The slideshow below is from our tour at the Van Pelt Library at University of Pennsylvania. Amey Hutchins, Assistant Curator of Manuscripts, showed us a selection of Italian ledger bindings.

the Second Annual Edible Book Festival!

The International Edible Book Festival is held annually world-wide on April 1st, partially to celebrate the birthday of French gastronome Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin (1755 – 1826), and partially to celebrate the fun of eating your own words.

An edible book can be simply defined as an edible object that somehow relates to books. It may integrate text, illustrate literary titles or content, or represent book form. You can read more about edible books at the official website, www.books2eat.com.

Join us for refreshments, crafts, and, of course, edible books. Vote for your favorite and then eat it! Artists’ talks will take place at 4:30 and, while the votes are being tallied, the eating of the books will begin.

Want to enter your edible tome into the contest? 
Visit the PCB site to download an entry form.
http://philadelphiacenterforthebook.org/edible_book_festival_intent_to_enter_2012.pdf



For more information, please contact Valeria Kremser at events@philadelphiacenterforthebook.org

Boutet’s 7-color and 12-color color circles from 1708

• Any DVC member in good standing may participate.  You must remain a member through 2013, when we plan to exhibit the books twice.
• The theme is secondary colors and you may interpret that any way you like. 
• We would like to make a book that contains alternatives to the standard signatures such as: accordions, pop-ups, map folds, fold-outs, pockets, etc. 
• Your edition final size must be 4”W x 7”H (after folding) and ready to sew into a book structure.  
• The edition number will be the number of participants plus 3.  Two extra for books that will be bound and donated to book arts collections and the third will be exhibited with your book. 
• You will bind your own book in any way you want.  We will offer some suggestions to those who would like guidance. You will provide the binding materials. 
•  If you are an out-of-town member, see the timeline below. 
•  You may collaborate with another member. 
• The exhibit will consist of each person’s bound book plus their piece, unbound.  (Both will be returned after the exhibit)

• Commitment to participate is due April 12. The date is firm. Entry fee due: $25, payable to the Guild of Book Workers.  The check will cover exhibition and mailing expenses.  
• Notification to participants of edition number:  April 13 
• Meeting for participants to see folding ideas:  April 28. This meeting is not required. 
• Long-distance member editions due: October 26.  The date is firm. 
• Local editions due Saturday, November 3, 2012. The date is firm.  To be delivered in person, if possible, to the Library Company.  That day we will collate the book and discuss binding ideas.  This is when you will get the contents of your book, so you should really try to come to this event. (If your edition is not ready by November 3, 2012 (or October 26 in the case of long-distance member) it will not be included in the collaborative book. No exceptions, no refunds!) 
• Compiled editions sent to long-distance members:  week of November 5 
• Finished book due:  Saturday, January 12, 2013.  The date is firm. We will have a little party to celebrate and see each other’s finished books.  
• Exhibition at the Cabot Science Library at Harvard University:  January 24 to May 19, 2013.  We will pack the books and ship them to Harvard where DVC member Todd Pattison will install the exhibit.  The books will return to Philadelphia and be exhibited at a venue yet to be determined.  (If you do not get your book to us by January 12, it will not be in the exhibit.  No exceptions, no refunds!)

Friday, March 2
The Library Company of Philadelphia
Cassatt House, 1320 Locust Street, Philadelphia
Reception at 5:30 p.m., Program at 6:00 p.m.
Eileen Wallace, Visiting Assistant Professor in Printmaking and Book Arts at the University of Georgia, will discuss the results of her research regarding Italian ledger binding structures.  She will also share images of her recent work inspired by these simple yet striking books.  The lecture will include an examination of the remarkable Biccherne, or painted wooden book covers, used exclusively on account books in Siena, Italy from the 13th-17th centuries.  

An event co-sponsored by:
Delaware Valley Chapter of the Guild of Book Workers and The Library Company of Philadelphia

Click HERE to RSVP to this event.

A members event! Parking will be free starting at 11 am, so feed your meter accordingly…

The Decorated Book: Continuing a Tradition
The Athenaeum of Philadelphia is a library and museum founded in 1814. Its legacy collections, surviving from the 19th and early 20th centuries, include rich holdings in designed bindings. The Decorated Book invites artists, through the medium of the book, to explore and respond to book covers from the legacy collections of the Athenaeum. Selected items from the designed binding collections, including work by Margaret Armstrong, Olive Grover and the studio artists of Decorative Designers, are emphasized in this call. The proposed books may be editioned or one-of-a-kind, artist books, book objects, altered books or zines but must in some way respond to the specified items from the designed binding collection posted on the Athenaeum website and on view at the museum.
Click here for more information

The Center for Book Arts is pleased to present:
The Un(framed) Photograph: Artist Members Annual Exhibition
Organized by Alexander Campos, Executive Director, and Doug Beube, Mixed-Media Artist and Photographer, Curator of the Allan Chasanoff Book Works Collection, and Adjunct Professor in the Department of Photography at Parsons New School of Design

Where: The Center for Book Arts, 28 W. 27th Street, 3rd Floor, New York, NY
When: July 6 – September 10, 2011
Admission: Free

NEW YORK, NY—The Un(framed) Photograph, featuring current members of CBA’s artistic community and other invited artists whose work will further the discourse, focuses on how the art of photography, the photographic process, and related media, such as video stills, are used to convey content, form, text, and image within a broader context of book arts practices. Artworks featured in this exhibition represent a broad range of book and related arts, including but not limited to books, prints, sculpture, mixed-media installation, new media, and performance art.

The Un(framed) Photograph is organized by Alexander Campos, Executive Director, and Doug Beube, Mixed-Media Artist, Photographer, and Curator of the Allan Chasanoff Book Works Collection. The artists featured in this exhibition are Rosaire Appel, Aileen Bassis, Rosemarie Chiarlone, Deborah Phillips Chodoff, Paul Clay, Katherine D. Crone, Brian Dettmer, Joyce Cutler-Shaw, Andrea Diodati, Ipek Duben, Colette Fu,Thomas Jackson, Nicholas Kahn & Richard Selesnick, Pelagia Kyriazi, Margarita Lypiridou, Franco Marinai, David Maroto, Anna Mavromatis, Louise McCagg, Scott McCarney, Heidi Neilson, Leah Oates, Suzanne Pastor, Maureen Piggins, Maria G. Pisano, Laura Russell, Rocco Scary, Peter Sramek, Sally Tosti, Tricia Treacy, Elysa Voshell, Ellen Wallenstein, Thomas Parker Williams, Dennis Yuen, Ewa Monika Zebrowski, and Philip Zimmermann.

DVC Member Lisa Heller has made a very kind offer to Delaware Valley Chapter members: we can take the Beatrice Coron Workshop at the Cheltenham Art Center for their member price. Click here for more information