The first annual Handmade & Bound book arts festival is just a few days away! I've been looking forward to this event for months. It was one of the first things about Nashville I found out about once we knew we'd be moving to town, and I sent in my vendor application before we'd even started packing to leave Virginia.
I thrilled to be living in a city with a book arts community, and I can't wait to be a part of this event. In addition to the various vendors selling handmade books and zines, there will be workshops and demos in bookmaking, papermaking, and printmaking, as well as a film screening, a gallery exhibit, live music and food trucks.
Handmade & Bound Nashville
September 30 and October 1
Friday, September 30
6:30 pm: Opening reception of "Encoded Structures: Interpreting the Story," a juried gallery show of artists' books and zines
8:00 pm: Free Screening of “$100 and a T-shirt," an award-winning documentary on the culture of zine making
Saturday, October 1
Vendors:
10:00 am – 5:00 pm: Vendor booths exhibiting and selling artists’ books, zines, small press publications, and other handmade bookish things.
Demonstrations:
10:00 am – 5:00 pm: Goldsmith Press Demonstration; print your own DIY bag
10:00 am – 11:00 am and 3:00 pm – 4:00 pm: Brown Dog Bindery Demonstration; Jennifer Knowles-McQuistion will demonstrate how wooden books are carved, burned, and bound
10:00 am – 5:00 pm: Gilded Leaf Bindery Demonstration; book restoration, fine bindings, blank journals, and gold tooling
10:00 am – 5:00 pm: Pamphlet Stitch Books for Kids with local printmaker and book artist Lesley Patterson-Marx
Workshops:
10:00 am to 11:00 am: Pixels, Print and Presence: How to Make the Most of Digital When It Comes to Print
This workshop is an introduction to web and digital assets for anyone from a DIY Zinester to Small Press publishers.
10:00 am – 11:00 am: Findings & Bindings
Use a discarded book, found papers both old and new, and a simple no-sew binding technique to create a one-of-a-kind handmade journal to house your creative notions.
11:00 am – 12:00pm: Zines with Kids & Teens
11:00 am – 12:00pm: Storytime for Children
Children can make paper finger puppets of the characters to take home.
12:30 pm – 1:30 pm: Miniature Accordion Popup Books
Artist Jennifer Knowles-McQuistion will lead participants through making a miniature hardback accordion book with pages that pop up, spill out, and burst from the folds.
12:30 pm – 1:30 pm: Toward A Self-Sufficient, Long-Lived Zine
Examine the nuts and bolts of what it takes to keep a serial zine alive and vital.
1:30 pm – 2:30 pm: Felt Sketchbook
Participants will design their book covers using felt and other materials, such as decorative papers, threads, and beads. Then they will assemble their sketchbooks, binding the books using posts and screws.
2:00 pm – 3:00 pm: The Art of Saying Something Worth Saving
Discussion will cover the pressure language undergoes when we seek to present it in a book arts project, and how words respond and rise to that challenge or collapse under the weight of that attention, and how we recognize it.
3:00 pm – 4:00 pm: Quadraflip or infinity card
Turning the pages of this structure changes their orientation and reveals hidden pages before taking you back to the beginning.
3:30 pm – 4:30 pm: Open Mic Zine Readings
All day: Papermaking
Book artist and instructor Annie Herlocker will guide you through pulling your own sheet of paper from pre-pulped materials.