VT Book Arts Guild “MailB.A.G.” December 2015
Next Meeting: Wednesday, December 9, 2015, 6:30 p.m. – 8:30 p.m.
We meet at the Unitarian Universalist Society Church located at 152 Pearl Street in Burlington, VT. We will be in the Sophia Fahs Community Room, a large room located in the basement. Click here for more information on directions/parking.
Program: Studio Support and Workshop Time and Year-End Celebration/Pot Luck
It’s a party! In celebration of a wonderfully productive and creative year, with inspiring presenters and a super-successful 2015 show, the Book Arts Guild is hosting a year-end party for our December meeting. The guild will supply light dinner fare – wraps, veggies and dips, snacks and drinks. All you need to bring is your enthusiasm and holiday cheer (and perhaps some cookies or a dessert to share).
Along with the party festivities, there will be two exciting projects to participate in. The guild will be creating a collaborative Exquisite Corpse book to be completed and displayed at our upcoming exhibit. Submissions for the book are due at the January meeting, so this might be the perfect opportunity to get a head start on your creation. You are welcome to work in any 2-D medium, so bring your favorite drawing or painting tools and paper (or materials to collage an image). Rebecca Boardman will be on hand to provide templates, examples and guidance.
In addition, at the November meeting, B.A.G. members decided to participate in the Genesis Project, a crowd-sourced art installation led by artist Valerie Hird. The project celebrates diversity and cultural interconnections, which is a wonderful theme during this time of year.
Over 3,000 handmade origami cubes and birds will be used to create a life-sized tree at the Nora Haime Gallery in New York City. As a guild, we have committed to contributing origami cubes to the project (we have to submit a minimum of 100). The cubes need to be made from 6-inch squares cut from glossy magazine paper, preferably with images dominated by shades of red, yellow, blue, green, tan and light purple. Some text on the page is fine, too.
So bring in your favorite glossy magazines with colorful images, and join us in a folding fest! Jill Abilock will bring written instructions on folding the cubes (also known as “water balloons”), and will lead a folding demo for us. (You can also find an online tutorial here.) Jill will also bring in templates for cutting 6-inch squares from the magazine paper.
Things to bring to the December meeting:
A sweet treat to share (optional)
Materials for creating your Exquisite Corpse image:
- Paper
- Pens, pencils, colored pencils, markers, watercolors, etc.
- Collage materials and scissors, glue sticks, etc.
Materials for participating in the Genesis origami project:
- Light, glossy and colorful magazine paper
- Pencil
- X-Acto Knife
- Cutting mat
- Ruler
November Meeting Reflections
Writing this after the Thanksgiving holiday, I am grateful for the creative community that is the Book Arts Guild of Vermont.
Our November meeting filled the meeting room with joy, camaraderie, and cleverness as members shared skills and ideas. We learned new book structures, greeting card techniques, and even a smart gift bag enclosure to contain all those clever things.
Thanks to everyone for participating, and special thanks to those who prepared and shared!
You can view images from the meeting on the B.A.G. blog.
B.A.G. News
Spring Exhibit at UVM Living/ Learning Gallery
Announcing our Spring 2016 exhibit: Book Works, book-related works by the Book Arts Guild of Vermont! The exhibit will take place at the Living Learning Center gallery on the UVM campus from February 15 – March 18, 2016.
We encourage all members and friends to participate in this broadly themed show. Work can include new or time honored techniques, book-related pieces and sculpture, and generally any work that can be ‘read’.
Important Dates:
- Deadline for submissions: January 15, 2016. Work can be brought to the January meeting or mailed to Marcia. For special arrangements, please contact Marcia.
- Set up: February 15, 2016. If you would like to help hang the show to see what goes on pre-show, please let me know.
- Opening reception and artists’ talk: February 18, 2016 at 5:30 p.m. This will be in place of our usual February meeting.
The exhibit entry form and additional information can be downloaded here.
We would love to provide studio support at the December meeting, prior to the show, where participants can seek help and advice on their projects, so bring in your work in progress to share with others, seek help, or ask for advice on techniques, finishing, etc.
For inspiration, try searching on Pinterest for book arts boards. Here are a few links to get you started:
- Elissa’s book art and artist books page (Elissa has many great boards on Pinterest – all worth looking through)
- Book art and artists books
After such a fantastic show last year at SEABA, we’re excited to see what comes next for everyone!
Book Arts News
*** On December 4 – 5, the first annual Northampton Book and Book Arts Fair will take place at the Smith College Campus Center in Northampton, MA.
The event includes exhibits, sales, book signings, demonstrations, lectures and features the leading antiquarian booksellers from the region and book artists, letter press printers, book binders, paper makers, wood engravers, stone cutters, and book designers.
The keynote speaker is Richard Minsky, a scholar of bookbinding and widely acclaimed as a pioneering book artist whose work is collected internationally by major museums and libraries. He is the founder of the Center for Book Arts in New York City.
For more information, please visit the event website.
*** Now through December 13th, the Middlebury College Museum of Art is presenting The Art of Storytelling: Five Tales from Asia, Then and Now. The exhibit includes a beautiful combination of ancient and modern illustration.
The five Asian tales at the center of this exhibition have inspired artists for centuries and continue to capture the imaginations of comics writers and graphic designers today. This exhibit explores many of the painted and printed interpretations of these compelling narratives from the sixteenth century to the present.
The works are drawn from the collections of the Middlebury College Museum of Art, the Harvard Art Museums, the Hood Museum of Art at Dartmouth College, and Harvard-Yenching Library, and are complemented by contemporary comics, illustrations, and other digital media.
*** The Paper Room (formerly known as Langdell Paper) at AVA Gallery and Art Center is holding its annual open studio on Saturday December 5th, from 11:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m. This event is part of AVA’s annual Open House.
Not only are there going to be 1,000’s of sheets of handmade paper available for purchase, but there will also be refreshments and fun paper-related conversation.
The AVA Art Center is located at 11 Bank Street in Lebanon, NH. The Paper Room is on the second floor in studio #209. For more information, please contact Richard at rlangdell@gmail.com.
*** The New England Chapter of the Guild of Book Workers is looking for volunteers for an upcoming Girl Scout event. They will be partnering with the Girl Scouts of Eastern Massachusetts offering programs for Cadette scouts (age 11-14) to earn a Book Artist badge. In addition, they will run a program for younger scouts.
The event will be held on Saturday March 26, 2016 at Camp Maude Eaton in Andover, MA. They will run a 3-hour program for Cadettes in the morning from 9:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m. and then have a 2-hour program for younger girls from 1:00 p.m. – 3:00 p.m. You can volunteer for just one program or make a day out of it and do both!
There will be an introduction and then five stations that the girls will rotate through which may include printing, accordion folds, a pamphlet, origami book, a scroll, decorating paper or a collaborative book, depending on the interests of the volunteers. Each rotation will last for about 30 minutes. The younger girls will have similar programming in a shorter time frame with possibly only four rotations. If you have a book arts technique or project that you’d like to see done with the Girl Scouts please make some suggestions.
You do not need to be a member of the NEGBW to volunteer. If you would like to volunteer, please contact Todd Pattison at bookandtile@att.net.
*** On Saturday, December 5th from 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m., the Friends of the South Burlington Community Library are having a book sale at Wheeler House, in Burlington, VT. Books are priced at 3 for $1.00 – if you’re into altered books, then this is a great way to stock up.
Wheeler House is located at 1100 Dorset Street.
Book Arts Classes
*** On February 1 – 5, 2016, the North Bennet Street School is offering Introduction to Blind and Gold Tooling on Leather with Samuel Feinstein.
In this week-long intensive, students learn the fundamentals of blind tooling and gold tooling on leather, focusing on straight lines and using BS Glaire to affix the gold. Line-work is one of the most important, fundamental, and versatile decorative techniques used on tooled bindings, and it is used in both traditional and contemporary designs. Students also have time to explore the use of curved lines and small decorative tools within a limited scope. A final plaquette will be completed using the techniques covered.
This is an introduction for beginners as well as a step forward for those who would like to build on their existing knowledge. The goal of this workshop is to familiarize you with the processes involved and prepare you for further practice.
For more information or to register, please visit the NBSS website.
*** The North Bennet Street School is also offering a Paste Paper Workshop with Amy Lapidow on Saturday, December 12th.
In this one-day workshop, we explore a variety of recipes, papers and techniques to make decorative paper using a combination of adhesive and colorant, commonly called paste papers. Paste paper is regularly used in bookbinding and can be used for other paper projects.
For more information or to register, please visit the NBSS website.
- Book Arts Guild of VT website: http://www.bookartsguildvt.com/
- Book Arts Guild of VT Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/bookartsguildvt
- Book Arts Guild of VT on Pinterest: http://www.pinterest.com/bagvermont/
