Saturday, September 14th
10am-5pm
Refreshments, Demos, and Discounts
The Austin Book Arts Center invites the public to an Open House. Come visit the Studio and see what’s new!
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Spring Open House & Book Lovers Book Sale
Saturday, February 10th
10am-5pm
Need a digital detox? Make something with your own two hands! The Austin Book Arts Center is excited to announce that registration has begun for the new spring schedule, with over 40 bookbinding and printing workshops for children and adults. No batteries required.
Visitors can drop in to enjoy refreshments and demonstrations in bookbinding and letterpress printing.
Print a Valentine for your sweetie!
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Book Lovers Book Sale
Beautiful books about Book History, Book Arts, Book Artists, and Limited Editions – some created in Austin
Fall Open House
Saturday, September 9th from 10am-5pm
Austin Book Arts Center
5501 N. Lamar, Suite C125, Austin, TX 78751
Refreshments, Demos, and Registration Discounts
The Austin Book Arts Center invites the public to an Open House. Come visit the Studio and see what’s new!
Chris Fritton, aka The Itinerant Printer
AUSTIN BOOK ARTS CENTER & THE PRESS ROOM PRESENT:
CHRIS FRITTON, AKA THE ITINERANT PRINTER
FOR ONE DAY ONLY ON APRIL 20TH, 2023!
Fritton has spent the last eight years traveling North America visiting different letterpress print shops; to date he’s covered over 100,000 miles, visited over 200 shops, and made over 35,000 prints along the way.
Join him as he recounts stories from the road, explores unconventional and experimental techniques, muses about the analog & the digital, and talks about his own stylistic journey toward the weird.
Come spend time with this internationally-renowned artist, view hundreds of works during the one-night-only exhibition and pop-up shop.
APRIL 20TH, 5:30-7:30PM: POP-UP EXHIBITION/SHOP
Come see colorful collaborative prints from all over North America, meet & greet with the artist, check out The Press Room and its one-of-a-kind collection of original cinema advertising cuts, scoop up some posters, and enjoy drinks & refreshments from Alamo Drafthouse!
The Press Room – 3908 Ave B Austin TX 78751;
entrance on SW corner of the building into the cafeteria
For more info, visit: @itinerantprinter on Instagram!
20th Annual Austin Edible Book Festival
Join us Saturday, April 1st, 2:00 – 4:00 PM
At the Baker Center Cafetorium, 3908 Avenue B
FREE Admission
This April Fools’ Day tradition showcases serious fun, as local bibliophiles create edible books to compete for prizes and glory.
Please click here for more information.
Holiday Shopping at ABAC
Austin Book Arts Center will be open to the public for HOLIDAY SHOPPING on:
Friday, December 9th, 12-6pm
Saturday, December 10th, 12-6pm
Saturday, December 17th, 12-6pm
Shop for all the bibliophiles on your list.
Hand made books, notecards, kits, tools, materials, and more!
Gift certificates are available.
Cheap Copies! With Rich Dana
OPEN HOUSE
FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC!
Sunday, June 19th, 6-9pm
Drop-in anytime. No registration required.
Please bring your mask.
Join us for an informal gathering of the copier-curious. Due to the overwhelming response to now sold-out workshops, ABAC decided have a party! Come on by to see demonstrations and make your own print. All are welcome! Refreshments will be served.
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Before social media, even before xerox-copied zines and flyers, marginalized communities used simple copying techniques– hectography (gelatin printing) mimeography (stencil printing) and spirit duplication (alcohol transfers, also known as “ditto”)– to make their voices heard. From political activists struggling for independence in India to the early gay rights activists in New York City, and from the dissident writers of Samizdat (self publishing) in the Soviet Union to the striking migrant farm workers of Southern California, these analog copiers were used to spread the word through words and pictures in the 20th century.
This summer, Rich Dana is setting out across the US on a series of in-person workshops to demonstrate these low-cost techniques and how contemporary artists and writers can use them to publish editions of zines, chapbooks, prints, and flyers.
Rich Dana teaches at the Center for the Book & School of Library and Information Science at the University of Iowa. A zine-maker, Rich is a lover of arcane technologies, visionary art, and analog anarchy. Rich also runs Obsolete Press, creating limited edition books and zines with artists and writers from around the world, editing and publishing OBSOLETE! Magazine, and teaching workshops on historical printing techniques and zine-making. His latest book is Cheap Copies!: The OBSOLETE! Press Guide to DIY Hectography, Mimeography & Spirit Duplication.
Click here to order your copy!
¡Let’s Make Books/Hagamos Libros!
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ABAC is participating in Amplify Austin, a city-wide 24 hrs of giving beginning at 6pm on Wednesday, March 2nd and extending until Thursday, March 3rd at 6pm.
Click here to support the Austin Book Arts Center.
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After discovering the essential role of remote resources during a pandemic, especially for children, parents, and teachers, the Austin Book Arts Center began offering online workshops, bookmaking kits, and accompanying videos in 2020.
Due to the generosity of donors to the Amplify Austin 2021 campaign and foundation support from the Tocker Foundation, ABAC was able to deliver over 120 bookmaking kits to all Austin K-8th grade art teachers, along with 10 accompanying, professionally-produced videos on our website. All available for FREE to families and educators!
During Amplify Austin 2022, ABAC hopes to build upon the success of last year’s campaign by raising $9000, once again bringing the book arts, both literally and virtually, into AISD High School classrooms.
How can you help?
With your Amplify Austin donation:
1. ABAC will professionally produce English/Spanish videos geared to high school students and educators. Bilingual videos will be designed in collaboration with current and former high school educators and curriculum specialists. After last year’s success of K-8th grade kits and videos, high school arts teachers asked for their own!
Your donations will provide access to these instructional videos to Austin area educators and to teachers around the world for FREE!
2. As a companion to the videos, ABAC will provide a free Bookmaking Kit to each of AISD’s 40+ high school art teachers.
Your Amplify Austin donation will make these kits available at no cost to Austin teachers!
The first $2000 raised will get kits into the hands of 40 local teachers. The additional money raised will cover the costs of graphic design, kit materials, Spanish translation, mailing expenses, and video production.
ABAC is partnering with AISD to ensure that the kits and videos will be accessible to all AISD teachers.
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Please help us provide families and AISD teachers greater access to these valuable resources!
Click here to support the Austin Book Arts Center.
Let’s Make Letters! With Kelcey Gray
FREE PROGRAM ON ZOOM
Wednesday, Feb. 23 from 7 – 8:30, USA Central time
Join on Zoom at http://us06web.zoom.us/j/87059267062
Please join The Austin Book Arts Center and BookWoman in welcoming author and UT Austin professor, Kelcey Gray for an exciting evening of instruction & experimentation in celebration of her new book Let’s Make Letters! Experiment, Practice, and Explore.
No experience is necessary! Everyone is welcome!
For this one and a half hour Zoom program, Kelcey will lead 3 creative exercises designed to experiment with, practice, and explore letter forms. Kelcey will recount her personal history, touching on projects that led to her recently published book. The audience is invited to ask Kelcey questions while they work.
List of materials needed to participate on Feb. 23:
- 10 sheets of copy paper
- At least one sheet of tracing paper
- Any drawing tool of your choice. Pencil, pens, markers, all will work!
Kelcey Gray, is an Austin, Texas-based graphic designer. She currently teaches design and typography at the University of Texas at Austin and can be found on Instagram @kelcey_gray.
Let’s Make Letters was published in Autumn 2021 by Princeton Architectural Press. This step by step guide aims to improve your lettering ability by exploring typography and calligraphy. Designers, artists, scribblers, teachers, and students will build skills, confidence, and curiosity as they take up new and familiar tools to draw, depict, and distort letters in original and inventive ways.
Click here to order your copy from BookWoman!
Book Woman
5501 N. Lamar #A-105
Austin, TX 78751
512-472-2785
www.ebookwoman.com
bookwomanaustin@gmail.com
Introducing: Delaine Leonard
What is your musical background?
We had a close family friend who was a harpist, so I decided that was my calling while still in elementary school. My parents attempted to distract me with piano lessons and finally capitulated when my school obtained a harp. I was able to begin lessons in the 5th grade.
My undergraduate and graduate degrees are in harp performance, and I’ve been fortunate to make a living as a performing (and now teaching) artist. Early in my career I performed with many of the touring shows in Central Texas—A Chorus Line, Cats, Evita, The King and I, Dave Brubeck, Ray Charles, Natalie Cole, Bernadette Peters, Doc Severinson, Florence Henderson, and Philip Bailey. In the 80s and 90s in Austin, I performed regularly at the University Club, Ricco’s, The Austin, Headliners, and Metropolitan Clubs, Barton Creek and Austin Country Clubs, The Driskill, and Stephen F Austin Hotels.
At some point, I began looking for new challenges and was fortunate to win auditions to perform as principal with the Waco Symphony (20 years) and second harp with the Dallas Opera Orchestra (16 years). I’ve also been an extra with the Austin and San Antonio Symphonies since the early 1980s. Currently I am the harp professor at the University of Texas Butler School of Music. Formerly I taught at Baylor and Southwestern Universities, Texas A&M in College Station, and Winthrop University in Rock Hill, SC.
Have you performed in different parts of the country?
I was part of a flute and harp duo recognized as “Texas Touring Artists” for a time, and we toured Texas, New Mexico, Illinois, and Wisconsin. As a member of the Austin Chamber Ensemble, I toured The Hague, Lyons and LeMans, France, and Cologne, Germany.
Since becoming a teacher, part of my career trajectory has been to become a Suzuki harp teacher and specialize in teaching very young children. That has given me the opportunity to travel to teach and perform in Canada, Italy, Utah, Washington D.C., California, Wisconsin, Virginia, Tennessee, North Carolina, and Colorado.
How and when did you become interested in book arts?
On one of the studio tours, I found information about classes, and signed up for the introductory ABAC course for teachers. Then Amanda Stevenson contacted me to perform for an ABAC fundraiser and I saw how beautiful and varied the book arts are! Since then, I’ve had the opportunity to study long stitch leather journals, photo transfer to watercolor paper, watercolor sketch books with Amanda Stevenson, case bound books, Secret Belgian Binding and Medieval Bookbinding with Kevin Auer. Our Medieval class was just ending and we were scheduled to start paper marbling as the pandemic shut things down. When ABAC pivoted to offer online classes, I kept busy with those and my own inventions.
I have a jewelry studio at home and I’m taking baby steps into making book furniture for the Medieval books we made in Kevin’s class.
What do you enjoy about book arts as opposed to other art forms?
I suppose that I enjoy first that book arts are art of a more permanent nature. You can see and hold it. Music is temporal. You play it and it’s gone. Yes, it’s possible to record music, but it doesn’t have the same energy and magic as the interaction with a live audience.
Then, I like that my skills as a jeweler seem to transfer to the book arts. Careful measuring and cutting straight lines is second nature. Originally I thought that working with paper would be less expensive than precious metals. Hah! Little did I know how easy it is to go down the rabbit hole of finding beautiful paper. I’ve just ordered some beautiful marbled paper from Canadian Robert Wu.
I like the tactile aspect of making something with my hands and being able to show it to others when it is finished. And, I like finding ways to upcycle materials by making my own paper from random bits, making book cloth from fabric, and finding recycled materials at ACR to use as book board.