Category: Events

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

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!

 

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

Good Book Action

View the film and the Q&A here!

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On November 13, 2020, the Austin Book Arts Center held an online screening* of Good Book Action: Craig Jensen Master Bookbinder, a short film by documentary filmmaker Mark Hall.

Craig Jensen is one of the most accomplished and noted artists currently working in the field of fine art bookbinding. Good Book Action captures the magic of Jensen’s work as he shares examples of his masterful books that have elevated bookbinding to a high art form.

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Following the screening, Greg Ciotti moderated a Q&A with Craig Jensen and Mark Hall about the film, Craig’s career in book arts, and Craig’s association with ABAC.

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* This premiere was held in conjunction with BLUE SKIES, a Charity GoFundMe campaign running October 30 – December 1st, with the goal of recouping a portion of lost income due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

DONATIONS CAN STILL BE MADE HERE

Edible Books! with Mary Baughman via Facebook Live

Thursday, March 19th, 7-8pm

Due to concerns for public health, this program will be broadcast only.
It will be live on the ABAC Facebook page.

 

Half Price Books, host of the Austin Edible Book Festival since 2014, has just announced that this year, the April 1st event is canceled…. However, Edible Book Lovers still have a chance to celebrate this weird art form.

Edible Book Festivals around the world celebrate books, humor, and imagination through the creation of dishes inspired by books and puns. Edible Book Festivals are fun and silly. Right now fun, silliness, and creativity are just what the Dr. ordered.

Are you hungry to learn more about Edible Book Festivals? During the Facebook Event to be broadcast from Austin Book Arts Center, admire inspiring images of past Edible Book Festival entries. Imagine the taste of materials you can use to make an edible book. Learn tips to prepare Edible Books with ingredients you already have at home.

Using a variety of delicious materials, Mary Baughman has created at least one yummy book for each of Austin’s past 17 Edible Book Festivals. Mary conserved inedible books at the University of Texas Ransom Center for 40 years, and now Mary serves up information about Austin Book Arts Center where everyone can have fun and learn about all sorts of book arts.

This event is part of ABAC’s Third Thursday series. For each, we invite a special presenter to provide an educational demonstration during the first hour. A reception follows. These family-friendly happenings are free and open to the public.

Kyle Durrie visits ABAC with her Moveable Type truck

Kyle Durrie of Power and Light Press, Silver City, NM
Thursday, March 5th from 6-9pm at ABAC

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This event is in collaboration with Amplify Austin, a city-wide 24 hrs of giving beginning at 6pm on Thursday, March 5th and extending until Friday, March 6th at 6pm.

Click here to support the Austin Book Arts Center.

Please note NO AMOUNT IS TOO SMALL!
All gifts are needed and appreciated.

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The indomitable Ms. Durrie is once again hitting the open road in her “Moveable Type” truck for a tour of the southern states. She will be setting up shop at the Austin Book Arts Center to engage visitors with letterpress demos and a stunning array of letterpress printed merchandise.

This is the second tour of the “Moveable Type” truck. Back in 2011-2013, Durrie traveled around the country in this same truck, with the mission of sharing the craft of letterpress printing. She is visiting small towns and big cities to spread the good word about printing the old fashioned way, by hosting public pop-ups, letterpress demos, and letter-writing events along the way.

 

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ABAC also has about 100 cans of free ink. Yes, that’s right, FREE INK! Come and take it.
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