Connecting with the World of Book Arts at CODEX, Bay Area
As book artists and printers at the Press at CC, we went to attend CODEX, one of the largest International Book Art Fairs, in San Francisco.
Venture Grant Project Connecting with the World of Book Arts at CODEX, San Francisco will take two students at CC, Hongli Zeng 24’ and Eliza Strong 24’, to the International Biennial Book Art Fair & Symposium in the California Bay Area. The symposium and related events will take place in Berkeley and across the Bay Area.
As one of most influential events in the world of book arts, the CODEX fair & symposium endeavors to bring to the attention of the public the importance and value of the book arts and their essential role in transmitting cultural history. This event supports and facilitates collaboration across the globe between artists, scholars, curators, and collectors in the production and preservation of meaningful scholarly artistic contribution to the book arts arts field. With over 200 tables of individual artists/ nonprofits/ centers/ organizations this year, including Printer of the Press at Colorado College, Jillian Sico, the event is a venue where important connections within the world of book arts take place.
Methodology
This project will begin with informal networking at CODEX. During the first couple days of the event, we will talk to artists at their booths and survey their work, and attend formal talks, each of us taking notes on which artists and work we find particularly interesting and useful to CC and the CC Special Collections. These notes will be taken in both written form and through photographs. After obtaining this overview, we will converse and decide on 3-5 artists to hold formal and recorded interviews with, in which we will ask them about their work and their purposes in order to make thoroughly informed suggestions to the Press and Special Collections.
Significance
As printmakers and aspiring book arts artists, we have extensively considered the power of speciality books to influence our culture at large. Because of the dedication of time and resources creating an art book requires, art books exemplify a true care in the expression of ones identity, self and community. Amos Kennedy, a book artist and previous visiting professor at the Press at Colorado College, emphasizes that the importance of his own work is that it dedicates time and energy to printing messages not generally celebrated by the hegemonic culture. Kennedy points out that other printers are trending toward this mission, that he calls social book building, and encourages artists to “Address your books to the rest of the community”, meaning book arts should empower and educate (Social Book Building). Given that the artists we will have the chance to engage with at CODEX engage in this tradition, bringing their work into the lives of CC students and professors will further opportunities for learning about the experiences of others.
In the following section, we will share some of the artists and their work, which we recommended to the Special Collection and the Press at CC for consideration of potential candidates for residency and teaching positions at CC as well as purchase for the artist books collection.
Dirk Hagner — Inkswine Press Book Arts https://www.dirkhagner.com/
Dirk Hagner is a German-Californian book artist who creates many styles of books, with themes focusing on social and environmental issues. He often uses hand-cut woodblocks and a combination of wood and metal type. We recommend purchasing one of his works for the Colorado College special collections because of their ability to visually start conversations about
Iván — Hoja de Acebo https://hojadeacebo.net/
Iván is a Mexican born artist who makes books with embroidery as his main medium. His works often focus on themes of identity and masking, using the motifs of human and animal bodies to express his ideas. We recommend offering Iván a position as a visiting letterpress professor at Colorado College, as he possesses impressive storytelling skills and his medium is unique.
Lorena Velazquez — LV
Lorena Velazquez is a French-Mexican artist who creates unique book structures with feminist messaging. She often creates multi-compartmental books that can thus engage with multimedia materials. We recommend purchasing one of her books for the Colorado College Special Collections as her messages are important and nuanced and the works themselves are incredibly unique.
María Carolina Ceballos — Canto Press
Maria Carolina Ceballos is a Columbian book artist who makes multimedia intricate and delicate works, often about environmental processes. We recommend inviting María to teach a letterpress block at The Press at Colorado College, as she would bring ideas for outside-the-box structures and thoughtful student collaboration.
Barbara Tetenbaum — Triangular Press
Barbara Tetenbaum is a book artist from Portland, Oregon. She makes creative and whimsical books, utilizing a variety of printing materials. She has participated in student collaboration in her works, and has made works about social issues. We recommend buying one of Barbara’s books as they provide good examples of an exploratory style, as well as inviting her to teach a block at The Press at Colorado College as she would likely inspire use of our large collection of plates and blocks.
Abra Ancliffe — Personal Libraries Press
Abra Ancliffe is a book artist from Vermont. She makes works inspired by other books and stories. We recommend inviting Abra to teach a block at Colorado College, as she would bring interesting creating prompts and inspire new uses of old materials, perhaps in conversation with special collections.
Book/Print Artist/Scholar of Color Collective
This forty-member collective connects book artists of color with scholars of book history and print culture to solidify that possibility book arts has for social change. We recommend that The Press at Colorado College establish a consistent working relationship with this collective and invite its artists to teach blocks at The Press at Colorado College to support communal and multidisciplinary learning.
Ian Huebert: The Picture Press, Iowa
Ian Huebert is a printmaker and illustrator living in Iowa City, Iowa. Through the Picture Press, he makes printed editions and artworks, with an emphasis on relief and letterpress printing. Huebert’s practice is rooted in the plains landscape he grew up in and call home. Considering human activity on the land, personal history, and the surrounding ecology, making art is a way to share a personal outlook of the surroundings and also present views and aspects of the landscape all of us share by living here. With Special Collection’s existing possession of his work, we recommend further purchase of Huebert’s art pieces Corn (Scroll edition) and Sunday for their unique humanistic attention to the place and space of both the natural and industrial landscape of Iowa in the American midwest.
Hanji Edition
Hanji Edition was founded by two Korean American printmakers, Steph Rue and Lars Kim, who share a passion for Korean print and papermaking. As traditional hanji mills in Korea rapidly decline, their goal is to introduce artists and art appreciators to the beauty and versatile potential of hanji as a substrate for print, painting, calligraphy, weaving, sculpture and more.
We recommend the collection of Hanji Edition’s art pieces Ogansaek, Hanji Edition 2018, Hanji Edition 2021, and Hangeul Prints by the Special Collection to enrich its culturally diverse and inclusive artworks to serve both its educational and curational purpose.
Our former Printer Aaron Cohick and Librarian Corie Cole!
Upon returning to campus, we scheduled a meeting with Jessy Randall of CC’s special collections and Jilian Sico of the Press at CC to make our recommendations. We showed them each artists website and the photos we took of their works and explained the way we imagined CC engaging with them and their work. Jessy Randall noted a few different artists and collectives to look into and Jilian did as well. We hope to see some new books in our collection and see future students work with the amazing artists we met!
Thank you so much to the Keller Family and the Venture Grant for enabling us to have this experience!
Thank you Jillian Sico, The Printer of the Press, Jessy Randall, The Archivist of the College, and Professor Carol Neel for your support and help!
