Seattle Art Book Fair hosted the following talks, activities, and art installations throughout the weekend!

Talk Schedule ︎︎︎
Talk Details ︎︎︎
Activities ︎︎︎
Art Installations ︎︎︎

Talk Schedule

All talks take place in the Classroom on the First Floor unless otherwise noted.

Saturday, May 6
1:30 pm — Printed Motion: Riso Animation (Alex Barsky and Zack Lydon, Zine Hug)
3:00 pm — Early American Zine Culture (Adam Mohr)
4:00 pm — Risks and Rewards: Minor Matters’ Collaborative Publishing (Photographers Rachel Demy, Selena Kearney, Charles Peterson, and frequent co-publisher Al Varady of Solas Gallery, with Michelle Dunn Marsh)

Sunday, May 7
11:30 am — Artist-led tour of Site/Archive/Cite (Carrie Bodle & Amaranth Borsuk) (Meets on Floor 3)
12:00 pm — Longitudinal Collaborative Sketchbook Art with Strangers (Katie Derthick / mark moonbeam)
1:45 pm — Across Multiple Lanes: Avenues and Access in Book Arts (Yuka Petz)
3:15 pm — Are You Going My Way?: Navigating Into/Within/Across Arts Publishing (Robert Baxter et al.)

Saturday, may 6

1:30 pm
Printed Motion: Riso Animation
Alex Barsky and Zack Lydon, Zine Hug

From photocopier to fine art, the risograph printer has experienced a renaissance that now extends even to animation. Alex Barsky and Zack Lydon of Seattle-based micropress, Zine Hug, will discuss the how and why of using the risograph printer for the animation process and share a short screening of risograph animation work.
Alex Barsky and Zack Lydon are animators that run Seattle-based micropress, Zine Hug, publishing comics and zines printed with their Risograph MZ990. zinehug.com

Saturday, may 6

3:00 pm
Early American Zine Culture
Adam Mohr

A talk about how zines went from tools for free political thought in the 1770s to tools being used to gain freedom from certain political thoughts in the 1830s. Mohr looks at the intellectual history leading up to the Constitution and the beginning of the social justice movement with Maria W. Stewart.
Adam Mohr is founder of Soft Heart Library, a multi-media and space-occupying art project started in 2023. www.instagram.com/softheartlibrary

Saturday, may 6

4:00 pm
Risks and Rewards: Minor Matters’ Collaborative Publishing
Photographers Rachel Demy, Selena Kearney, Charles Peterson, and frequent co-publisher Al Varady of Solas Gallery, with Michelle Dunn Marsh

A discussion about the significance of art photography books for artists and audiences, and the process developed by local imprint Minor Matters to produce them through community engagement. Each will speak to their respective experiences, and their decisions to participate in Minor Matters’ collaborative publishing process as authors and/or co-publishers. Co-founder Michelle Dunn Marsh will also be present to answer questions on the origins of Minor Matters, their commitment to local authors and underrepresented voices, and the craft of reproducing distinctive and well-made art in book form.
Seattle-based Minor Matters was founded in 2013 by Michelle Dunn Marsh and Steve McIntyre to publish contemporary artists through online collaboration with the public. Their goal of producing well-made books via pre-sales has resulted in first books for ten authors, with half of their monographs featuring practitioners from the Northwest. minormattersbooks.com

Sunday, may 7

Floor 3

11:30 am
Artist-led tour of Site/Archive/Cite
Carrie Bodle & Amaranth Borsuk  

A walk-through of Site/Archive/Cite led by the artists. Site/Archive/Cite is an augmented reality artwork based on the National Archives at Seattle that interrogates the relationship of archive to place and public. What ghosts haunt the archive? Who has put them there? And how might we both bear witness to and intervene into the construction of a public archive? (See “Installations” below for a complete description of this artwork.)
Carrie Bodle (www.carriebodle.com) is a visual and sound artist whose immersive installations explore the relationships between art and science, translating inaudible or invisible phenomena into sensible experiences.
Amaranth Borsuk (www.amaranthborsuk.com) is a poet and book artist whose work focuses on text’s materiality across print and digital media to explore reading in the expanded field.

SUNDAY, may 7

12:00 pm
Longitudinal Collaborative Sketchbook Art with Strangers
Katie Derthick & mark moonbeam  

Derthick and moonbeam discuss facilitating Art Sundays at the Blue Moon Tavern, Seattle’s 88-year-old historic dive bar.

www.instagram.com/markmoonbeam
www.instagram.com/kderthick

SUNDAY, may 7

1:45 pm
Across Multiple Lanes: Avenues and Access in Book Arts
Yuka Petz

Artist Yuka Petz will share about the distinct avenues that she has navigated in book arts. In addition to her own books and book-adjacent artwork, Yuka will discuss the different ways she’s thought about and attempted to increase access to book arts, including forming an artist’s book collection in New Orleans and hosting the Artist’s Books Unshelved video series.

Yuka also wants to hear from you. Please feel welcome to answer an informal survey:
https://forms.gle/6wqAEkghfQELWuZp8
asking about what you need from your local art book communities. Audience participants will also be able to respond on cards and online at the talk.
 
Yuka Petz is an artist whose practice centers around paper, language and text, and encompasses printmaking, drawing, and books. She hosts Artist’s Books Unshelved and teaches book arts workshops around the country. Yuka is committed to collaborative and community-oriented projects that increase the accessibility of print and book arts. www.yukapetz.com

SUNDAY, may 7

3:15 pm
Are You Going My Way?: Navigating Into/Within/Across Arts Publishing
Robert Baxter et al.

A panel + question session exploring the many ways that people get started in the artist publishing field, how we might build and expand that access, and what we are doing (and can do) to foster collaborative community. Our panelists are artist publishers from a wide variety of backgrounds: academic, fine art, indie, trade, production, research, etc. Moderated by Robert Baxter of Common Area Maintenance.

Please fill out this short survey to help create a quick map of how people have: (A) entered this community and (B) worked + survived within it—and to get some ideas around developing resources to further welcome, support, and sustain artist publishers:
https://forms.gle/9rhXUny2BmtbsADV6

This discussion will be accompanied by a series of documented interviews and reading lists, and hopefully provide a foundation for further asynchronous conversation.
www.camseattle.org

SATURDAY, May 6

Floor 1

12:00–2:00 pm
Press Power
Partners in Print 

Partners in Print is bringing their presses, paper, and ink to the Seattle Art Book Fair—what message will you print and share with your community? On Saturday from 12–2, visit PiP on the first floor, where they'll be offering free, family-friendly letterpress poster printing for all. PiP brings people together by using old printing presses to amplify new voices, share knowledge, and spark creativity. Learn more at partnersinprint.org and on Instagram: @pipletterpress. 

Floor 1

Rainy Day Book Exchange
Seattle Art Book Fair

“There’s nothing new under the sun, but there are new suns.” —Octavia Butler

Join in the art and joy of sharing books! Visitors are welcome to bring an art book to leave for someone else, and then take another book in exchange. Collect new books from the community for the next rainy day. The Rainy Day Book Exchange is open to anyone who wants to participate.

Floor 3

You As An Animal
Michelle Lassaline 

Artist Michelle Lassaline paints portraits of people as any animal they choose. With watercolor and ink on paper, Michelle creates these personal, whimsical works of art in just a few minutes. Lassaline started the project in 2014 and has since performed for the City of Seattle, Artist Trust, 4Culture, the Tacoma Art Museum, the Northwest Public Art Conference, Pike Place Market, Fremont Market, Vashon Strawberry Festival, and numerous weddings, celebrations, and gatherings of all kinds.
Michelle Lassaline received an MFA in Interdisciplinary Art from the Maine College of Art & Design in 2022. In addition to watercolor, Lassaline works in paper mache and textiles. www.youasananimal.com

Floor 3

Book Fort!
Seattle Art Book Fair

An activity table for kids and kids at heart, with book making instructions and supplies. Follow one of the provided book construction methods, or invent your own!

Floor 1

Po-Mo Pulp
Neoglyphic Media

Po-Mo Pulp is a series of zines published by Neoglyphic Media, which will be featured through an exhibition of conceptually-related original work, intended to expand the context for the publications. The visionary nature of the artists involved grinds against the subversive voice of the underground and begs for further exploration along the line of where low-brow or pulp media crosses over into fine art.
The exhibition will feature publications paired with original art and multimedia work on display from artists: Amanda Vähämäki (Finland), Lale Westvind (Philadelphia, PA), Drew Miller (Albuquerque, NM), Leomi Sadler (London, England, UK), Marc Bell (Vancouver, BC, Canada), Matt Lock (Clifton, NJ), Stefan Gruber (Seattle, WA)

Neoglyphic Media is an art and visual media publisher dedicated to publishing and promoting work from unique and idiosyncratic artists between the worlds of fine art and pulp media. www.neoglyphicmedia.com

Floor 2

Soft Library
Colleen Louise Barry

Soft Library is an ongoing series of 1-of-1 multimedia artist books that investigate accumulation, chronology, and serial ways of making meaning. The books are simultaneously sculpture, drawing, color theory investigations, and found art.
Colleen Louise Barry is an artist based in Seattle. Barry is also one half of Angel Tears, an interdisciplinary collaborative publishing project about film, media, pop culture, consumerism, and friendship. www.colleenlouisebarry.com 

Floor 3

Site/Archive/Cite
Carrie Bodle and Amaranth Borsuk

Site/Archive/Cite is an augmented reality art intervention based on the National Archives at Seattle that interrogates the relationship of archive to place and public. At a time when many institutions hold out hope for digital accessibility to broaden the audience for their holdings, the realities of what gets digitized and who has access do not always live up to those heightened expectations. What is cited on a website may only be a fraction of the materials available onsite, providing a partial—and highly subjective—window into a collection that fundamentally gains meaning through public access and interaction. What ghosts haunt the archive? Who has put them there? And how might we both bear witness to and intervene into the construction of a public archive? In two large-scale prints that layer and distort archival holdings, visitors can materialize the spectral presence of digital documents, inviting us to re-envision an archive that is simultaneously here and gone. We invite you to take home a poster and open your own portal into the collection.
Carrie Bodle (www.carriebodle.com)is a visual and sound artist whose immersive installations explore the relationships between art and science, translating inaudible or invisible phenomena into sensible experiences. Amaranth Borsuk (www.amaranthborsuk.com) is a poet and book artist whose work focuses on text’s materiality across print and digital media to explore reading in the expanded field. Our collaborative work draws on our complementary backgrounds to engage audiences in site-specific embodied interactions with poetry through physical installations, soundworks, and artists’ ephemera. Each of our works is a performance by the viewer / participant, whether their body must complete a circuit within it, or whether they contribute their own words to activate the space.

Olivia Oomen (www.oliviaoomen.com) is a designer participating in the Interdisciplinary Honors Program and majoring in Industrial Design at the University of Washington. By merging design and emerging technologies, she aims to create innovative solutions that can shape cultural norms and solve complex problems.