News from the
MFA in the Book Arts Program
1.10.12
Thomasina Morris and John-Michael Perkins watch the table during our annual Holiday Book Art Sale held at UA's Ferguson Student Center December 5-6, 2011.
Visiting Iowa bookbinder and bookartist Julie Leonard speaks about the trajectory of her career, and the process of making, in Letterpress 1 October 13, 2011.
Visiting Artist (Sept 10-18, 2011) Sigfredo Mendoza created two complex lincuts in editions and two stone lithographs during his time here. We first met him at Taller Experimantal de Grafica in Havana, Cuba duringf the collaborative book projects we have done with Cuban prinmakers and papermakers. Photo by Michele Henderson.
In our Lost Arch Papermill Suzanne Sawyer, MFA student, has created glorious Rhododendrums of overbeaten flax on armatures. They are quite dramatic to behold. Summer and fall 2011.
Day One of instructor Sarah Bryant's (right) fall Boxmaking class begins the semester with a bang!
Summer in the Book Arts Program type shop, looking through John Horn's Shooting Star Press mobile. Photo by Caroline Dobson.
Springtime 2011 in the Book Arts Program, pondering the meaning of cupcake gifts from Mary's Cakes & Pasteries...
A March 11, 2011 visit toTaller Experimental de Gráfica in Havana, Cuba, where we met with artists Daniel Alberto Rodríguez (l) and César Peña Peralta. Their work is featured in our program's newest collaborative book project with poet Hank Lazer, INDIVISIBLE.
Poet Hank Lazer signing copies of INDIVISIBLE, March 2011. When bound these were taken to our Cuban artists collabortaors on the project.
Book artist Frank Brannon speaks about his longterm Cherokee project on March 24, 2011.
In an annual tradition for The New Yorker, it held its fourth contest soliciting readers’ takes on Eustace Tilley, the magazine’s mascot. Tilley, the Regency dandy, is the creation of art editor Rea Irvin and has been on the cover of almost every anniversary issue — including this year’s — since his first appearance, on the début issue, in 1925. Twelve winners were chosen from among more than six hundred entries. Book Arts student Timothy Winkler's Wandering Eye was one of them. Here is a gallery of all the 2011 entries.
Cutting rag on the first evening of a week-long residency with the Combat Paper Project, Nov 14-19, 2010. It was a powerful experience for everyone.
A first meeting of Alabama book artists, educators, and librarians devoted to the book on November 6, 2010 at the Alabama Center for the Book located at The University of Alabama. Photo by Douglas Baulos.
Kathryn and Howard Clark of Twinrocker Handmade Paper at the September 23, 2010 opening of the Twinrocker retriospective exhibition at the Robert C. Williams American Museum of Papermaking in Atlanta, GA..
Chicago book artist Shawn Sheehy gave an intense workshop to 18 book arts students September 10, 2010. The workshop covered deploying the Robo Pro 2 paper cutting machine to precisely cut paper from Adobe Illustrator vector files—for cutouts and pop-ups in handmade books.
A ball of leftover fiber. Professor Steve Miller and artist Martin Vinaver had finished pulling dried sheets of Alabama Kozo off glass after a weekend of papermaking, June 29, 2010. Martin took a good stack back to his printmaking facility, La Ceiba, in Coatepec, Mexico.
John Sirmon and Kerri Harding hard at work in the Lost Arch Papermill on a special project for the Southern Governor's Association.
The April 17, 2010 Alabama Book Festival in Montgomery was a great opportunity to exhibit and sell our work. Pictured left to right are Kerri Harding, Stephanie Jacobs, Lauren Faulkenberry, Mary McManus, Professor Anna Embree, and Erin Morris.
The April 1, 2010 Edible Book Festival featured, among many works, a cake made for our School by Mary's Cakes and Pastries of Northport, Alabama. Many thanks for a very fun event!
Frank Brannon of SpeakEasy Press presented his ideas at Graduate Symposium, on life after school and what it takes to be a successful book artist. March 29, 2010.
Ally Nevarez holds the first proof of a broadside while her instructor Linda Samson Talleur proudly stands by. Linda teaches at the University of Kansas-Lawrence, and gave a February 26-27 workshop on the mysteries of the Iron Hand Press.
Bill Stewart of Vamp & Tramp Booksellers speaks about the business of books in the Type Lab on February 22, 2010.
Karri Harding demonstrates a bookbinding structure to students from the Booker T. Washington Magnet School. The high school creative writers traveled from Montgomery to spend the morning of January 29, 2010 making things in the letterpress and bookbinding studios with our graduate students.
October 15-18, 2009, Book Arts graduate students Kerri Harding, Sarah McDermott, and Ally Nevarez attended the Friends of Dard Hunter annual meeting of papermakers in Atlanta with Prof. Steve Miller. Ally photographed this watermark at The Robt. C. Williams American Museum of Papermaking.
On November 6, 2009, the School of Library and Information Studies hosted its annual Alumni Day, and as part of the festivities there was a reception for a new exhibition. On the fifth floor of Amelia Gorgas Library the work entitled Luciferous Logolepsy are on display alongside a striking sculpture of Bill Gates. The exhibition features hundreds of letterpress printed obscure words, hung from the ceiling as a way of giving readers exposure to these hidden dictionary jewels. The Bill Gates sculpture is complex assembly of different materials, each with it's own message. Friends joined artists Kathleen Fetters, Glenn House Sr., and sculptor Jim Slowe to celebrate the work. (l-r) Kerri Harding and Mary McManus.
September 15, 2009, Book Arts graduate student Ally Nevarez (r) introduces undergraduate students enrolled in the course COMING OF AGE IN AMERICA to the challenge of bookbinding.
Professor Steve Miller (l) introduces and interviews printer/publisher Gunnar Kaldewey and bookbinder/conservator/book artist Hedi Kyle at the opening ceremony of the Hybrid Book Conference in Philadelphia, May 2009.
Robert Walp, UA Book Arts graduate and proprietor of Chester Creek Press, shows some of his handmade tools at the Hybrid Book conference in Philadelphia, May 2009.
North Carolina book artist, papermaker, and teacher Frank Brannon speaks with Book Arts students on March 3, 2009.
On March 3, 2009 Beverly Plummer and Susan Hulme visited the program and spoke about their work. Of particular interest was Beverly's work with composer John Cage, and her hand papermaking experiments using alternative fibers.
In celebration of Spring in Alabama we have issued a 2009 pdf edition of An Alabama Kozo Primer by Glenn House Sr., originally published in 1995 in a limited edition handmade Parallel Editions book at The University of Alabama. Simply click on Richard Flavin's Kozo Cutters above to download the file.
All our thoughts go out to friends and family of Raimundo Respall, shown here looking at pages from the collaborative book project we did in December 2008. Raimundo was Director of Taller Experimental de Grafica in Havana, Cuba, and was a good and long friend to the Book Arts Program on our many projects there. He passed away unexpectedly on February 27th.
On February 2, 2009 Sarah McDermott showed a group of newly-arrived Chinese students her work, and Emily Tipps gave a studio tour to students from an undergraduate BOOK ARTS class she is teaching for New College.
Friday December 5th, finishing the extensive collaborative book project Havana: A Living City, at Taller Experimental de Grafica in Havana, Cuba. MFA students Friedrich Kerksieck. Jessica Peterson, Dr. José Vazquez Rodríguez, Director of International Relations, San Gerónimo University, Emily Tipps, Prof. Steve Miller, Lark Griffin, and Prof. Anna Embree. See the YouTube video!
Ad Kanyalak successfully defended his Creative Project Thesis, FACED, on August 29, 2008. The text speaks to the challenges of moving from Thailand to Alabama, and his letterpress-printed photographs set the mysterious tone of this work.
Book Arts student graduate Sarah Bryant working on a project at Wells College, Aurora, NY, in August of 2008. Sarah was awarded the prestigious Victor Hammer Fellowship there, where she will be working on her books and teaching book arts classes for the next two years. Congratulations Sarah! She defends her Creative Project Thesis this semester.
Conserving the Antiquarian Libraries of Arequipa
In July 2008 in cooperation with INLIBRI, a six member team from Alabama (Professor Anna Embree and graduate student Jessica Peterson), Iowa and Texas has spent the past two weeks working with local Peruvian authorities and Helen Ryan, Librarian and Director of Catalog Processing and Alvaro Meneses, Director of INLIBRI (Institute of the Book) and Bibliographer. Together the team has demonstrated methods for effective cleaning and exhibition and methods for non-damaging relocation of collections. The team has set-up a workshop and has trained local students from the esteemed Universidad Catolica de Santa Maria to continue the project in their absence.
Book Arts faculty member Steve Miller was the juror, and wrote an introduction to 500 Handmade Books: Inspiring Interpretations of a Timeless Form, published July 1, 2008 by Lark Press, Asheville, NC. This collection forms a snapshot of here and now in Book Arts.
Book Arts faculty member Anna Embree (2nd from left) discusses handmade paper on May 13, 2008 with the papermakers at Taller Experimental de Papel Artesanal in Havana, Cuba for the next book collaboration with Cuban artists.
Chela Metzger, teacher in the University of Texas' Conservation Program, gives a workshop on "Tacketing" for the Book Arts students, April 11-12, 2008.