Come see the Toys and Games exhibit and stay for the fun of creating your very own ELECTRIC BOOK! MCBA instructors will help you create a book and staff from the Bakken Museum will demonstrate how to "light-up" your book with a little electricity!

In the Star Tribune Foundation Gallery, juror/artist Dean Lucker will offer a special display of collaborative handmade works created with Ann Wood. These works include; dexterity games, mechanical pictures, mechanical sculptures, and pinball games. To view examples of their work, visit www.woodlucker.com.

About the Exhibit...

Toys and Games is the second juried members’ exhibition organized by Minnesota Center for Book Arts (MCBA). We invited artists working in all media and book forms (traditional and not-so-traditional) to explore "playthings" of all sorts – from Chutes ‘n Ladders board games, baseball and bingo to emotional scheming and grown-up fun.

While MCBA frequently curates or co-curates thematic exhibitions, juried shows provide a special opportunity to discover many new book artists and to view new work by established artists by placing an open call for submissions. Toys and Games attracted 61 entries, from which 30 were selected for display by panelists Betty Bright (art historian with specific concentration and expertise in contemporary artists’ books), Dean Lucker (St. Paul artist/creator of mechanical toys), and William Drendel (Chicago book artist and Director of Columbia College’s Chicago Center for Book and Paper Arts). The quality and diversity of entries well exemplified the continued resiliency of the book as a repository of ideas and as a flexible form for artistic expression, ranging from reinterpretations of early "toy" book forms (tunnel or "peepshow" formats, "shuffle" books, miniatures) to adaptation of traditional children’s amusements ("Jacob’s ladder" structures, flexagons, trading and playing cards, board games) to sculptural book-toys.

Toys and Games offers many such insightful perspectives and artful solutions. Artists affording unique creative interpretations of the theme also include Alice Austin, Lyn Brands, Marcia Brown, Tara Christopherson, Heather Delisle, Elsi Vassdal Ellis, Wendy Fernstrum, Joanne Fox, Barbara Gilhooly, Rebecca Goodale, Martha Hall, Karen Hanmer, Ellie Honl, Jill Jevne, Linda K. Johnson, Roberta Lavadour, Dan Mayer and Ed Lebow, Carol Parker, Jeff Rathermel, Pamela Schloff, Cori Sherlock, Claire van Vliet, Susan Viguers, and Jody Williams.