New Web Design

Check out the newly re-designed CBAS website (up in January) for all information about the organization and for updates on current and future events. This will now consolidate website and blog as a good central location for keeping up with what's happening.

cincinnatibookarts.org/

To be alerted when there is a new post, go to the right-hand sidebar on the website and, under SUBSCRIBE, add your email address. 

SPRING WORKSHOP: TURKISH MARBLING

Marbled endpapers, ca. 1880

Ready for a great "working" field trip? CBAS is sponsoring 2 Turkish marbling weekend workshops with Ann Alaia Woods in her Columbus studio: 3304 Grasmere Avenue, Columbus, Ohio.  Choose either April 25-26 or May 2-3. Saturday will be instructional and Sunday will be an open studio day for experimentation. Minimum participation is 6 students, maximum 8. Cost is $150 per person.

For interested parties who may not wish to drive back and forth, carpooling and shared lodging should be a possibility. Registration cut-off dates are April 11 and April 18 respectively.

To print out a registration form for the workshop:  https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B6qP8Km6l3vsVXFlOS1Qa1pxeHc/view?usp=sharing

From Ann, here a few more details:
Plan to have a great time...and bring these for you own use: 
Work clothes, apron, or smock
Hair covering—scarf, wrap, or cap
Sensible shoes—you'll be on your feet a lot
Cardboard—2 pieces, approximately 15" x 20"
Newspapers—small handful, to transport papers
Notebook (or pad) and pen for note taking
Lunch—coffee, tea, filtered & spritzy water will be supplied 

From The Art of Bookbinding, Joseph William Zaehnsdorf, 1890

Come join us and leave with your own beautiful handmade papers to use in future book making projects.

Better Know a Board Member!

[This is the first in a series of profiles of CBAS Board members.]

Judith with a new 2nd Amendment variation

Judith Serling-Sturm was hoping there would be a book arts community in Cincinnati when planning to move here near the end of 2010, and she was delighted to find CBAS on the Internet. She sent us an email and soon received a welcoming email greeting from member Diane Stemper. We can claim Judith as one of our own from March 2011.

In previous homes in Washington, D.C., and Chicago Judith had been a freelance writer and a working book artist. In the late 1990s in D.C. she apprenticed to a person who owned a business producing handmade blank books. She was intrigued by exposed spine bindings where the effort of holding the content together was structurally important but could also be visually varied and very beautiful. After her apprenticeship Judith began to build her own business, working on special commissions for private clients. Having done substitute teaching, she was soon doing in-school and in-museum workshops using her book-making skills. When she moved to Chicago, she continued to learn more about book structures and became interested in artists' books. She was encouraged in her on-going experimentation with bringing together ideas, materials and techniques by taking courses at Columbia College's Center for Book and Paper Arts and sharing a studio with a painter/print maker. A CAAP grant (Community Arts Assistance Program) enabled her to devote energy to producing her first artist's book about a young boy's adventures at school. And an artist's residency at Blueberry View Artist Retreat in Riverside, Michigan, in the summer of 2010 enabled her to concentrate on a new series of artist's books focusing on Amendments to the U.S. Constitution, each one unique in content and structure.

What is Judith working on now?

Variations on the Amendments series

A Home series, base on interviews she has conducted about the very personal meaning of that word

A Halloween book (to be installed at her studio) that involves using PVA skins and collage among other things

Decorative cases, made from natural elements and found metals, to hold mezuzot

Judith's goal is to work every day at her art. She says her process usually involves trial and error. She throws away a lot in order to refine, refine, refine. What doesn't work still ends up getting her where she wants to be. She is always thinking about a happy marriage of structure and content.

She attends Art4Artists (part of Cincinnati Recreation Commission's offerings) and is working with the Taft Museum's ARC program (Artists Reaching Classrooms).

A studio wall devoted to the Home series

What has she enjoyed most about CBAS?  She values the opportunity to exhibit work in our annual Bookworks exhibition and the forum the gallery walk-throughs provide for listening to her fellow book artists discuss their work. She loves Study Group—a great way to meet those who share her interest, to learn new things and to "refresh" the skills that she may not use regularly. Being part of the group continues to be a great encouragement in her evolution as an artist. She will be leading a Study Group session for the first time in 2015.

What is Judith's role on the CBAS Board?  She heads the Programs Committee. That means she's responsible for a visiting artist or two each year and for lining up a speaker/program for the CBAS Annual Meeting in the spring.

An "Idea Bank" (rocks, twigs, bones, etc.) provides inspiration

Where can you find Judith?  She is usually hosting open house at her studio at the Pendleton Art Center on Final Fridays. It is a visual treat to explore what's there—past and current work plus a list of ideas for future projects. You can also see what inspires her.

Not to be Missed: CBAS at Tiger Lily Sale

You are invited to join us for the Tiger Lily Press Annual Print and Calendar Sale on Saturday, November 8, 11 am - 5 pm, at the Clifton Cultural Arts Center, 3711 Clifton Avenue. It's a great time to shop for holiday and special occasion gifts or just for yourself. You will find CBAS and Tiger Lily artists in the second floor auditorium, while the Autumn Air Art Fair will be happening on the main floor.

Remember: Tiger Lily Press produces a wonderful, limited edition, hand-pulled woodcut calendar with work by its artists only every other year. And this is the chance to purchase yours for 2015!

Weekend Workshop Wrap-up

Visiting Artist Beata Wehr (center, in stripes) gets us started

 A group of 15 CBAS members were hard at work and having fun during our September 20 and 21 workshop with visiting artist Beata Wehr. Saturday and Sunday were full of challenges and creativity as we were led by Beata to explore the avenues we might use to arrive at CONTENT for our books. Writing prompts and a discussion of design principles got us started.

There was time to share, time to work independently and time for one-on-one consultation with the instructor; all fitted together to make it a rewarding experience. Though not all books were completed in two days, our concepts began to take physical forms that will result in great finished books in the near future.
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CBAS thanks Judith Serling-Sturm for heading the Visiting Artist Committee and tending to all those details that meant smooth sailing for the rest of us. And CBAS is most grateful to Annie Bolling for use of a space for the workshop. Thanks to all CBAS board members who helped with set-up and clean-up and who kept us nourished with delicious snacks throughout. Your fellow CBAS members salute you!

Upcoming Event—Next Weekend!

Cincinnati Book Arts Society invites you to a Meet-and-Greet Lecture with Beata Wehr, award-winning international book and visual artist and educator. Wehr will be speaking about her work and her process. The event is free and open to the public.

Friday evening, September 19, 7-8:30 p.m.

The Gallery Project

2718 Woodburn Avenue (Walnut Hills)

*street and lot parking available on and near Woodburn*

Paszport by Beata Wehr

Beata Wehr was born in Warsaw, Poland, and currently lives and works in Tucson, Arizona. Her advanced degrees include an M.A. in art history from Warsaw University and and M.F.A. in painting/combined media from the University of Arizona. She paints and creates artist's books, examining in her work ideas of home, place, time, transience and multicultural experiences. Wehr is currently an instructor at Pima Community College in Tucson and is available for workshops, private classes and critiques. See more examples of her work by visiting her website below.

 http://www.beatawehr.com

Library Purchases from Bookworks XV

Congratulations to three CBAS artists—Janice Kagermeier, Lou Kroner and Margaret Rhein—whose entries in Bookworks XV have now been added to the fine collection of artists books at the Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County.

This year the accordion form was used in various ways to produce exemplary works. Jeanne Strauss-De Groote, curator of the Library's collection describes Janice Kagermeier's The Waldron as "striking" and "commemorating the life and destruction of a local Cincinnati Art Deco building located in Walnut Hills. The photographs and the text meld perfectly and the craftsmanship is beautiful."

The Waldon by Janice Kagermeier

The artist writes of her own collaged paper work: "This accordion book was made in remembrance of an apartment building in Walnut Hills, built in 1928 and demolished in 2011. It honors the former residents and the dramatic faces carved into the facade. One one side (shown) listings of Waldron residents during the building's heyday (culled from the Main Library's archival Cincinnati City Directories) are superimposed onto photos of the grotesque faces carved into its facade. On the other side, photos of the Waldron's demolition are visible in the background; in the foreground is a chronicle of building code violations during the then neglected building's final years."

Strauss-De Groote describes Lou Kroner's Don't Bug Me as "a very joyful and amusing little book made with one single sheet of paper. When fully open, the general shape of the book can evoke a small insect walking, creating a perfect harmony between the shape and the content."

Don't Bug Me by Lou Kroner

Lou's use of one sheet of paper for his book is most appropriate since he has recently taught how-to classes in the variety of ways to use this form, most recently to CBAS Study Group. His Bookworks XV entry was ink jet-printed on cardstock with decorative paper covers added.

Margaret Rhein's Memory Book—First Impressions was selected by Strauss-De Groote because it "is a beautiful accordion book containing very evocative printed images of abstract forms, witnessing the artist's rich imagination. The craftsmanship, also excellent, shows Rhein's talent in paper making and printing.

Memory Book—First Impressions by Margaret Rhein

 Rhein has a story to tell about her book that is made with her own pulp painting and water-based monoprints. She started with one of her old handmade paper collages from about 30 years ago. "I remember a friend mentioned that her husband had a paper punch for comb binding at his office so she took some of my handmade paper seconds and punched out rows of tiny rectangular pieces of paper that we were using in a confetti type of paper we were making along with circle shapes from sheet paper punches. I thought the left over grid-like paper was beautiful in its own way and later used it to create this architectural look collage sheet of 22" x 30" paper."

"Years passed and then I decided to cut it into squarish shapes to someday make into a book. When I took Johpaul Smith's printing class 'Yeah, I Can Print That' at [local] Tiger Lily Press earlier this year I was looking around to find interesting papers to print on and this group surfaced. I have also collected textures over the years that will emboss paper—old computer circuit boards, my husband's plastic mechanical drawing stencils, plastic doilies. And I'm especially attracted to circular shapes; these were great for inking up as well."

"I think the relationship between the paper collage and the printing on top enhanced the impact of both. The 14 individual images each tell their own story. I decided to use the accordion book format so that the work could be seen in many formations. I specifically printed some of the shapes to span two pages to carry the eye through the book."
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CBAS gratefully acknowledges all the work by the Library staff 

to make our exhibition possible again this year.