Here’s another one from the Biblio Files, a periodic profile of a community member, highlighting what makes ABAC an awesome place to work and to learn!
1. What is your role at Austin Book Arts Center? If you teach and volunteer, please write about both.
I teach book-arts classes for teachers in a happy-hour style. Participants enjoy a glass of wine and snacks along the way, then go home with about eight structures to teach to their students. It’s always a fun and productive time. I also teach a tunnel book class, which is great for artists wanting to make their collages and paintings three-dimensional. I hope to develop a series of classes for artists: linocuts printed on the Vandercook Press, sketchbook design, gallery-type books to house art, and pop-up books, among other ideas. Also I want to help create some Thursday evening date-night events with a “make and take” in a happy hour format. I volunteer weekly as a steward, assisting folks who rent time in the bindery or print shop.
2. Why do you choose to volunteer at ABAC?
When I retired from teaching art in an elementary school, I created a theme for the rest of my life: everything BOOKS. Reading novels in the middle of the morning, for instance, is perfectly acceptable. I was trained as a book conservator and worked in the field for many years before deciding to become an art teacher. So I was well immersed in book arts. It was only natural to join my friends Mary Baughman and Amanda Stevenson and many others, endeavoring to start up the Austin Book Arts Center. It has been wonderful to see the Center thrive and bloom into what it is now—and so much more that the future holds! I am quite lucky.
3. How long have you been a volunteer?
I have volunteered since the very beginning, in 2015.
4. Are you active in other formal or informal Austin arts organizations?
I am part of a small group of artists who call ourselves the “Austin Five.” We meet monthly for camaraderie and critique, and we put together an annual exhibition of our work. Diverse in our directions but profiting from shared ideas, we help each other through thick and thin. I feel blessed to have them in my life.
5. What other information do you want ABAC fans to know about your life, your philosophy, your dreams and goals, and life events?
I am thrilled to show an exhibit of some of my books in the Austin Central Library until February 24th. It is part of a bigger display about fairy tales called Mirror Mirrored. The exhibit is amazing, and I’m happy to be a part of it. The book it was named after and whose author curated the show makes a fabulous and magical journey. I found in him a fellow fairy-tale geek. The book, though produced commercially, is quite an art object in itself.
I was also featured in the book arts blog of designer, photographer, printer, binder, and publisher Louise Levergneux. That connection inspired me to catch up on my own blog and maybe even create a website of my work!
Austin Book Arts Center has received a generous donation from an anonymous donor who would like to fund the tuition for one student to attend Bookbinding I. This class runs six Wednesday evenings, 6-9pm, beginning February 1, 2017.