THE HYBRID BOOK CONFERENCE brought together established and emerging artists, scholars, librarians and educators to explore a variety of topics. The conference began with an interview of two of the artists featured in the Hybrid Book exhibition, Gunnar A. Kaldewey and Hedi Kyle, by Steve Miller of the University of Alabama, artist and originator of the Book Artists and Poets podcast series. The discussion covered parallels in their lives and connections between their bodies of work and was followed by an opening reception for the conference exhibitions. The heart of the conference, eight panel discussions, took place the next two mornings. The conference concluded with a dinner and a critical response to the conference and fair by Roberta Fallon of artblog and Anabelle Rodriguez, a Philadelphia-based artist, curator and visual anthropologist.
BOOK ARTS IN ACADEMIA
This panel explored the unifying factors that help to define book arts as
a focus of study and practice within the academy. Moderated by Karen Wirth,
Chair of Fine Arts, Minneapolis College of Art and Design, Minneapolis,
MN, the discussion featured Carrie Galbraith discussing her teaching at
City College of San Francisco and the San Francisco Center for the Book,
Susan Johanknecht addressing her experiences as Course Leader in the MA
Book Arts Program at London's Camberwell
College of Art, and Kyle Schlesinger of Cuneiform
Press discussing his experiences teaching design at the University of
Buffalo and other institutions.
BOOK ART IN THE SOCIAL SPHERE
The artist’s book most often finds its audience via Special Collections
or the gallery, but what happens when the artist’s book is put in
the hands of the people by other means? Moderator Barbara Dash, Special
Collections Librarian at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC, introduced
the panel with images from Cuba’s Ediciones Vigía and Russian
satirical journals. Panelists Drew Cameron and Jon Turner of the Combat
Paper Project and Warrior Writers, Burlington, VT, Courtney Dailey of
the Mobilivre Bookmobile Project, San Francisco, CA, and Amos Paul Kennedy
of Kennedy Prints!
A Letterpress Printery, Gordo, AL, discussed alternative modes of both
production and distribution that bring the artist’s book to different
audiences and engage the book format as a vehicle for social change.
THE FUTURE OF LETTERPRESS
Moderated by Peter Kruty of Peter
Kruty Editions in Brooklyn, NY, this panel looked at the role of
letterpress printing in contemporary book art and addressed whether the
advent of digital processes has helped or harmed the medium. Independent
scholar Betty
Bright, Minneapolis, MN, and educators and artists Ashley
John Pigford, Assistant Professor, Department of Art, University of
Delaware and Inge Bruggeman, Textura
Letterpress Printing and Ink-A! Press, Portland, OR, shared the
enthusiasm of students first discovering this tactile medium. Panelists
addressed a recent resurgence of interest in this antiquated art form and
the issues of craft and quality that accompany such an increase in popularity.
INTERSECTION + INTERMEDIA
Moderated by artist Michelle Wilson, this panel highlighted several interdisciplinary
projects. William Snyder, Founder and Director of the Kayinamura Foundation
in State College, PA, shared the inspiration behind his book-based interactive
installation, 800,000,
created to educate the viewer about the tribal genocide in Rwanda in 1994.
Artist Tate Shaw from Visual
Studies Workshop and Preacher’s
Biscuit Books, Rochester, NY, and composer and musician Andrew Sallee,
from Kansas City, MO, presented an explanation of their inspiration and
conception of their collaborative, multimedia work, God
Bless this Circuitry, following a performance of the piece, which they
had performed at the Hybrid Book Fair the previous day. Professors Pierre
LeBlanc, Marlene
MacCallum, and David
Morrish, from the Visual Arts Program at Sir Wilfred Grenfell College,
Memorial University of Newfoundland, Canada, presented on a project entitled Sillis,
Sequential Imaging Laboratory/Laboratoire d'Imagerie Séquencielle,
a collaborative research project that investigates the creation of book
works using an integrated approach to old and new image making processes.
MODES OF PRODUCTION: COLLABORATIVE
PROCESSES
The complexity of the artist’s book often makes collaboration desirable
or even necessary in producing sophisticated work that encompasses text,
image, structure, and a high level of craft. Both Macy
Chadwick of In Cahoots Press, Oakland, CA, and Lisa Hasegawa of ilfant
press, Seattle, WA, moderated this panel and discussed their own long-distance
collaborative methods. Panelists described multiple approaches to engaging
collaborative relationships in both the conceptual and material processes
of creating an artist’s book. Steven Daiber of Red
Trillium Press, Williamsburg, MA, focused on his work with artists in
Cuba; Marshall Weber for Organik,
Brooklyn, NY, spoke of Organik’s work to find a truly experimental
space for collaborative spontaneous creation; and Pod
Post, comprised of Carolee Gilligan Wheeler and Jennie Hinchcliff, San
Francisco, CA, discussed their in-person zine generating processes as well
as their mail art projects.
OFFSET APPLICATIONS: THEN AND NOW
This panel explored the medium of offset in an age of online publishing.
The subject was introduced by Tony White, Director of Indiana University's
Fine Arts Library in Bloomington, IN, and guest editor of Journal of Artists'
Books 25, which was dedicated to offset printing. Clifton
Meador, Director of the MFA Interdisciplinary Book and Paper Arts at
the Columbia
College of Chicago Center for Book and Paper Arts, and Patty
Smith, Associate Professor of Printmaking/Book Arts at the University
of the Arts, shared their experiences as offset artist/printers. Amanda
D’Amico, offset enthusiast and panel moderator, wrapped up the
session by sharing several books created over the last two years by students
in the Borowsky Center for Publication Arts at the University of the Arts,
which just celebrated its twentieth anniversary.
THE RECIPROCITY OF BOOKS AND DIGITAL
MEDIA
Lori Spencer,
Chair of Printmaking/Book Arts at the University of the Arts, moderated
this panel, which explored the way digital tools have changed the face of
book arts. Panelists Sue
O’Donnell, Assistant Professor of Digital Art, Bloomsburg University
of Pennsylvania, Bloomsburg, PA, Margot
Lovejoy, Professor Emerita, SUNY Purchase, Purchase, NY, and Pattie
Belle Hastings, Associate Professor of Interactive Digital Design, Quinnipiac
University, Hamden, CT, shared work of their own, as well as work by other
artists, that showcased the potential digital media has for book artists,
ending with a rousing call-to-arms by Hastings to embrace the book-like
potential of products like the iPhone and the Kindle.
The
Reciprocity of Books and Digital Media
TEXT AND THE HYBRID BOOK
Focusing on the importance of writing as a practice and form, this panel
discussion explored text in the hybrid book: as a source material or generative
process, a narrative journey for both the maker and the viewer, and a destination
that brings the book into conversation with other art forms. The panel was
organized by Elysa Voshell, previously of Philadelphia’s Institute
for Contemporary Art and now at Venice Arts in Los Angeles, CA. Mary Tasillo
was moderator. Panelists Robin
Price of Middletown, CT, Jen
Bervin of Brooklyn NY, and Julie Chen of Flying
Fish Press, Berkeley, CA, engaged in discussion of their varying approaches
to producing and incorporating text into their book works.
