The Weekly News • MFA in the Book Arts Program
What's New? Academic year 2004-2005

Our Book Arts Advisory Board met April 29-May 1st and had an extremely productive time. Members met with administration, faculty, and students in brainstorming and planning sessions. The meeting culminated in a big potluck supper, where a good time was had by our Book Arts community. Our thanks to the Board and its good work on behalf of the Book Arts Program!

Spring Workshops 2005 at Alabama

Three great public workshops were held in May of 2005. Ann Marie Kennedy taught Hand Papermaking in our Lost Arch Papermill from May 9 - 11. The students produced truly beautiful hand maded paper pieces.

Paul Moxon taught an exciting and intense Vandercook Proof Press Maintenance workshop on May 12th, followed by Letterpress Printing 101 on May 13 - 14. You may wish to participate in more of these great opportunities in the Spring of 2006.

A view of Frank Brannon's Creative Project Thesis exhibiton at UA's Museum of Natural History, March 2005.

Streaming video of our Spring 2004 bookmaking trip to Cuba. From March 13-20, 2005, Book Arts faculty members Embree and Miller were again in Cuba working on book collaborations and meeting new artists. More news on this shortly.

On the February 11, 2005 trip to the American Museum of Papermaking in Atlanta, Book Arts students (and faculty member Anna Embree on the right) had a rare opportunity to meet Arnold Grummer who has just sold his 1,000,000th hand papermaking kit.

Steaming mulberry bark at the annual 2005 spring Kozo Harvest, led this year by Visiting Artist and King Kozo himself Glenn House.

Jim Croft, renown Idaho book artist and tool maker, brought a station wagon full of wood and bone to Alabama for a workshop given on November 2nd. The book arts students were treated to an extraordinary and long day of the art and craft of sculpting bone folders from crude pieces of the thigh bone of elk and deer. These folders were adapted for various paper-folding tasks by each person - made to suit their hand and task. From working the bone with large horse-shoeing rasps, down to the final fine sanding, it was hard work but the pieces were very special in the end. There is nothing like working in a daily way with a tool that you have made by hand. In the afternoon, Jim introduced the participants to awl-making. Various woods were used to make the handles, and Jim sunk the sharp needles into place for these hole-making tools.

In conjunction with Jim Croft's visit the book arts students mounted an exhibition of the tools of bookbinding, letterpress printing, and hand papermaking. It is on view during the month of November in the Fifth Floor Gallery.



Jim Croft talks to some members of Prof. Tonyia Tidline's History of the Book course during his workshop. Prof. Tidline is 3rd from the right.



Book Arts students Amy Pirkle (l) and Sara Owen hard at work during Ellen Knudson's Gelatin Plate Printmaking workshop, held September 24-25, 2004.

The May 21-23 workshop with Maine papermaker Bernie Vinzani, an introduction to the art and craft of making paper by hand, was a tremendous success. Bernie is well-known as a great papermaker, but he is also a gifted teacher who shares much. Many of the participants had some papermaking experience, and he was able to move them strongly ahead. Others had little experience but gained experience and confidence by working with this master. We look forward to this being the start of a tradition of offering spring and summer workshops in bookbinding, hand papermaking, and letterpress printing open to the public.

The Cuba Book Project:
A collaboration with Cuban book artists
February 21-29, 2004, Anna Embree, bookbinder, Steve Miller, printer & papermaker, and Tonyia Tidline, historian of the book, accompanied three book arts students to Cuba for a week. We put the finishing touches on a bi-lingual limited edition book of poems by US poet laureate Billy Collins, illustrated by Havana printmaker Carlos Ayress Moreno. Produced in two separate editions, the books finished in Cuba were distributed to Cuban libraries, while the books finished in Alabama will be available here later this spring.

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