As posted earlier, this past weekend was the College Book Arts Association‘s annual conference. The weekend was kicked off Thursday with a reception at Lilly Library amongst a wonderful exhibit of bindings and artist books. There is never enough time to spend with such great books, but for those who have never seen them before, it was a great introduction.
Friday began with a large group of panels. There were so many to choose from making me feel overwhelmed, but those I was able to attend were very interesting. I saw a range of academic presentations showcasing research projects as well as an assortment of student work. What I found the most interesting on Friday were some of the book projects assigned by instructors, specifically the zine assignments shown during Casey Smith’s presentation. For his writing class, he has students create zines, quick cheaply produced books, that turn out to be quite stunning and fun ways to promote creative writing and good composition.
In the evening, Ann Hamilton gave a talk about her recent work. I’ve only seen Ann’s work on Art:21, a TV special about artists, so it was great to hear her expand on her thoughts behind her work in person. After the talk, I attended the IU SoFA gallery opening featuring the submissions for the CBAA book exhibit. I visited this exhibit more than once because there were so many great books to see. Following that opening was a small book exhibit, called White Space, put on by some IU grad students. Great stuff!
Saturday was another round of panel presentations. Again, more interesting work featured throughout the day. More presentations of student work and some really interesting presentations showcasing a few collaborations between artists. Later that evening, was a silent auction followed by a dinner. I was unsuccessful at procuring any auction materials (I have to admit, I am not very aggressive with my money) but it is always fun to participate. The dinner was delicious and it was a good time to recognize the people who worked so hard to make the conference happen; and of course, it was great to eat delicious food!
Sunday I participated in a great workshop called Silver, Salt, Screen taught by Amanda Lee. Details on the workshop will be posted soon.
Over all, the weekend was great. There was so much to see that it made one tired and overwhelmed. However, as I have said before, I left eager to get to work and inspired by everything I saw. Ideas come freely when you get to see so many examples of great work, so hopefully these ideas will come to fruition through posts here…