ABC – artists’ books club

ABC is a cross-disciplinary forum for makers of artists’ books and ephemera, founded by MA alumna Lilla Duignan in 2009 for students and interested parties based at Bower Ashton. It provides an opportunity to get together for critical and constructive dialogue, to contextualise work, explore ideas and to develop creative practice and theory. ABC meets and works as a group towards exhibitions, projects and participation in regional and national artist’s book fairs and events.

“The perfect space in which mystery meets matter and conjoins, is for me the book”

Allil Enna Nangi-Ud

ABC coordinators for the academic year 2018-2019 are Csilla Biro and Alyn Smith:

Csilla works on serial artists’ publications with a focus on conceptual art and image-text relationships.

Alyn is a relief printmaker who has an interest in making artists’ books that have a playful nature using letterpress and lino printmaking techniques.

Meetings are held in the library or Portakabin 1, see below for the schedule.

Timetable of meetings 2018-2019

Thursday 18th October 2018
12:30 – 13:30 Library study area
Introduction to ABC and some simple non-adhesive book binding techniques.

Thursday 1st November 2018
12:30 – 13:30 Library study area
Talk by Frans Baake, book artist, printmaker – a show and tell with works from his exhibition in the library.

Thursday 13th December 2018
12:30 – 13:30 Library study area
Open discussion around this year’s theme of low budget/low tech books. This will be a chance to bring along your work or ideas as well as looking at examples.

Thursday 17th January 2019
12:30 – 13:30 Library study area
Introduction to the special collections in the library with Steve Norton.

Thursday 14th February 2019
12:30 – 13:30 Portakabin 1
Demonstration of Crown Binding with artist’s book maker / illustrator Corinne Welch.

Thursday 14th March 2019
12:30 – 13:30 Library study area
Demonstration of Japanese book binding.

Thursday 11th April 2019
12:30 – 13:30 Portakabin 1
Talk about resistance books and a chance to have a go at using simple printmaking techniques.

Thursday 9th May 2019
12:30 – 13:30 Portakabin 1
Last ABC meeting of the year, Show and Tell, bring along the books you have been working on.