In the first week of August, the 2nd Annual Ladies of Letterpress conference took place in Asheville. Approximately 50 people from all over the country attended the conference, which included a print fair, letterpress panels, and a tour of local print shops. Abigail Rorer, a member of the Wood Engravers Network and the proprietor of Lone Oak Press, was the keynote speaker for the event.
The Ladies of Letterpress “Expanding Communities” portfolio is currently on display at Bookworks. A sneak peak of the ladies’ beautiful prints are pictured above!
Scenes from BookWorks on a quiet Thursday afternoon.
BOOKOPOLIS COUNTDOWN: ONE MONTH!
Letterpress interns Quinton Soemardi and Galen Marshall-Clark working with instructor Kelly Kelbel to print Beer City raffle tickets for Bookopolis.
Last week, Frank Brannon was in the studio making a seasonal batch of paper. In the photos above, he is cutting salvaged cotton clothing into small strips, and then processing them through a Hollander Beater, a machine developed in the 1500s that hydrates and breaks down cotton into a finer consistency ideal for paper making.
A graduate of the Book Arts M.F.A. program at the University of Alabama, Frank now teaches book arts classes in Cherokee, at BookWorks, and in other parts of Western North Carolina. The paper Frank is pictured making will be available at Asheville Art Supply in the River Arts District.
Last week, Johanna Smick lead a five day workshop on Gothic bookbinding. Developed during the middle ages, this type of bookbinding is equal parts beautiful and durable. The students of this class bound individual textblocks of “Pictorial Webster’s” by John M. Carrera. They adorned their new visual reference dictionaries with decorative end bands, brass clasps, solid oak covers, and a goatskin leather spine.
Bookworks’ longstanding relationship with the Wood Engravers Network (WEN) has recently given way to an exciting collaboration to be completed in September. As an ode to our city’s unique craft beer industry, twenty-six members of the WEN have used their vivid imaginations - and talented wood engraving skills - to create intricate labels for fictional beers. These labels will be adhered to one-of-a-kind prints of beer bottles that will be completed by Bookworks co-op artists. Finding my description hard to visualize? The photos accompanying this post should give you a better idea of this ingenious printmaking marriage.
Sandy Webster, whose beer bottle print is pictured above, is the first of twenty-six Bookworks co-op members who have completed her part of the equation. For all of you lucky folks out there: mark your calendar for Bookopolis (September 21st and 22nd!) where you’ll be able to enter into a raffle to win a compiled and bound print portfolio of the final collaborative pieces. Unlucky folks, don’t despair: you’ll still be able to view these prints in an exhibit that will be hung during Bookopolis.
1st photograph: Climax Beer, Earl Nitschke. Buckwheat Ale, Nikki Vahle. Occu IPA, Colleen Dwire. Quick Gold Pale Ale, Fiorella Mori. Wall St Stout, Sandy Webster. Silver Springs Lager, Gale Mueller. 2nd photograph: Sandy Webster.
2
