VT Book Arts Guild “MailB.A.G.” December 2021
Next Meeting: Wednesday, December 8, 2021, 7:00 p.m. – 8:30 p.m.
This month’s meeting will once again be held via Zoom, an online conference program. If you’ve never attended a Zoom meeting before, check out this video – it will go over the basics of how to join a meeting.
Stay safe!
The B.A.G. Board
Program: Zine Swap Sharing
Our December meeting will be a sharing of your amazing ZINES.
Come prepared to guide us through your zine creation and share your process. The variety of zines made by our 20+ participants is so creative and full of surprises. Get ready for an evening of inspiration and fellowship.
Zine you there!
If you plan to attend the meeting, please contact Elissa so she can send you the Zoom meeting details.
November Meeting Reflections
Traditionally, the November meeting (formerly Book Blitz and Card Tricks) has been one of my favorites. Participation is always at a high and ideas flow freely. The new program, simply called Paper Tricks, did not disappoint. Volunteers showed their simple, complicated, or just plain fun ideas using their awesome paper skills.
We also caught up with Gail Martin and her collection of miniature books that was in the show at the Northeast Kingdom Artisans Guild. Wonderful all around.
Thanks, everyone, for presenting, participating, and just plain showing up. We continue to buoy each other up, and look forward to a future when we can meet in person.
You can download Elissa’s card template here.
B.A.G. Library Corner
We all know that food is the most important part of the holiday season. What about creating a journal to house your holiday recipes?
Jeannine Stein’s Adventures in Bookbinding gives us a step-by-step guide to creating a quirky coptic-bound, decoupage journal – that even incorporates real spoons! Whether you use this tutorial to create a junk journal of gathered recipes or to create a blank book to copy your recipes by hand, Stein’s method is fun to follow or easy to customize to your own vision.
If you have ideas for books to feature or if you have a library book in your possession you’d like to share something from, email Sally at salblanch@gmail.com.
You can check out and download the project here.
B.A.G. News
*** Support the Book Arts Guild of Vermont by becoming a member!
The Book Arts Guild of Vermont is supported by its members and you have kept us going for more than fifteen years. Our organization is solely run by volunteers and we do what we do because we love the book arts and we love B.A.G.. We continue to be inspired by our community, and the enthusiasm and talents that you bring to our meetings.
Membership dues are our main source of income and we hope that you will show that you value what we have to offer – quality programming, future exhibits, and more – by becoming a member. You get so much value out of your $35.00 and attending just one meeting can give you your full money’s worth.
Just to give you an idea of where membership dues go, here’s a breakdown of B.A.G.’s annual expenses:
- Zoom subscription: $149.90 per year
- Vimeo subscription: $84.00 per year
- Rent: $50.00 per month when we can return to in-person attendance
- Presenter honorarium: $35.00 per meeting
- Website and email newsletter: $100.00 per year
- Presenter reimbursement for supplies: Varies
We hope that you will renew your membership to help us with our annual expenses. You can download our membership form and send it in with your payment by check of $35.00 made out to the Book Arts Guild of Vermont:
Book Arts Guild of Vermont
c/o Ann Joppe-Mercure
10 Brookwood Dr
South Burlington, VT 05403
Thank you so much for your continued support of the guild. We wouldn’t be here without you.
*** Mary Ellen Manock is offering up her stash papermaking supplies to anyone interested. She’s got a blender, instructions, straw, and cellulose materials to wet down and make paper. She also has some color aid paper (glossy brilliant color).
The catch is that she needs to get everything out of her garage by this weekend as she is closing on her house. If she can’t get any takers, then she will bring everything to the ReStore.
If you’re interested, please contact Mary Ellen at memanock@mac.com.
Book Arts News
*** Join the Kalamazoo Book Arts Center for their 14th annual Illustrated Accordion exhibition.
Each year the Kalamazoo Book Arts Center (KBAC) sponsors a non-juried exhibition The Illustrated Accordion, showing in the KBAC Gallery in spring. Open to all emerging and established artists, this exhibition focuses on books created in the accordion form.
The Illustrated Accordion exhibition focuses on books created in the accordion form. The structure of an accordion book is simple: a long piece of paper is folded into pages that can be read like a book or spread open and displayed like a banner. Featuring works of book artists from all over the world, the books in this exhibit take this book form to a new level.
Entries are being accepted online, now through January 24, 2022.
For more information about the exhibition, please contact Katie Platte at katie@kalbookarts.org or (269) 373-4938.
*** Now through December 6, Abecedarian Artists’ Books is accepting submissions for its upcoming show, Lettered & Bound. The exhibit will be on view at Dayton Memorial Library, Regis University, in Denver, CO in February 2022 and Tallyn’s Reach Public Library in Aurora, CO in March 2022.
Eligible are book works that include calligraphy (the art of beautiful writing) as a primary element. Book works can be unique, editioned, traditionally bound, created using experimental forms (e.g. folded forms), wall mounted (e.g. scrolls) or loose sheets presented in a portfolio or box. Calligraphy is here defined as human mark making that draws upon traditional forms of calligraphy or modern, gestural, or abstract forms.
For more information or to submit work for consideration, please visit the Abecedarian Artists’ Books website.
Stay-at-Home Fun
*** The Austin Book Arts Center is offering the Watercolor Sketchbook with Beatrice Baldwin on December 10.
Learn some basic bookbinding skills in this 3-hour workshop. Students will create a hard-cover book with pages of watercolor paper (140 lb Arches cold press). It is an accordion fold construction, so the book opens wide and the pages lay flat, perfect for sketching or watercolor.
For more information or to register, please visit the ABAC website.
*** The Jaffe Center for Book Arts is offering A Wardrobe of Paper Cases with Karen Hanmer on December 11,
In this one session online workshop you will quickly construct a text block using a very speedy sewing technique. This will free up the remainder of our time together to concentrate on folding a variety of paper cases to dress this text block ”mannequin.” As each case is presented, suggestions will be given on appropriate sewing techniques and endsheet constructions for that particular structure.
All structures are low or no adhesive. All can be constructed in a sparsely-equipped home studio with minimal specialized equipment.
This workshop is appropriate for intermediate binders, beginners who are ready for a fast-paced workout, and anyone who wants to add more paper cases to their repertoire.
For more information or to register, please email John Cutrone at jcutrone@fau.edu.
*** The Center for Book Arts is offering Zines, Zines, Zines! with Beth Sheehan on December 16.
In this two-hour virtual workshop for beginners, the instructor will give an overview of the multifaceted history of zines and teach participants to make their own!
Participants will learn simple image-making techniques like pochoir and easy-to-do zine structures including variations on the accordion book.
For more information or to register, please visit the CBA website.
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