2021 Members' Showcase: Anna Embree

 This week for the 2021 Members' Showcase we feature Anna Embree.

Anna Embree

Anna Embree is a Professor for the MFA Book Arts Program in the School of Library Science and Information Studies at the University of Alabama. She teaches courses and workshops in bookbinding, box making, and special topics in book preservation and book history. Anna has a strong interest in the physical and material aspects of book structures. She has collaborated with printers and papermakers on limited edition handmade books, and has exhibited widely.

Anna's book work focuses on composition and form. When designing a single book or an edition, Anna works to unify content, structure, and materials. The goal is to create a visually engaging work that facilitates interaction with the content through purposeful mechanical and operational design choices.

James Hervey. Meditations and Contemplations. London, 1816.

Millimeter-style case binding. Indigo dyed salmon parchment caps, corners (parchment

tips), and central panel. Leather endbands, dyed handmade paper, and walleye

parchment onlay.

Dimensions: 3 x 5 x 1.25”

2020

“Into the Night,” 2019

Artist Book. Pierced paper case-binding. Artist’s indigo dyed handmade paper textblock. Case

covered in handmade paper.

Dimensions: 5-1/8” x 7-7/8” x 1/2”

Ephemera, 2019

Built-in groove case binding with blue Harmatan goatskin leather and Cave Paper handmade paper covers. Text block sewn using an unsupported two-hole link stitch. Hand-sewn silk endbands. (Detail image below)

2021 Members' Showcase: Dorothy Simpson Krause

 This week for the 2021 Members' Showcase we feature Dorothy Krause.

Dorothy Simpson Krause

Krause is Professor Emerita at Massachusetts College of Art, author of Book + Art: Handcrafting Artists' Books and Digital Art Studio. She has been a Visiting Artist or Artist in Residence at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the American Academy in Rome, the University of the Arts in Philadelphia, and the Jaffe Center for Book Arts at Florida Atlantic University. Her work, which is in the collections of more than three dozen museums/ universities, combines traditional and digital media in large-scale mixed media pieces, artist books and book-like objects that bridge between the two forms.

More of Krause's work and books can be seen at www.dotkrause.com.

Agent Orange, 2019-20

Casuarina, 2019-20

Lockdown, 2020

2021 Members' Showcase: Audrey Pinto

This week for the 2021 Members' Showcase we are featuring member Audrey Pinto!

Audrey Pinto

I make handcrafted decorative boxes, paper, and books. In my work, I use a variety of forms including folded and cut paper, pop-ups, paste papers, and mark making to explore how different forms can be exhibited and presented within the structure of the box.

The 8-sided star books, which sit inside the 8-sided box, were hand painted on Arches 300 lb watercolor paper using gouache, ink, and watercolor pencils; the panels were hand cut, and the cut designs were inspired by a NASA satellite photo of the vanishing land mass (due to climate change) in the Sundarbans mangroves in West Bengal.

Box: book board, handmade book cloth, and Iris lilac bookcloth.

2021 Members' Showcase: Sabrena Johnson

We continue the 2021 Members' Showcase, featuring work from book artists here in the Southeast, with Sabrena Johnson.

Sabrena Johnson

Sabrena Johnson is the Conservation Librarian for Tulane University. Alongside in-house special and circulating collections conservation for the libraries, she experiments on her own collection to develop bindings that reflect the contents in a way that shows character with a bit of lateral thinking. Book arts provide a meditative outlet where each book becomes distinctive, a unique object in its own right that breaks the rules wherever possible while giving the best aesthetic fit for the volume. She also makes some very, very tiny blank books that you can wear!

Mega Nanos

Punk Girdle Book

Richard III Reburial Pamphlets (work in progress)

2021 Members' Showcase: Sharon Sharp

 Continuing with the 2021 Members' Showcase, we have member Sharon Sharp!

Sharon Sharp

Sharon A. Sharp (Winston-Salem, NC) writes poetry and creates multifaceted artist’s books. Her work has been recognized in volumes 1–2 of 500 Handmade Books, 1,000 Artists’ Books, the Italian fine-arts journal TECA—Exploring the Book as Art (2013), Bind-O-Rama 2014 (online), and Art & Science Collaborations’ “Featured Member” section (online, June 2014). 

Sharon’s books, represented by Vamp & Tramp Booksellers, are held in numerous universities’ special collections libraries. Drawn to nature-related themes, she has served as an artist-in-residence at two National Parks. Sharon delights in using nontraditional book forms to enliven both written and visual content.

by way of

Interwoven, 2019

Season's Sight, 2014

2021 Members' Showcase: Mary Ann Sampson

Next up in our 2021 Members' Showcase is Mary Ann Sampson, who will also be featured in an upcoming retrospective at the Gadsden Museum of Art!

Mary Ann Sampson

Mary Ann Sampson has been an avid bookmaker since the early 1980s. She received her MFA in the Book Arts at the University of Alabama. She has shown her work both nationally and internationally. Her studio, One Eye Opera Company, is located in Ragland, Alabama. Her passion for drawing as well as crafting books by hand is shown throughout her body of work.

The works shown below are from two books, Eight Drawings and QWERTY.

Eight Drawings, #2 & 3

Eight Drawings, #6 & 7

QWERTY

2021 Members' Showcase: Monique Lallier

The Southeast Chapter of the Guild of Book Workers is proud to present the 2021 Members' Showcase, a virtual exhibition of work from book artists here in the Southeast!

We received many beautiful submissions from members all around the region. This year, we'll be doing the showcase a little differently by featuring one book artist each week.

First up is Monique Lallier!

Monique Lallier

Bookbinding has been my lifelong career, starting in 1972 and loving it as much as my first day when I walked in the studio of Simone B. Roy with whom I studied for 4 years. I later went to Paris to study gold tooling with Mr Arnoult, Ascona with Edwin Heims, and Solothurn with Hugo Peller. In 1987 I moved to the US to marry Don Etherington. From 1988 to 2000 I was chair of the Standards of Excellence of the Guild of Book Workers. My bindings are in many institutions and private collections.

This is the catalogue of my retrospective exhibition in 2018 at the gallery of Guilford College in Greensboro. I used komihimo for my initials and onlays of different leather. The second binding is Clochemerle illustrated by Dubout. Onlays of lines and rounds, some with tooling to illustrate the atmosphere of the books. French technique of laced-in boards with edge to edge doublures with onlays and suede flyleaves.