Collins Unbound

Image of the Shelmidine Stained Glass

Each month, the Archives & Special Collections will hold a series of informal presentations on current research, unique resources, and rare books. Join us for informal discussion, refreshments, and the opportunity to handle documents and artifacts hundreds of years old!

9/10:  ‘I was cut out for the wilds’: The Landscape of Gender in the Journals of Abby Williams Hill – Tiffany MacBain, Associate Professor of English.
Join us for a look into the ongoing research of Tiffany MacBain, Associate Professor of English, as she draws on the Abby Williams Hill collection in the Archives & Special Collections. Many know 19th-century Tacoma local Abby Williams Hill as a painter of landscapes, but her journals reveal a woman anything but genteel. In the wilds, Hill enacts her project of gender critique and revision, and urges others to follow suit. Light refreshments will be served.

10/6 (time change to 4:30 p.m.): A Musings in honor of Aileen Kane – Suzanne Moore.
Suzanne Moore is a letter artist, painter, and printmaker whose eclectic interests meld in the diversity of her artists’ books. Her books blend abstract and representational imagery, rich color and surface treatments with textual content and contemporary lettering to create work that obscures the line between word and image. Moore recently completed her work celebrating Aileen Kane, centered on the letter “A.” Moore uses historical, symbolic, and spiritual aspects of the letter A in her work, A Musings for Aileen. The book was commissioned by the Collins Library, and will serve as a reminder of Aileen’s dedication to language and literacy as well as offering students a contemporary example of historical manuscript principles.

After our regular lecture all are invited to a reception at 5:30 to celebrate Aileen and completion of Suzanne Moore’s book, A Musings for Aileen.

11/3: Abecedarian Gallery, Denver, Colorado – Alicia Bailey.
Alicia has a particular passion for works that include elements beyond surface printed images and text; that move beyond traditional book forms and embrace presentation flexibility, rigid page construction and use of alternative materials. For this presentation, Alicia will bring selections from Abecedarian Gallery’s recent exhibition Content: Artifact, her own collection, and her own work, to share. After a brief overview of her involvement with contemporary book arts, Alicia will talk about specific individual works, their construction, appeal and relevance, with opportunities for questions from the audience and hands on examination of some very special book works.

Alicia is affiliated with several artists’ book professional organizations and has served on the Executive Committee of Guild of Book Workers since 1998. She is owner/director of Abecedarian Gallery in Denver, Colorado, founded in 2007 and focused on the exhibition, promotion and sale of contemporary artists’ book works. Alicia also acts as an independent curator/juror, instructor/mentor and regional events coordinator in the book arts. In her studio work, she has focused on book arts since the mid-nineties, producing artists’ books, sculptural books and limited edition books. Her work has been featured in dozens of solo and group exhibits throughout the world and is held in numerous public, private and special collections.

http://www.abecedariangallery.com

Pugetsound.edu/library

Artist Books from helenhiebertstudio.com

Nationally recognized paper and book artist, Helen Hiebert of Edwards, Colorado will share examples from her studio practice, including Interluceo, her newest artists’ book about paper, geometry and light, and The Wish, a community installation project that resides in a Denver library, as well as her efforts to put hand papermaking on the map through her how-to books and blog. Helen will also bring copies of several of her other artists’ books to show.

Helen Hiebert is a Colorado artist who constructs installations, sculptures, films and artist books using handmade paper, thread and light. She teaches and lectures about papermaking and lampmaking and exhibits her work internationally. She is author of the books Papermaking with Plants, The Papermaker’s Companion, Paper Illuminated, Playing With Paper, and Playing With Pop-Ups. Helen has an extensive network of paper colleagues around the world and her interest in how things are made (from paper) keeps her up-to-date on current paper trends, which she writes about in her weekly blog post called The Sunday Paper. Helen’s most recent installation, The Wish, is a giant dandelion sculpture at Anythink Huron Street Library in Thornton. She holds an annual paper retreat in her Red Cliff studio each September.

Sponsored by the Collins Memorial Library, in association with the Puget Sound Book Artists.