2007 Symposium: 23 Covered Bridges
Book arts in the landscape of contemporary art

Monday, July 23 through Saturday, July 28, 2007

Book artists from around the country gathered at Minnesota Center for Book Arts for a week of workshops and dialogue with the best and brightest of the book arts community.

MCBA’s 2007 Symposium bridged traditional tools with new approaches to create contemporary and dynamic book art. Book-ended by two-day workshops was a full day of insightful and inspiring presentations, launched by keynote speaker AA Bronson, director of Printed Matter, the world’s largest non-profit organization dedicated to the promotion of publications made by artists. Bronson was a founding member of the artists’ collective General Idea and co-founder of Art Metropole.

Symposium 2007 ended with a collaborative project for all symposium participants. On Saturday afternoon, using accordion structures created throughout the week during open studio time, we created one GIGANTIC accordion book spanning the Stone Arch Bridge across the mighty Mississippi.

WORKSHOP SUMMARIES

Dikko Faust and Esther K. Smith
Instant Artists’ Book: A Limited Edition Letterpress Collaboration
Explore MCBA’s collection of type and image plates and make letterpress printing plates from strange odds and ends. Plus – learn the mysteries of PurgaColor™! IF IT FITS ON THE PRESS, WE WILL LETTERPRESS IT.

Dikko Faust, founder of Purgatory Pie Press, is a letterpress printer and hand typographer. Esther K. Smith edits and designs limited editions and artist books with Faust. They have collaborated with more than 70 other artists and writers.

Karen Hanmer
Flag Books: Interplay of Text and Image
While making two different styles of a flag book, experiment with complementary and contrasting text and images. We will discuss the effects of different spine and page dimensions, direction of motion, and image selection for various book styles.

Karen Hanmer exhibits widely, and her work is included in collections ranging from Tate Britain and the Denver Public Library to Syracuse University and Graceland. She serves on the editorial board of The Bonefolder, a peer-reviewed online book arts journal.

Carol Barton
Pop-up Structures and Paper Engineering
From the paper-engineering master you will learn on-the-fold pop-up structures, then progress through a series of more complicated three-dimensional constructions. Emphasis will be on developing an understanding of the creative magic of pop-up mechanics.

Carol Barton is a book artist, curator, and teacher who has published numerous editions and has organized both local and national shows of artists’ books. Her work, exhibited internationally, is in numerous collections. She is the author of Pocket Paper Engineer.

Amos Paul Kennedy, Jr.
Exercising the 1st Amendment: Poster Printing
Put the message in the hands of the people and move on! Using wood type on the Vandercook and sign presses, print posters that make an impression. Bring civic-minded thoughts to class and leave with bold posters to communicate your message.

Amos Paul Kennedy, Jr. is a letterpress printer, papermaker and self-proclaimed “book builder” dedicated to the documentation of Negro culture. In addition to his work as a book artist, he is an educator, performance artist and proprietor of Kennedy Prints! a letterpress print studio in Akron, Alabama.

Daniel Kelm
The Book Restructured: Wire-edge Binding
The wire-edge binding opens exceptionally well, and gives you the option of producing unusual shapes. During the two days we will explore various wire-edge structures useful for books, enclosures, and articulated sculpture. You will produce a simple codex and an accordion model that forms a tetrahedron.

In 1983 Daniel Kelm opened his own studio, now called The Wide Awake Garage, where he designs and produces artist’s books, interpretive fine bindings, and book sculptures. He is known for his innovative structures and extensive knowledge of materials.

Peggy Skycraft
Marbling with Acrylic
Under the guidance of a master marbler, learn how to marble paper with acrylic paint. Discover methods for testing acrylics and using additives to make them behave. With carrageen gel and alum, make gorgeous combed, stone, and shell patterns. PLUS learn innovative ways to make the fine combs essential for marbling.

In 1970, Peggy Skycraft started a studio business producing editions of traditional marbled papers and silks. Considered a master of this ancient art, Skycraft reintroduced marbling in America through teaching seminars and workshops.

Jeff Rathermel and Wendy Fernstrum
Contemporary Printing on the Iron Hand Press
Experiment with the old and the new in this hands-on workshop featuring two of MCBA’s most venerable presses. Whatever we can make type-high – mounted plexiglass, wood blocks, linoleum blocks, wood and lead type – will be used to print layers of images and text.

Jeff Rathermel is Artistic Director at MCBA and a nationally collected book artist. Wendy Fernstrum, Director of Marketing and Development at MCBA, was a Jerome/MCBA Book Arts Fellowship recipient in 1997.

Lin Lacy
Non-toxic Image Transfer
Most transfer techniques use plastic or solvents. In this workshop, learn the secrets to nontoxic, inexpensive image transfers using laser prints, inkjet prints and packing tape. These image transfer methods can be used on a variety of materials.

Lin Lacy is a Twin Cities fiber artist who works as a Youth and Community Programs Associate at MCBA. She studied design at Reitveld Academie in Amsterdam, Holland.

Jill Weese
The Art of Combining Words and Pictures
Learn how the structure of the page can enhance understanding and satisfaction. Walk through the planning process for designing a book and create a sample that demonstrates the elements of page design. For classroom teachers and artists alike.

Jill S. Weese is the MCBA Youth Programs Coordinator and a licensed elementary teacher and book arts enthusiast. She has been teaching book arts to children and families at MCBA and other local art centers since 1998.

PRESENTATION SUMMARIES

Morning lecture – 10 am to noon
Featuring keynote speaker AA Bronson

Panel discussion – 1:30 to 2:30 pm
Artists’ Books as a Bridge Between the Conceptual and Physical in Contemporary Art, moderated by MCBA Artistic Director Jeff Rathermel, with panelists:

Betty Bright (book arts historian and independent curator)
Fred Hagstrom (visual arts professor at Carleton College)
Karen Hanmer (book artist)
Susan Hensel (book artist and gallery owner)

The book as an art form is far from dead and its future is bright as a
communicative tool in contemporary art. The reason is that books have continued to evolve as they play critical roles in 20th and 21st century art. Among the questions panel members will discuss are, How have books influenced art in the recent past? How are books challenging and strengthening art today? How have books changed in form and how have book artists embraced new media? Is there a limit to what a book can be or what can be a book?

Panel discussion – 3 to 4 pm
The Influence of Book Arts on Graphic Design, moderated by graphic designer and book artist Chandler O’Leary, with panelists:

Monica Edwards-Larson (Sister Black Press)
Dan Ibarra (Aesthetic Apparatus)
Monica Little (Little & Company)
Bill Moran (Blinc Publishing)
Michael Skjei (Carmichael Lynch)

MCBA defines the book arts very broadly – anything from a traditional hard-back book to zines to paper sculpture to tapestries to performance art can be interpreted as falling under the umbrella of the book arts. There's a unifying thread between these different art forms. The language of composition, order, hierarchy, and aesthetics in the book arts is the same language utilized by artists and designers of all disciplines.

MCBA believes that through a diverse, multi-disciplinary community of artists, writers, and designers, we can establish an eclectic tradition and important dialogue that will keep the book arts vibrant, relevant, and vital. Excellent design is at the very heart of the Book, and all its permutations; and the book arts continue to inform and inspire Design. We believe that all the different disciplines that cross paths with the book arts (design, printing, sculpture, illustration, photography, etc.) are not so distant after all – they are part of one diverse and extensive artistic tradition, of which the book arts are a reflection.

Chandler O'Leary (BFA, Rhode Island School of Design) is currently living a double life. By day she is a graphic designer and in-house illustrator for the Minneapolis firm Words At Work. Words At Work is a marketing communications agency known for its work with such clients as Target, IBM, Shelter Corporation, the Minneapolis Farmers Market, SAVE, and Minnesota Center for Book Arts. The rest of the time she is a multi-disciplinary book artist, and the proprietor of Anagram Press. She has several editioned artist books under her belt, and is working on several more. A former Artist-in-Residence at MCBA and 2005 Minnesota Book Award winner in fine press, her work is collected and exhibited nationally.

Monica Little, CEO of Little & Company, has led Little & Company for more than 25 years—her firm is known and respected nationally for its work for such clients as Target, DC Comics, Sports Illustrated, and the Minnesota Historical Society. Little & Company has been recognized by organizations such as the New York Art Directors Club, the American Institute of Graphic Arts, and Advertising Federation, as well as industry publications including Communication Arts, Print, Graphis, HOW, Step Inside Design, and I.D. Monica has also served on a number of boards, including the American Institute of Graphic Arts, Minnesota Chapter; the Corporate Council of the Minneapolis Institute of Arts; and Minnesota Center for Book Arts.
 
Bill Moran, founder of Blinc Publishing, is a third-generation letterpress printer, author and founder of Blinc Publishing, a design and type studio located in sunny Lowertown, Minnesota. His work includes type commissions for Hatch Show Print, Hamilton Wood Type, Minneapolis Institute of Arts and the University of Minnesota's James Ford Bell Library. Bill is the recipient of a 2004 Jerome Foundation/MCBA bookarts grant for his book "Types of Insects/Insects of Type" He teaches type history at the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis College of Art and Design and at the Minnesota Center for Book Arts.
 
Monica Edwards Larson is proprietor of Sister Black Press. She founded Sister Black Press in 2001—after its namesake, a letterpress-printing nun at a Benedictine convent in Missouri, where Monica purchased her press. Monica printed and die-cut all of local record label Mercury Recording’s cd jackets—over 20 releases. She has also designed and printed posters for several local concerts. At present, she is working on an editioned book of hours, a tribute to Sister Black herself. Monica is also a Youth Programs staff member at MCBA.
 
Dan Ibarra is half of the Minneapolis design and print team Aesthetic Apparatus, which Dan and his “evil twin,” Michael Byzewski, founded in 1998. Dan and Michael began the firm in Madison Wisconsin, before moving the operation to Minneapolis in 2002. Aesthetic Apparatus daily walks a fine line between design and fine art in its limited edition concert posters, now recognized both nationally and internationally. To this day the firm still consists of just Dan and Michael, and each poster is still printed by hand. Aesthetic Apparatus has worked with clients such as MTV2, the Criterion Collection, and Blue Q; national bands including The New Pornographers, The Hold Steady, and Frank Black; and local favorites such as Low, Belles of Skin City, and the Deaths. Their work has been featured in Communication Arts, Creative Review, HOW, Print, Rolling Stone, Jane Magazine, Readymade Magazine, and the recent Chronicle Books publication, The Art of Modern Rock. Dan also teaches design at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design.

Michael Skjei (pronounced: my cal shay) is an enigma. Creative director at Carmichael Lynch, Michael has been a lover of books and typography since before the advent of television.

EVENING ACTIVITY SUMMARIES

Monday: Opening reception for Symposium

Tuesday: Karen Hanmer slide lecture, Book Arts Road Trip

Wednesday: Book arts critique night. Bring your artists books, receive feedback, get enlightened!

Thursday: Field trips to Minneapolis Insitute of Art and Mill City Museum

Friday: Opening reception for MCBA’s exhibition of African American book artists, printmakers, and paper artists curated by Amos Paul Kennedy