh yes:

The Hive Baking Collective for our site-specific dessert installation. Corinna Zelstman (center) made the amazing tiered hive honey cake; Jordan Provost (left) made the honey comb brittle; Sarah Nicholls (right) made the flower cookies, and Bridget Ewald (on vacation in the Bahamas) made the A-MAZ-ING marzipan bees.

Nick and Bryan can't believe their eyes. There's more photos of the entire event for your viewing pleasure here. Thank you to everyone who came and made our fundraiser a success!

Annual Benefit and Auction next week!

2010-04-01T11:00:00.008-04:00

The Center for Book Arts turned thirty-five in the fall of 2009. In honor of our thirty-fifth anniversary year—a venerable landmark—we hope you will join us in recognizing how far we’ve come! You are cordially invited to mark this exciting occasion, and pay tribute to key individuals who have made exceptional efforts to advance and promote the book arts:

Lesley Dill, Artist
Dikko Faust, Printer, Purgatory Pie Press
Ann Kalmbach and Tatana Kellner, Founders, The Women’s Studio Workshop
Ruth and Marvin Sackner, Art Collectors
Mary Coxe Schlosser, Binder and Scholar

We are pleased to celebrate the admirable achievements of these individuals at our 2010 Annual Benefit & Silent Auction on Wednesday, April 7, 2010, from 6 to 9 pm. We hope you will join us for an enchanting spring evening of French Jazz, cocktails, gourmet hors d’oeuvres, a silent auction, and a rousing live auction featuring work by acclaimed artists.

You may purchase tickets for the benefit through our website, here, or by phone at (212) 481-0295.

The exciting artworks on the auction block for this year are viewable on our website!Click here to get a preview of this year's auction.

Please consider purchasing a fully tax-deductible ticket to the Center's Annual Benefit & Auction today.

Hands on Self-Publishing

2010-03-26T11:02:00.021-04:00

The Center for Book Arts is proud to be a part of the Annual Chapbook Festival , co-sponsored by The Office of Academic Affairs, The Center for the Humanities, The Graduate Center and MFA Programs in Creative Writing of the City University of New York; The Center for Book Arts; Poets House; Poetry Society of America; and Poets & Writers. Now in its second year, the Chapbook Festival celebrates the chapbook as a work of art and as a vehicle for alternative and emerging writers and publishers. This year’s festival features two days of workshops, panels, readings, a book fair of chapbook publishers, and a reception at the CUNY Graduate Center on Monday and Tuesday, May 3-4. The complete schedule of events is here.

Directly following the events at CUNY, we'll ask, how do you go from manuscript to object? What are your options for getting text to page? How exactly do you make a book, anyway? Join us on Wednesday, May 5th, from 10 am to 5pm when instructors Susan Mills and Karen Randall will teach basic bookbinding and printing techniques for writers interested in publishing their own work. Writers will learn a few structures suitable for binding their words, and get their hands dirty printing some letterpress book covers. Students will come away with models, ideals and inspiration for producing their own chapbooks. RSVP at 212-481-0295; there's a $20 fee for materials.

We'll cap off the day with our first Broadside reading of the year's series; John Yau has invited Boni Joi and Albert Mobilio to read at 6:30pm, and letterpress printed broadsides are being produced by artists here at the Center to commemorate the event. $10 suggested donation at the door gets you a complimentary broadside. Wine and cheese reception to follow.

History of Art Series: The Book in Time

2010-03-02T11:35:00.010-05:00

Please join us this week for the next session of this year's History of Art series!

We organized a series of talks this year around the general theme of the book as a material object; we invited a wide range of artists, writers, and scholars from a variety of backgrounds to give us different perspectives on the book. We wanted to focus on the book's relationship with time, how people have interacted with books throughout history, and how it continues to function in the present.

Back in February Jane Siegel was kind enough (in a blizzard!) to give a curator's tour to a packed house of how we have interacted with the written word over time, via her favorite treasures from the collection she works with as Rare Book Librarian at Columbia University. This Wednesday we're pleased to present the second installment:

This Wednesday, March 3rd, 6:30PM
Co-sponsored by the American Printing History Association, New York Chapter.

A Force Beyond Function: The Conversation, Technology, and Significance of the Codex.

Join us for a panel discussion centered on the form of the book as an expression of technology.

With Jeff Peachy, Book Conservator; Sarah Lowengard, Historian of Technology and Science, The Cooper Union; Marie Fredricks, Drue Heinz Book Conservator, The Morgan Library and Museum; and John Townsend, Independent Bookbinder and Conservator

How Much: $10/$5 members of the Center & APHA (suggested)

Where: The Center for Book Arts,
28 West 27th Street, 3rd Floor