Printing at the December Meeting

Printing was focus of December's meeting of Salt City Book Arts, once again held at Syracuse University Library, this time down in Peter's Preservation Department. Carrie and DJ were hosts and demonstrated the workings of DJ's press with some polymer plates Carrie had prepared especially for the meeting with the name of our young group and today's date.

Thank you both for bringing the press and demonstrating its operation. That was fun. Also present again was a show-n-tell with books by Carrie and Peter and hand-colored prints by DJ.

Paper, polymer plates, ink, and the press. What more do you need?


Inking up the press.

Carrie getting the press set up. The plate is in place and the press inked up.

Carrie and DJ checking out the workings of the press.

Carrie printing the keepsake.

While attendance was down from our first meeting, we hope that you will consider becoming involved and sharing your experiences with other like-minded folks. We welcome your suggestions and comments. Email links for Carrie and Peter in the sidebar at right.

2nd Salt City Book Arts Meeting, December 4th, 11 – 2

Hello, Book Art Aficionados!! The weeks have flown by and it is time for another meeting of the Salt City Book Arts! Join us on Saturday, December 4th for camaraderie and our Thrilling Main Event: Printing on a Tabletop Press!! We'll have a dainty little Adana press set up with a choice of papers and different bookish themes for you to print. Let us crank out our own letterpress prints while talking shop and seeing what work others are doing. As usual (I know, it's only 2nd meeting!) we will have Show and Tell Time so do bring some ongoing or completed samples of what you do. Judging from our last meeting, there is a lot of interesting work being made all over the city just waiting to be seen! I hope you all can come out for a good time meeting others involved in bookmaking, printing, design, etc. AND also to make your own keepsake letterpress prints!! Please let us know if you have any ideas, suggestions, comments. We look forward to hearing from you!

The meeting will be held from 11am to 2pm at Syracuse University's Bird Library in the Dept of Preservation. The address is 222 Waverly Ave, Syracuse, NY 13224. Metered parking is available in front of the Library and on Walnut Street. For directions see http://library.syr.edu/about/liblocation/. Once in the library go down the stairs and head towards the Pepto Bismol (tm) pink wall, then right, then left, first door on the right is Dept of Preservation. Look for signs.

Carrie & Peter
Salt City Book Arts

Workshops at the Ink Shop Printmaking Center, Ithaca, NY

We have Minna Resnick up for our Talk Print series on November 17 , 6-8pm. Don't forget the InDesign class for those of you interested in making your own brochures Nov 6&7 10am-2pm. Christa Wolf's Experimental Softground Etching class Nov 9,16,23 and 30th, 2-6pm; and for those of you who are interested in matting and framing some of the prints you have recently bought or made Pam Drix will be giving a Matting and Framing workshop on Nov 30th, and Dec 7 and 14 from 6-9pm. Please come out and join us for workshops, collaborations, and just general print interest!

The Ink Shop Printmaking Center is a not-for-profit printmakers' center, fine art press and gallery which offers professional facilities for the making of fine art prints. We provide a range of equipment, including etching, lithography, proofing and letter presses, a small darkroom and computer imaging equipment. In Ithaca, NY.

Werner Pfeiffer: Book-Objects and Artist Books

Great attendance at the Werner Pfeiffer lecture and opening reception at Cornell University Library last night. The exhibit is online at http://rmc.library.cornell.edu/wernerpfeiffer/ and the lecture will be online shortly.

Literary Salvo

In his lecture Pfeiffer talked about his WWII German childhood, censorship, and repression influenced his bookworks in which the books become inaccessible. He also showed his latest work, Out of the Sky 9/11, A Tribute, assembling and taking it back down. He gave a similar lecture on Out of the Sky at Syracuse on 9/11/2008.

Out of the Sky 9/11, A Tribute

Thank you to all at Cornell for hosting this event!

Salt City Urban Art & Craft Market coming!

Saturday, October 23, 10:00 - 6:00pm

112 Wyoming St, Syracuse, NY 13204 between W. Fayette St and Marcellus St. Off street parking available or take the free Connective Corridor bus.

Hi, everybody! This is a not-to-be-missed event happening soon! Last year was the first show and it was a completely wonderful time! The vendors were all topnotch in originality and variety of items. I was there with my handmade books (Amaranth Press & Bindery) and it was perfect! So much to see and lots of people asking questions about the processes involved. This time around will be even better! I'll be there again with my one-of-a-kind books and doing demo work. Also look for fine work in binding/printing/design by Concepcioun Handmade, Cayetano Valenzuela, Dock2 Letterpress, Pistachio Press, Ink + Wit, and MANY more!! I hope you and your friends can come out to visit and say hi while looking at a miscellany of unique & unexpected handmade goods!

For more info, navigate to ---- http://www.saltcitycraftmart.com/

Featuring 40 designers and crafters that make funky, alternative and contemporary handmade artworks from CNY!

Suggested $1 entry. First 50 guests will receive an amazing free door prize!

Food & beverages provided by Strong Hearts Cafe, Recess Coffee & Roastery, and Roji Tea Lounge! Yum!!

Live music schedule:

• 10:00am BeMo (Jazz duo)
• 11:30am Bogs Visionary Orchestra
• 1:00pm The Table
• 2:30pm Professional Victims
• 4:00pm The Quartet Trio (Experimental Improvisational Music)

Werner Pfeiffer: Book-Objects and Artist Books, Cornell University Library, October 20

ITHACA, N.Y. (Oct. 12, 2010) - Cornell University Library is hosting an exhibition of provocative work by artist Werner Pfeiffer, who is celebrated for his insightful examination of the role of physical books in the modern age.

Pfeiffer will open the exhibition with a lecture and demonstration, “Reexamining the Book: Making Book-Objects and Artist Books,” on Wednesday, Oct. 20 at 5 p.m. in Olin Library’s Libe Café on the Cornell campus. A reception will follow from 6 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. in the Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections’ Hirshland Gallery, Level 2B, Carl A. Kroch Library.

Born in Stuttgart, Germany, in 1937, Pfeiffer has lived in the United States since 1969. His books, collages, drawings, prints, paintings, and sculptures have been shown internationally in nearly 200 group and solo exhibitions.

During the lecture, Pfeiffer will discuss his work, the censorship of books, and how the electronic environment has influenced the resurgence of the handmade book. He will also recreate one of his most well-known pieces, which he created to honor the victims of the attacks on the World Trade Center towers in New York City. The six-foot-tall, three-dimensional book “Out of the Sky” contains a sculptural component of seven woodcut segments in an urn, and Pfeiffer assembles it during his talk.

“Pfeiffer uses a mix of media to challenge us to think about books in new ways, as art forms as well as communication tools,” said Anne R. Kenney, Carl A. Kroch University Librarian. “His work asks people to consider books as artifacts, especially in the age of digital advancement, and his ideas can serve as a springboard to the discussion of the role of the book in contemporary society.”

Both the exhibition and opening reception are made possible through the Stephen E. and Evalyn Edwards Milman Exhibition Fund, a recent gift to the Library. This is the first library exhibition fully funded solely through the Milman family’s generous endowment. The traveling exhibition, which is jointly sponsored by Cornell’s Department of Art, will run through February 2011. Previously, it appeared at Smith College, the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Toronto.

For more information, visit rmc.library.cornell.edu/wernerpfeiffer/.

About Cornell University Library

Cornell University is an Ivy League institution and New York's land-grant university. Among the top ten academic research libraries in the country, Cornell University Library reflects the university's distinctive mix of eminent scholarship and democratic ideals. The Library offers cutting-edge programs and facilities, a full spectrum of services, extensive collections that represent the depth and breadth of the university, and a deep network of digital resources. Its impact reaches beyond campus boundaries with initiatives that extend the land grant mission to a global focus. To learn more, visit .

Contact: Gwen Glazer

Phone: (607) 254-8390

E-mail: gglazer@cornell.edu

This exhibition and associated events are made possible by the Stephen E. and Evalyn Edwards Milman Exhibition Fund.

Information for visitors

Carpool and don't miss this event. It's only an hour from Syracuse.

David Godine to speak at Wells College, Aurora, NY. October 21

The Book Arts Center at Wells College has announced that publisher David Godine will present the 30th Susan Garretson Swartzburg Book Arts Lecture on Thursday, October 21, at 5:15 PM in Stratton Auditorium on the Wells campus in Aurora, NY.

Godine is the proprietor of David R. Godine, Inc., a small Boston publishing house that produces between twenty and thirty eclectic titles per year. The company's goal, ' to identify the best work and to produce it in the best way possible,' means that they feature works that many other publishers can't or won't support, books that won't necessarily become bestsellers but that still deserve publication. Godine's list stands apart by offering original fiction and non-fiction of the highest rank, rediscovered masterworks, translations of outstanding world literature, poetry, art, photography, and beautifully designed books for children.

The company was founded in 1970. After receiving degrees at Dartmouth College and Harvard University, David Godine worked for Leonard Baskin, the renowned typographer and printmaker, and Harold McGrath, his master printer. David Godine opened a printing shop the following year in a deserted barn in Brookline, Massachusetts. His first books, printed on his own presses, were nearly all letterpress, limited editions printed on high-quality rag or handmade paper. Many of these early volumes are now collector's items.

In 1980, the company initiated its children's program, publishing a number of books that have become classics. The Godine editions of Frances Hodgson Burnett's timeless works, The Secret Garden and A Little Princess, together have sold close to half a million hardcover copies. More recently, Godine has launched two new series: Imago Mundi, a line of original books devoted to photography and the graphic arts; and Verba Mundi, featuring the most notable contemporary world literature in translation.

The New York Times has said of him, 'David Godine is a remarkable publisher.... He is determined to prove that the day of elegant books has not vanished. And he does prove it. Elegantly.' And Newsweek has said, 'Godine books are not 'beautiful' in the glossy fashion of the coffee-table books that flood the market at Christmastime. They are instead flawlessly produced examples of the arts of printing and bookbinding, exquisitely understated.'

Wells' Book Arts Lecture series is named for Susan Garretson Swartzburg, one of the co-founders of the Center. Swartzburg, Wells class of 1960, had worked tirelessly to promote the fledgling Book Arts Center when she died unexpectedly in 1996. Godine joins a list of distinguished lecturers from across the broad spectrum of book arts. Recent lectures have been given by Mark Dimunation, Chief of the Rare Book and Special Collections Division of the Library of Congress; Julie Chen, internationally known proprietor of the Flying Fish Press; and Terry Belanger, rare book preservationist, founding director of the Rare Book School and a 2005 fellow of the MacArthur Foundation.

Godine's lecture is free and open to the public. For more information or directions to Wells College, call 315-364-3420 or contact the Center at bookartscenter@wells.edu.

Carpool and don't miss this event. It's only an hour from Syracuse.

First Meeting of Salt City Book Arts

Salt City Book Arts had its first meeting today at Syracuse University's Bird Library. Most of us have spent many hours reading online about what others have been doing in their studios/shops making books, letterpress printing, paper marbling and so many other related skills. So, it was about time for some of us in Central New York to meet in person for camaraderie, show and tell, discussions, movies and related activities.

Following introductions, the focus of our first meeting was a screening of the film Proceed and Be Bold about the printer, Amos Paul Kennedy, Jr.

How far would you go for your one true love? Would you give up all of your earthly possessions, your job, and your family? What if your one true love was a printing press? At 40 years of age, Amos Paul Kennedy Jr. abandoned the traditional American Dream to follow his own. Unsatisfied with his comfortable, middle-class life, Amos traded in his computer for a printing press and his white collar for a pair of overalls. Armed with life, liberty, peanuts, and a meager yearly income of $7,000, Amos cranked out a new, mutinous declaration of independence. Proceed and Be Bold! joins Amos for a titillating retelling of his story, while examining the pretensions and provisions of the art world. The work of this self-proclaimed "Humble Negro Printer" raises emotionally-charged questions and reveals remarkable depth beneath the bold print. By learning the rules and then choosing to break them, Amos redefines what life (and letterpress printing) can be: exhilarating and subversive. His provocative sense of humor seeps out of every word he speaks and his radical philosophies on the American consciousness (or unconsciousness) will awaken any listless bystander. After experiencing Amos' humble journey, you'll never look at your middle class life the same way again.

Following the movie, we shared current projects, discuss ideas for future meetings and get to know others interested in the printerly/bookerly/designerly arts!





As always with groups like this, broad participation helps ensure success. If you are interested in attending meetings, are interested in offering a program, or have ideas in general, please let us know (Links at right). We hope to meet every 6-8 weeks.

We look forward to welcoming you.