Greetings PSBA members! Hope your summer is going well!

 

Board Announcements and Updates

Volunteer needed—PSBA Calendar Coordinator: PSBA accomplishes its mission mostly with the help of volunteers. We are proud of this. The details in creating the very professional members’ exhibit, the book arts classes and the presentations are done via the labor of our members and friends.

PSBA has a very important volunteer job opening. If you have some technical skills and about 8 hours per month available to use them, we need you. We are looking for someone to coordinate the events calendar on our website. For more information contact Sally Alger, PSBA President at psbanews@gmail.com. She will send you a job description and other details.

 

New Board Members: We are so happy to announce that Ray Zill from The Evergreen College and Fran McReynolds, local artist and educator, will be joining the PSBA Board in September! We are delighted to have these two thoughtful and creative members contribute to the future of PSBA!

We also share a huge THANK YOU to Mark Hoppmann who has served as a Board member for over a decade. Mark has been the leader in our web page development and implementation of our PSBA calendar. We can't thank him enough for all his contributions! Mark assures us he will remain an active member!

 

Annual Exhibit KUDOS: We have just ended another successful PSBA exhibition. Once again we extend thanks to you, our members, for sharing your work and to the amazing exhibition team! It is exciting to know that the books will now travel to The Evergreen College and we will have additional opportunities to hear from the artists.

 

Board Retreat on September 8th: Your PSBA Board will be convening at the Bainbridge Island Artist Resource Network space (BARN) to hold the annual planning retreat. On the agenda are three main themes:  programs and events, leadership sustainability and our financial portfolio. We need to discuss how to continue to maintain our level of programs, recruit new leadership to assure the organization can continue to prosper and to consider our finances including a review of membership fees, exhibit costs and fundraising. If you have ideas or comments to share, please contact Jane at jcarlin@pugetsound.edu ( please note, Jane will be retaining her Puget Sound email for the next year).

 

Upcoming Events

All About Dreams: A Lunchtime Conversation with Erin Michelson and Sha Towers. August 17, 12:00-12:50, Online.

The Dreams exhibit is displayed at the Collins Library from August 20 through November 17. This international juried exhibition features a wide range of unique books that explore dreams. In addition to learning about the books in the show, Erin will share updates about her work as the manager of 23 Sandy, and Sha will share insights into the programs at Baylor. 

This event is free, but registration is required. Event information and registration is here.

 

Annual Book Exchange, Secrets: October 1, 2pm-4pm, University of Puget Sound, Collins Library.

“Secrets” is the theme of this year’s in-person book exchange. The theme was selected by majority vote of the members attending the PSBA annual meeting, and we’re hoping you’re either working on your book or will be inspired to join. Some ideas to get the creative mojo going:

• Top secret/classified
• Secret garden
• Secret password
• Secrets of the heart/unrequited love
• Keys
• Fingerprints
• Political secrets/espionage
• Secret passage/chamber. 

And, of course, there are some engaging book structures to try with the theme: Masu and other origami unfolding boxes, secret Belgian binding, exploding boxes, and so on.

The rules are simple. You make a book and at the event your name/book will be randomly paired with another participating artist, and you give them your book and receive a book from a randomly selected different participating artist. The books for the past years’ exchanges have been very high quality, and you’ll have the fun of making a book, getting inspired by the other wonderful books, and adding a new fabulous book to your personal collection.

If you can’t make an in-person appearance on October 1, no worries, you can mail your book and receive an exchange book, also by mail. 

Questions?  Feel free to contact Abbie Birmingham, abbiemi5274@gmail.com. An email to register will be going out soon, and the event and registration will be on the Calendar page.

Member News!

Image courtesy of Jan Dove.

Jan Dove's artist book Seminole Canyon is included in Alicia Bailey's show "Westward Bound II" August 17- September 10 in Denver, Colorado.

 

Focus on Book Arts Conference 2024: Call for Workshop Proposals Extended to July 30.Visit the conference website for more information.

The FOBA conference takes places June 19-23, 2024, in Monmouth, Oregon.

 

Call for Member News

Are you planning a special event or workshop?  Have you recently presented your work at a Conference or event?  Is your work included in an exhibition?

If you would like to share information, please send your submission to Julia.stringfellow@cwu.edu by Saturday, August 26. Subject line should read: PSBA Member News. The September newsletter will be sent out to the membership in late August.

Sincerely,

 

Your PSBA Board

Meet the Board members on the Contact Us webpage.