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The Virginia Arts of the Book Center, a program of the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities, is hosting two weeklong summer seminars in the book arts. Join us in beautiful Charlottesville, Virginia…a small town with big town feel…and be introduced to the artists who participate in and run this book arts studio. Charlottesville has a wealth of other offerings in the summer: bookstores, restaurants, a farmer’s market, and enough cultural activities to keep two arts weeklies in business. VABC Summer Seminars will have small class sizes for maximum interaction between participants and practicing artists. Join us for a week! Two course descriptions below. Other affiliated resources: WEEK 1: June 9 –13, 2008 Primary Instructor: Johanna Drucker This class offers a chance to experience basic principles of artists' books through a series of hands on exercises to familiarize critics, curators, collectors, dealers, and artists with the fundamental aspects of artists' books. Daily studio sessions devoted to making book structures, playing with type and layout, organizing images, addressing questions of sequence, development, and other book features (turnings, spreads, etc.) through exercises that require no prior technical or artistic skill. Other sessions will be devoted to critical discussions and study of books, and of work in progress, and a few writing exercises. VABC Artists with a developed practice who have work in progress they would like to workshop are invited to participate in late afternoon/evening sessions focused on their work. The tone of the class will be supportive and creative, not critical, and the spirit of the week is to inspire confidence in a diverse community of persons interested in understanding how books work as artistic expressions. No prior experience or skills necessary. Johanna Drucker, author of Sweet Dreams: Contemporary Art and Complicity, has published and lectured extensively on topics related to the history of typography, artists' books, and visual art. Her many artist’s books, including The Testament of Women, Damaged Spring, and the History of the/my Wor(l)d are internationally renowned. She is the Robertson Professor of Media Studies at UVa and advises Artists' Books Online. WEEK 2: June 16–20, 2008 Primary Instructor: Kevin McFadden “Whack away at everything pertaining to literary life—mechanical part as well as the rest. Learn to set type, learn to work at the 'case,' learn to be a practical printer, and whatever you do learn condensation." —Walt Whitman Taking advice from Whitman, this workshop and studio week will ask poets to consider the various aspects of presenting their work on the printed page, using a technology Whitman used. We will begin by studying broadsides and the unique way they allow poems to live as physical objects. Participants will bring three poems to be evaluated in a workshop setting for their potential as a broadside publication. Coursework includes instruction in letterpress printing (using lead type available at the studio) and consultation / supervision by VABC artists. Poets will set their own poems in type, choose a two-color palette, consider visual elements like dingbats or images, and print their own broadsides. Visits by designers who regularly engage in the craft. We will also discuss and demonstrate polymer printing, a technique that makes use of computer design capabilities in production, to enhance design possibilities for future projects. Ink, paper, and materials provided—instruction on Vandercook proofing press. Kevin McFadden, author of Hardscrabble, an inaugural selection of the VQR Poetry Series, has published poems in Denver Quarterly, Kenyon Review, Ploughshares, Poetry, and elsewhere. A letterpress printer with experience in making broadsides, he is Associate Program Director of the Virginia Festival of the Book.
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977 Second Street, SE Charlottesville, VA 22902
| Website by Still
Point Press A program of the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities |
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