Newsletter

February 2025

BOOKS AS ART 4

An Exhibition of Artist Books by NBG Members

Bear Gallery

Fairbanks Arts Association

June 6 - 28, 2025

Northwoods Book Arts Guild will mount its fourth major exhibition since its founding in 2011. During the month of June 2025 the Fairbanks Arts Association will host BOOKS AS ART 4 in the Bear Gallery. Featuring artist books created by NBG members, the exhibition will demonstrate how a book can be reimagined, reinterpreted, and reinvented through artists' eyes. All NBG members are invited to participate.

Learn all about the exhibition by clicking the button below:

Submission requirements

Special Projects

Timeline

and much more

• Recommend printing out the pdf

NBG Special BAA4 Program

Let’s Go - Inspiration, Workshops, Collaboration

Learn all about working and learning together

the button below has the updated list

including Margo's rescheduled Asemic Writing Workshop

Workshops

Program Meetings

Open Studio Sessions 

The List of the Let's Go Program

INSPIRATION on Zoom

Program Meetings

--- Sunday, March 16, 2025, 1-3pm - ZOOM

Foldable Structures - Book Artists in conversation

Integrating Fabric & Texture in Book Structures - Corlis Taylor

---Sunday, April 20, 2025, 1-3pm - ZOOM

Using Embellishments in Bookmaking - Ashley Thayer

WORKSHOPS at NBG Studio

Short in-person workshops at NBG Studio

---RESCHEDULED: Saturday, March 8, 10am - 2pm - NBG Studio

Introduction to Asemic Writing - Margo Klass

---Saturday, February 15, 10am - 2pm - NBG Studio

Form and Color as Content - Connie Stricks

---Sunday, February 16, 10am - 2pm - NBG Studio

Text as Content - Susan Campbell

---Saturday, March 22, 10am - 2pm - NBG Studio

Integrating Fabric & Texture in Book Structures - Corlis Taylor & Laurel Herbeck

COLLABORATION at NBG Studio

Working together as community to strategize, consult, and work on BAA4

Expanded Open Studio Hours: January - May

Wednesdays 12-3pm

Second & Fourth Sundays 12-3pm

(February 9, March 9 & 23, April 13 & 27, May 11 & 25)

NBG Let's Go Workshop - in-person at NBG Studio

Form and Color As Content

with Connie Stricks

Saturday, February 15 - 10:00 am - 2:00 pm

Members $80 Guests $100

Materials fee: $15

Workshop limited to 10 participants



Working with stamps, stencils, and punches, we will explore how color and form can be used to create content. We’ll focus on three forms—the circle, square, and triangle—learning about the symbolism connected with each of these shapes, and how they can infuse your composition with meaning. We’ll explore how color can be used to both reinforce this content and/or to simply create a design and composition that speaks solely to your aesthetic. Some of the papers created could be used in a book structure and ideas for your ABC book can also be explored.

NBG Let's Go Workshop - in-person at NBG Studio

Text As Content

with Susan Campbell

Sunday, February 16, 2025 10am - 2pm

Members $80. Guests $100

Materials fee: $5

Workshop limited to 10 participants 

In this workshop we will explore what an artist might consider when creating or choosing text as content for an artist book. Suitable structures will be discussed as we consider the aesthetics and balance of text and images. Participants will create a nested accordion model, a new “foldable” that displays text well. 

Besides considering structure, participants will experiment with poetic language through short, guided writing activities. If you’re thinking, “I’m not a writer”, be reassured that the activities are intended to be playful ways to engage with words and create short poems and bits of prose to inspire a new artist book. Using text in the public domain will also be discussed and some copyright resources will be shared.

NBG Let's Go Workshop - in-person at NBG Studio

Introduction to Asemic Writing

with Margo Klass

RESCHEDULED

Saturday, March 8,  10am - 2pm

Members $80, Guests $100

Materials fee: $10

Workshop limited to 10 participants

4 Seats Remaining!

Asemic writing consists of gestural lines and forms that look like writing, but are not based on any writing system; asemic writing is unreadable. Its lines and forms are fluid, energetic, and often elegant; they are as unique to an individual as one’s handwriting.

In this workshop we will explore asemic writing through exercises that will help us discover our own gestural movements and preferred methods of mark making. We’ll experiment with a range of tools that can be used to produce asemic writing, and test various papers. Throughout the workshop we will discuss how asemic writing can be used in our personal work, whether as message, formal content, or embellishment. 



Northwoods Book Arts Guild

ABC Challenge

Inspired by Robert Bolick’s ABC book collection, NBG members are invited to make their own alphabet-themed books. Any structure/format/medium related to book arts is welcome! This will be a slow paced, stress-free project that will culminate as a display in the

BOOKS AS ART 4 exhibition at the Bear Gallery taking place in June 2025.

To check out Robert’s blog, visit http://books-on-books.com

DEADLINES

Letter Quilt Wednesday, April 2, 2025 (3.5" X 3.5" dimensions of letter squares)

ABC Books Wednesday, April 16, 2025

All members of NBG are invited to sign up for this challenge! There is no fee to

participate, and we will hold optional meet ups (virtual or in-person) to discuss

ideas and share our progress. To join this fun and exciting new challenge email Ashley Thayer

BOOK ARTS BASICS 1 & 2

with Laurel Herbeck & Corlis Taylor

Saturday, February 8, 10am - 4pm

Saturday, February 22, 10am - 4pm

Members: $240 for both days / $120 for one day

Guests: $300 for both days / $150 for one day

Materials fee: $20 per day (paid directly to the instructors)

Maximum of 10 students.

Level: Beginner - no prior knowledge of Book Arts needed.

Are you new to Book Arts? Want to start off right?

Here is your chance to learn all the basics in two easy classes!

Book Arts Basics 1: FEB 8

This beginning book arts class introduces the tools, papers, and basic folds used for simple books. Learn about proper tool use, paper types suitable for use in books and book covers, and how to properly fold and crease paper.

Book Arts Basics 2: FEB 22

This classes features instruction for 1, 2, and 3 stitch spines, very useful, practical and attractive book art structures. Learn the Chain stitch, Two section Zig-Zag stitch, and Three section Rope stitch.

NBG Workshop

Traditional Cased-In Binding

with Tyson Rinio

Saturday, February 8, 12 - 3pm

Sunday, February 9, 12-3pm

Members $120, Guests $150

Materials fee: $20

---LOCATION: UAF Book Repair Lab---

Workshop limited to 4 participants due to limited table space.

Early Registration is appreciated.

This class will feature the creation of a traditionally bound book using bindery equipment and tools. Signatures will be constructed by cutting and trimming parent sheets. The structure will be sewn on linen tapes, rounded and backed, and will be cased into a cloth bound cover and titled using a hot foil stamping machine.

The class will take place in the UAF Book Repair Lab and will introduce students to practices of classically trained bookbinders. The cased-in codex can serve as a model for future projects.



ART-O-MAT

ALASKA HAIKU PROJECT

The Northwoods press has been running! We have printed two different sets of haiku, enough to make almost 300 books. One haiku is written by Chris Greenfield-Pastro and the other by Jane Sellin. We hope to have some of each of these books to sell at the June BOOKS AS ART 4 show. In addition, we hope to have a batch of 50 to send off to Art o Mat in North Carolina. 

WANT TO JOIN THE PROCESS? We welcome all the help to get our Haiku books ready for all that is coming up. It's a great way to be in community and to hone your bookmaking skills. If you want more information and to participate

please contact: Sherrill Peterson

*NEW* NBG Member Artist Spotlight

Oralee Nudson

NBG Member: 2014 to present

NBG Board Member, Communications Chair

One of the benefits of NBG Membership is the opportunity to participate in the NBG Special Projects like the Set Book, Horn Book, FAAM, and ABC projects. Each of these projects has been unique and interesting, and the narrowed focus offers a good starting point when brainstorming a new artist book. 

To continue growing in my personal journey as a book artist, I try to learn a new technique and incorporate it into my artist book with each new NBG Project. For example, the Set Book Project landed at a time when I was interested in working with cement. After my idea developed while reading Christopher Miles' Armor and Ornament, I experimented with a quick drying cement and built several models to get a feel for how to work with the medium. It ended up being a wild ride of learning how to contain the cement, but I eventually finished with a fun and eye catching casement for my Set Book. 

The next NBG Special Project, The Horn Book, overlapped with my interest in incorporating LED lights into my artist books and, again with much experimentation, I found a way to add a blinking red LED into my Horn Book to draw attention to both the book and the message I wanted to communicate.

While touring the Fountainhead Antique Auto Museum for the FAAM collaborative project, the mechanical machinery in the beautiful cars and the idea of movement translated into a pop-up structure in my mind. That idea led to finding a few excellent reference books on "paper engineering" and eventually turned into my editioned book featuring 7 different pop-up structures.

Finally, the current ABC project has given me motivation to resurrect my small collection of neglected artists spray paints. Despite the mid-winter interior Alaskan temperatures, I've been slicing out small slivers of time on the porch to practice with different colors and stencils for decorating paper. So far I've learned that a spray paint can will stop functioning in just under 60 seconds of use at zero degrees Fahrenheit. I've also learned that spray painting in active snow fall will result in a very textured finish. Also, one might be able to guess that paint dries painfully slow in cold temperatures. However, through exercising more patience while working under these abnormal spray painting conditions, I've been able to make a layered painted paper I find visually appealing and am advancing to making a model and designing the page content for my ABC book. Watch for the finished project in June! 

Thank you,

Oralee

NBG Letterpress Studio

Printing with Bruce Campbell

Sundays noon - 3pm, February 9 & 23

Join in printing cards with Bruce. A great opportunity to get some letterpress practice in and to learn about the process of letterpress. All welcome to join, no email necessary.

For more information about the Letterpress Studio email Bruce Campbell

Photo by Susan Campbell of artists working in Margo Klass's Workshop

Concept to Completion: Patterns, Textures, and Images form Rubbings

UAF Summer Sessions Wintermester 2025, January, 10-12

From participant, Sherrill Peterson: "Because of this workshop, I am further along the way with two books for the BAA4 show in June. This workshop was all about encouraging us along those lines. So hard to teach so many different things. For me, it was an amazing class and among the very best I’ve had."

pictured: Margo Klass, Mary Liston, Linda Adamson, Stephanie Strandberg, Ree Nancarrow, Susheila Khera, Cindy Quinn.

New Display Installed

Variations on a Book Structure

The Layered Accordion

UAF Rasmuson Library

A mini exhibition of layered accordion artist books has been installed in the display case at UAF’s Rasmuson Library. The collection demonstrates how a wide variety of works can be created from a single structure. The layered accordion consists of two interwoven accordions, one of them long with windows cut out of its central panels, and the second one twice as long, narrower in height, and without windows. The two accordions are interwoven and sewn together in the valley folds using a simple pamphlet stitch. An unadorned model is included in the display.

In the hands of NBG artists this small structure becomes elegant and even complex through the artists’ addition of content and personal choices of materials, colors, and images.

Thank you to the following artists whose work is included in the display:

Linda Adamson, Chris Greenfield-Pastro, Laurel Herbeck, Margo Klass, Sherrill Peterson, and Connie Stricks.

The Northwoods Set Book Project now has a dedicated page on the Northwoods Book Arts Guild website. Watch the Set Book artists present their individual creative processes and read Set Book poet Christopher Lee Miles' stunning analysis of "making art" here! The Northwoods Set Book Project is currently on exhibition in the Rose Berry Gallery of the UAF Museum of the North.

NBG Outreach

Books at Co-Op Market Grocery & Deli

Friday March 1, 10-4pm

A great opportunity to share what NBG does with the general public. We'll be selling books from the Boreal Showcase, as well as catalogs from past exhibitions. We'll be encouraging new membership & sharing information about our upcoming BOOKS AS ART 4 exhibition

in the Bear Gallery. If you'd like a book included for sale, please bring it by the NBG Studio by Wednesday, February 26. For more information email Yumi.

Newport Paper & Book Arts Festival

April 10, 11, 12, 2025

Newport, OR

Now in its 28th year, NPBAF celebrates papermaking, surface design, book arts, collage, mixed media and more. This year’s festival will feature 10 workshops - five 2-day workshops , and five 1-day workshops. Instructors include Dayna Collins, Randi Parkhust, Pietro Accardi, Belinda Hill, Celeste Chalasani, Jocelyn Stoody, and NBG’s very own Margo Klass and Connie Stricks.

Registration opens at noon, February 12

NORTHWOODS BOOK ARTS GUILD

CALENDAR

NBG Open Studio &

Boreal Book Arts Showcase Hours

note extended hours JANUARY - MAY

Wednesdays, 12-3pm

Second Sundays, 12-3pm

( Feb 9, Mar 9, April 13, May 11)

Fourth Sundays, 12-3pm

(Feb 23, Mar 23, April 27, May 25)

NBG Activity

Coptic Binders Meet Up

Thursday, January 9, 2-4pm

Thursday, February 13, 2-4pm

Thursday, March 13, 2-4pm

SPECIAL NBG BAA4 Activity

Let's Go!

PROGRAM MEETINGS ON ZOOM

---Sunday March 16, 2025, 1-3pm - ZOOM

Foldable Structures - Book Artists in Conversation

Integrating Fabric & Texture - Corlis Taylor

---Sunday, April 20, 2025, 1-3pm - ZOOM

Using Embellishments in Bookmaking - Ashley Thayer

WORKSHOPS IN-PERSON AT NBG STUDIO

---RESCHEDULED--Saturday, March 8, 10am - 2pm - NBG Studio

Introduction to Asemic Writing - Margo Klass

---Saturday, February 15, 10am - 2pm - NBG Studio

Form & Color as Content - Connie Stricks

---Sunday, February 16, 10am -2pm - NBG Studio

Text as Content - Susan Campbell

---Saturday, March 22, 10am - 2pm - NBG Studio

Integration Fabric & Texture in Book Structures - Corlis Taylor & Laurel Herbeck

COLLABORATION - MENTORSHIP - IN-PERSON AT NBG STUDIO

---OPEN STUDIOS: JANUARY - MAY

Wednesdays ,12-3pm (expanded hours)

Second & Fourth Sundays, 12-3pm

NBG WORKSHOP

Cased-In Binding

with Tyson Rinio

Saturday, February 8, 12pm - 3pm

Sunday, February 9, 12-3pm

at UAF Book Repair Lab

NBG WORKSHOPS

Book Arts Basics 1 & 2

with Laurel Herbeck & Corlis Taylor

Saturday, February 8, 10-4pm

Saturday, February 22, 10-4pm

at NBG Studio

University of Alaska Museum of the North

The Northwoods Set Book Project

In the Rose Berry Gallery, ongoing.

Learn about and support Northwoods Book Arts Guild!

 www.nwbookarts.org