MCBA Anniversary & Book Arts Celebration

Two free public events are planned in coordination with these exhibitions:

Friday, January 9; 6-9pm

Opening reception and gallery talk with featured artist/publisher Gaylord Schanilec of Midnight Paper Sales.

Friday, February 6; 6-9pm, 

Reception and gallery talk at 7:30pm with featured artists Karen Hanmer and Jana Pullman.

MCBA's 30th Anniversary

For 30 years, Minnesota Center for Book Arts has led the advancement of the book as an evolving art form. We envision a world where book art is created, cultivated, celebrated, and understood as a vital and lasting expression of culture. MCBA’s thirty-year heritage demonstrates how traditional craft intersects with contemporary content. In celebration of our 30th anniversary in 2015, we are proud to present a yearlong series of exhibitions, public programs, classes, celebrations, and honors, all of which reinforce our role as a leader in shaping and defining the field. Events take place throughout 2015, including exhibitions, open houses, special events and much more. The centerpiece of our yearlong celebration will be the 30th Anniversary Gala, taking place during Book Art Biennial 2015.

InsideOUT: Contemporary Bindings of Private Press Books

January 9 - March 28, 2015

“InsideOUT” celebrates the art and craft of contemporary bookbinding and private press printing. Organized by the U.K.-based binding society Designer Bookbinders, this ambitious project is a collaboration between thirty-four binders based in the United Kingdom and twenty-five based in the U.S. and Canada.

The sixty-five bindings exhibited under the title “InsideOUT” not only show excellence in craftsmanship, but can also be justifiably considered as works of art in their own right. To bind such a work usually takes more than sixty hours of highly skilled and concentrated labor, so the texts that a binder chooses should be worthy of such effort! With this in mind, the primary motivation for this exhibition was to feature some of the best possible examples of contemporary private press printing. The results can be seen here: four British and five North American private presses have supplied a total of twenty-eight different titles. In many cases binders have chosen to work with the same title which is fascinating in itself as the viewer is presented with different interpretations of the same text. In order that the exemplary skills of hand printing and the variety in illustration techniques can be appreciated, examples from thirteen of these texts are displayed in sheet form alongside the bindings. This also allows visitors to sample and enjoy the words and images hidden between the covers. Imagination and beauty abound, confirming that the arts of hand bookbinding and hand press printing are thriving on both sides of the Atlantic.

Participating private presses:

Arion Press (USA); Barbarian Press (Canada); Incline Press (UK); The Lone Oak Press (USA); Midnight Paper Sales (USA); Old School Press (UK); Old Stile Press (UK); Shanty Bay Press (Canada); The Whittington Press (UK)

The exhibition launched at the St. Bride Foundation’s Layton Room Gallery (London; May 15 - August 22, 2014) and toured to Harvard University’s Houghton Library (September 11 - December 13, 2014). The exhibition will also travel to Bonhams New York (April 10-19, 2015) and the San Francisco Center for the Book (June 6 - July 5, 2015).

http://www.mnbookarts.org/insideout/

Plainly Spoken: The Guild of Book Workers Midwest Chapter 2013-2014 Juried Traveling Exhibit

January 9 - April 26, 2015

MCBA is honored to host the Guild of Book Workers Midwest Chapter’s exhibit “Plainly Spoken,” featuring bindings of Julia Miller’s Books Will Speak Plain by seventeen binders from across the United States.

In 1998, Julia Miller began the monumental task of sifting through notes and observations made during her 30 year career as an archivist and book conservator. After 8 years of additional research, she began to write. The publication that resulted, Books Will Speak Plain, is a 500-page handbook aimed at conservators, collectors, librarians and book lovers, for the identification and description of book structures and styles.

The Midwest Chapter of the Guild of Book Workers is delighted to showcase Miller’s book in this theme-based exhibit. Bookbinders from across the country acquired the text in folded sheets and, months later, presented them to a jury of three as a completed book. This exhibit includes a range of binding ideas: models that replicate books from an historical period; cut-aways that visually reveal their hidden structure; design bindings that interpret a concept from the text; and artists’ bindings that play with structures and materials to create something new.

MCBA is honored to be the final venue for this exhibition’s 18-month tour. Previous stops included the University of Kansas (Lawrence, KS), University of Michigan (Ann Arbor, MI), Newberry Library (Chicago, IL) and University of Iowa (Iowa City, IA).

http://www.mnbookarts.org/plainlyspoken/

Greg Campbell Fine Binding

January 9 - March 28, 2015

Greg Campbell Fine Binding celebrates work from this renowned Minneapolis-based bookbinder and proprietor of Campbell-Logan Bindery.

This Is Book Art workshop and roundtable series

In celebration of our 30th Anniversary, MCBA hosts a series of free presentations and reduced price workshops throughout 2015, offering opportunities for interaction, discussion and skill-building with leaders in the field. At each month’s Book Arts Roundtable artists’ talks, you can learn more about the field of book arts and about each teaching artist’s work. Roundtables are free and held in MCBA’s studios. Numerous internationally renowned book, paper and print artists call the Twin Cities home; MCBA is proud to feature five of them in this series: Jody Williams of Flying Paper Press; Jana Pullman of Western Slope Bindery; Wilber H. “Chip” Schilling of Indulgence Press; paper and textile artist Erica Spitzer Rasmussen; and Regula Russelle of Cedar Fence Press.

Workshops require pre-registration; each workshop is $125 plus a $20 supply fee. Normally $290 or more, these workshops are discounted thanks to special support from the Minnesota State Arts Board. All skill levels are welcome, from beginners to advanced.

Workshop participants also receive free admission to the Book Art Biennial Symposium (July 25-26, 2015) and an opportunity to share their artwork as part of our community exhibition, Parts of a Whole III (August through October 2015). More info on each of these opportunities will be available soon.

For more information

For an outline of special events, exhibitions and public programming in celebration of our 30th Anniversary, please visit:

mnbookarts.org/30

For complete descriptions and registration information for the "This Is Book Art" workshop and roundtable series, visit: 

mnbookarts.org/thisisbookart

This activity is made possible by the voters of Minnesota through a grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board, thanks to a legislative appropriation from the arts and cultural heritage fund.

Minnesota Center for Book Arts

at Open Book . 1011 Washington Ave S, First Floor . Minneapolis MN 55415

Phone 612.215.2520 . Fax 612.215.2545 . mcba@mnbookarts.org

As the largest and most comprehensive center of its kind in the nation, Minnesota Center for Book Arts celebrates the book as a vibrant contemporary art form that takes many shapes. From the traditional crafts of papermaking, letterpress printing and bookbinding to non-traditional artmaking and self-publishing techniques, MCBA supports the limitless creative evolution of book arts. To learn more, visit our website at http://www.mnbookarts.org.