Virginia Center for the Book ~ Virginia
(Kalela Alicia Williams, Director)                                                Share this page:

VCB: "Virginia Center for the Book is a community of artists exploring books, paper, and printmaking through a hands-on studio of the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities. We cultivate an appreciation of the arts of the book, visual and verbal literacy, and creativity while fostering traditional and contemporary skills.

“To this end we operate a working studio and print shop to which community members may gain access and through which they can gain training in the art and crafts of printing, printmaking, and book arts. We strive to bring professional artists into contact with students, interns, and community members.”

Saints Alive!
By Bonnie Bernstein, Richard Cappuccio, Laura Chessin, Dean Dass, Janet Eden, Lyall Harris, Nancy Kober, Viana Martinez, Kevin McFadden, Jeff Pike, Kirsten Miles, Yolanda Merrill, Garrett Queen, Liz Schneiders, Michael Swanberg
Charlottesville: Virginia Center for the Book, 2022. Edition of 30.

Prints are 7" by 10" with a vertical orientation. The printmaking methods represented in the collection are as eclectic as the patron saints they portray. Each set of prints is housed in a paper retablo, or small Peruvian-style altar-box. A built-in frame compartment holds all 14 prints. When the retablo stands open, the top-most print is displayed. Closed, the retablo measures 7.125" x 13" x .5". Belly band closure with printed title. Each print signed and numbered by the artist.

Virginia Center for the Book: "Blending the sacred and the secular, and drawing inspiration from Mexican ex votos, Peruvian retablos, and European and Near Eastern iconography, member artists at the Virginia Center for the Book have produced a collection of storied art venerating whoever/whatever helped them to cope during the pandemic or other recent difficult time.

“Several take refuge in distraction, both meaningful and amusing. Some turn inward, exploring the psyche and values. Others shine a light outward, honoring the miracle workers, including the uncelebrated."

Bonnie Berstein – “Saint Selous, Patron of Bird Watchers”
Richard Cappucio – “St. Katharine”
Laura Chessin – “Patron Saint of Music”
Dean Das – “Patron Saint of Mental Health”
Janet Eden – “Saint Words”
Lyall Harris – “Thank You”
Nancy Kober – “Cantate Domino”
Viana Martinez – “Saint of Simple Pleasures”
Kevin McFadden / Jeff Pike – “Saint Science”
Kirsten Miles – “Patron Saint of Dogs”
Yoland Merrill - “Scribbelina, Patron Saint of Doodling”
Garrett Queen – “The Simple Saint”
Liz Schneiders – “Our Lady of the Perpetual Journal”
Michael Swanberg – “The Fulfillment Center Worker”

$450

UNCHARTED
By Kristin Keimu Adolfson, Amy Arnold, Bonnie Bernstein, Addeane Caelleigh, Richard Cappuccio, David Chen, Laura Chessin, Lucas Czarnecki, Dean Dass, Janet Eden, Lyall Harris, Nancy Kober, Lana Lambert, Sarah Lawson, Georgia Mackenzie, Kevin McFadden, Garrett Queen, Michael Swanberg, and Katie Towson
Charlottesville: Virginia Center for the Book, 2019. Edition of 50.

18 works on paper, blending traditional printwork, handwork, and digital printing, extending or contracting to 11 x 14" dimensions that fold readily into a cloth sewn map case with flaps and a clasp. Each print signed and numbered. Includes summary of each print with artist's statement and process information. Virginia Center for the Book: "How do we explore the most complex experiences? find a way to understand or believe in the midst of the unknowable? catch signs of clarity amid confusion or dissonance? can we leave a trail for others? These are the questions at the heart of 'UNCHARTED'. " Original call to artists for UNCHARTED: "A map that doesn’t exist – an imaginary map – it can be a geographic map, a map of an idea, map of feelings or a new way to represent visually information that guides or describes the world. The map should not be anything that already exists (i.e. a map of a fictional book or tv show world). Your maps should *not* be data driven (i.e. a map reliant on hard data from the real world). We want to keep the original spirit of “imaginary” maps, and stretch our creativity. How can you creatively realize your intention? "Conceptual Guidelines for the Project - A map is a prosthetic device to 'help' us literally reconnect to reality, while simultaneously removing us from reality. Therefore there is a tension between reality and our representation of it. … "Creating a map is a way to try and understand and index the world. In a way, creating a map can be seen as making space/land/geography 'real'. However a map can never capture the real of an experience, of the environment, or space. So our map art should be our way of trying to 'map' the unmappable. How do you really 'map' a forest. What is the representation of a forest? Is it limited to the location of rocks and trees? What about the experiential nature of forest? How do you map that? "Thought experiment: If you had to create a map of a lemon, how would you do that? Would you focus on the texture? The experience of eating a lemon? How would you show that visually? Can you express tartness without showing a person’s mouth pursed? Would you include the history of the lemon’s life? What about its smell? "… how will your map convey a reality, what will that reality be, and yet, what happens when you try to pin something down? What do you lose? What is removed? What is a representation? What then, is your map?"

Maps and artists included:

Home by Addeane Caelleigh and Janet Eden
Doubt by David Chen and Georgia Mackenzie
Survival Map by Lyall Harris
Tattered Line by Lucas Czarnecki
Mapping the Margins by Michael Swanberg
Cloud Map by Dean Dass
Latitudes of Loss by Katie Towson
Dream Noir: Narratives & Escape Routes by Bonnie Bernstein
A Fragment of Paradise by Garrett Queen
Your intentions are here by Lana Lambert
Approximate Eden, sustenance by Amy Ransom Arnold
Charting the Great Reality by Kristin Keimu Adolfson
Time After Time by Laura Chessin
I am here / or here? By Richard Cappuccio
Bubbleburg by Nancy Kober
hiStoRymeMoRymeAndErOde by Kevin McFadden
Olfactometric Elevations for the Amateur Nasal Ranger by Sarah Lawson

$500

Bird Talk
By Kristin Keimu Adolfson, Amy Arnold, Bonnie Bernstein, Jennifer Billingsly, Richard Cappuccio, Lucas Czarnecki, Dean Dass, Jeremy Dibbell, Janet Eden, Matthew Gibson, Erica Van Brimer Goldfarb, Lyall Harris, Angie Hogan, Lucy Kelshaw, Nancy Kober, Lana Lambert, Kevin McFadden, Yolanda Merrill, Garrett Queen, Louise Smith, Cecilia Sorochin, Michael Swanberg, Katie Towson, and Noel Wingard
Charlottesville: Virginia Center for the Book, 2018. Edition of 45.

11 x 12.5"; 11 leaves on each side with three flags each leaf. Double-hinged flag book. Hand printed and bound at the Virginia Center for the Book. Numbered. Laid in chip board box with title printed on yellow band across lid.

Colophon: "Book artists at the Virginia Center for the Book celebrate Audubon's Year of the Bird with 'Bird Talk', marking the centennial anniversary of the 1918 Migratory Bird Treaty Act in a creative, cacophonous collaboration. Our book is an eclectic assemblage of 22 wild birds of North America along with their myriad songs and calls depicted by member artists using a variety of relief printing methods, bound in a double-hinged flag book that flutters open like a rising flock of birds. … 'Bird Talk' is the culmination of member artists exploring books, paper, and printmaking through a studio located in the Jefferson School in Charlottesville Virginia."

Birds included are Eastern Towee, Cedar Waxwing, Dark-Eyed Junco, Brewer's Blackbird, Bearded Screech Owl, Atlantic Puffin, Carolina Wren, Roadrunner, Hummingbird, Brown Pelican, Northern Gannet, Cerulean Warbler, Turkey Vulture, Wood Thrush, Pileated Woodpecker, Barred Owl, Indigo Bunting, Trumpeter Swan, Yellow-headed Blackbird, Peregrine Falcon, Mourning Dove, and Baeolophus Bicolor.

$1200

Speaking in Faces
A Type Specimen Book
By Members of the Virginia Center for the Book
Charlottesville: Virginia Center for the Book, 2017. Edition of 25.

8.9 x 11"; 112 pages. Printed letterpress on Crane's Lettra paper (300 gsm). Body text in Garamond. Labels in Gill Sans. Boards covered in marbled paper crafted by Lindsey Mears with cloth spine. Numbered. Designer and printer -Lucas Czarnecki. Editor and printer - Kevin McFadden. Master printer - Garrett Queen. Consulting compositors - Bonnie Berstein, Richard Cappuccio, and Aurora Nichols.

Virginia Center for the Book, Project Background: "The first pages of this volume were printed more than a decade ago in a daunting attempt to produce a complete reference to the entire collection of the movable type available to VABC printers.

"Speaking in Faces, a project begun at VABC in 2004 by Johanna Drucker with VABC artists, is a unique specimen book, a creative resource for exploring letterpress printing, typography, and the treasures of our large and unique moveable type collection. VABC holds cases of Baskerville, Bernhard, Bodoni, Caslon, Garamond, Goudy, Franklin, Kennerly, Lydian, Spartan, and Stymie faces, among a diversity of other display fonts, dingbats, and wood type.

"The VABC collection (at more than 375 cases) is the largest collection of moveable type accessible to artists in Virginia; it is also among the largest collections in the Mid-Atlantic. Yet printers and artists who come to use the studio's type lack a basic resource to see printed letter forms at work and play -- no simple way to pick one face from a crowd!

"Typefaces in the book will be treated as a nexus of function (letters, words, and meaning) and form (visual and artistic display) that operate in a blend of verbal and nonverbal communication, just as human faces do."
$1,200

The Bad Quarto
By Members of the Virginia Center for the Book
Charlottesville: Virginia Center for the Book, 2015. Edition of 55.

8 x 10"; 68 pages. Printed on Mohawk Superfine, softwhite eggshell. Images from first folio Hamlet, British Library C.34.k.1. Numbered. Red cloth over boards with titles in black on front cover. Edition of 55: 5 deluxe leather copies, 45 cloth copies and 5 unbound signatures.

Virginia Center for the Book: "In celebration of 20 years as a community of artists exploring books, paper, printmaking, the Virginia Arts of the Book is proud to debut its latest collaborative project, The Bad Quarto. The handbound artist’s book is an exploration of the first publication of Shakespeare’s Hamlet.

"The VABC's creation is a 68-page, cloth-bound production of the play featuring digital and traditional printing methods. No words appear except those that graced the original pages of the 1603 publication (alias Quarto 1 or Q1).

"Early scholars disdained this version as one of the 'stol’n and surreptitious copies, maimed and deformed by frauds and stealths of injurious impostors.' Today’s scholars are more inclined to regard Q1 as either an early draft of the play or a 'tourbook copy' edited for production by a small company of actors. In creating our own version of The Bad Quarto, we will be visually and textually exploring this controversial artifact."

Virginiabookarts.org blog: "When we hold a VABC collaborative project like The Bad Quatro in our hands, we see the product of many hands and many hours of creative labor. More than twenty VABC artists spent this spring and summer in meetings, studying the facsimiles of the Q1 text available online from the British Library to understand not just the variations of the text, but the eccentricity of the very copy we were looking at. Marginalia, notes, conventions of seventeenth century printing.

"We met with Washington & Lee professor Hank Dobin to talk about how such an early and variant copy of Hamlet might have come into existence. Usually, it’s a bibliographic convention to give some primacy to the first published edition. But that wasn’t the way it worked for the curious case of the bad quarto. This text likely spent a lot of time away from the Bard, perhaps as a traveling company’s version. Many believe it was reconstructed from memory and a few actors’ 'sides' and prefer Q2 or the 1623 First Folio.

"Then came the planning and design for an artist’s book. We made four printing teams that each took a number of signatures and began to work with the following constraints: the only words that could appear on any page had to be from the assigned page in Q1; they could be re-arranged, excerpted, or cut ; we limited the color pallete to red, black, white (or variations of those colors) and then a little silver for panache; facsimile versions of the page could appear (beautifully produced with a digital printer) but other design/traditional methods must appear in the spread."
$500 standard
$650 deluxe

F
By artists of the Virginia Arts of the Book Center
Charlottesville, Virginia: Virginia Arts of the Book Center, 2008. Edition of 38.

6.75 x 10"; 64 unnumbered pages. Various media including letterpress, block printing, and etching. Handbound artist’s book in purple cloth, three hand-sewn signatures. In illustrated dust jacket. Numbered.

A Virginia Arts of the Book Center collaborative bound-book project, drawing from the cultural legacy Frankenstein. The book features various VABC artists : Kristin Adolfson, Josef Beery, Bonnie Bernstein, Pierre Blondel, Patrick Costello, Dean Dass, Stacey Evans, Barbara Heritage, Angie Hogan, Sarah Knorr, Kevin McFadden, Lindsey Mears, Catherine Moore, Garrett Queen, Frank Riccio, Joan Schatzman, Jesse Wells. Binders: Addeane Caelleigh, Lindsey Mears, Stacey Evans.

Colophon: “Citations from editions of Mary Shelley’s ‘Frankenstein’, as well as the 1931 film with Boris Karloff. From the C.H.I. page: ‘When You Receive an Organ Transplant, Chi & Consciousness Come with It’ (MeditationExpert.com). From the M-E-R-A page: Sharon Begley, ‘Now That Chimeras Exist, What If Some Turn Out Too Human?’ May 6, 2005 ‘Wall Street Journal’; Leon R. Kass, ‘The Wisdom of Repugnance,’ ‘The Ethics of Human Cloning’.”

Dan Heuchert, UVA Frankenstein exhibition: “Shelley's novel only gradually became ubiquitous. Movies played a major part in making Frankenstein a household word. When the name is mentioned, most people think of Boris Karloff, with his bolted forehead and outstretched arms. He created the role in the 1931 Universal film directed by James Whale. … Dr. Frankenstein and his monster are often confused, fueled by the fact that Shelley never actually named her creation. She calls him ‘monster,’ ‘creature,’ "fiend,’ ‘daemon,’ ‘wretch,’ ‘devil,’ ‘being’ and ‘ogre.’ Most of us just call him ‘Frankenstein’."

Shelley’s “Frankenstein” has been thought of as the first science -fiction novel. The novel’s depictions of science, scientist and technology are as pertinent today as it was then. In “F” the artists use the Frankenstein character to express views about contemporary issues such as cloning. The monsters and fragments of “F” reflect how the Frankenstein character continues to shape public discourse about technology and society.
$350

Hesitant Ruin
By Members of the Virginia Center for the Book
Charlottesville: Virginia Center for the Book, 2008. Edition of 40.

12 x 11"; 22 leaves. Letterpress printed. Bound in paper wraps with stab binding. Signed and numbered by the artists on the colophon.

Virginia Center for the Book: "Hesitant Ruin, a collaborative bound book created by the artists of the Virginia Arts of the Book Center, Charlottesville, 2007. All images were collected on the theme of time, decay, or ruin. The title and direction were supplied by randomized pairings of adjectives and nouns. . . . Hesitant Ruin was selected and parameters for the collection were set. "
$300

Art of the Lie
By Virginia Center for the Book members
Charlottesville: Virginia Center for the Book, 2017. Edition of 10.

11.5 x 5.75 x 1.75" two sectioned box with attached lid. Paper title on lid exterior. 56 card deck "Pack of lies" in right section. 9 pamphlets, books, and foldouts. 7 x 5" each closed (varies). Each artist item numbered.

"Art of the Lie" features a collection of nine book artists’ contributions of varying editions on the theme of untruthfulness. The complete set features a “Pack of Lies” 56-card deck, in collector’s box. “Pack of Lies” was an edition of 65 card decks that included contributions from 25 participating artists in designated suits (stars=types of lies, arrows=Dantean circles, bangs=types of fallacies, question marks=historical) with nods to transformation, training, and flashcard decks.

Book artist individual contributions for "Art of the Lie" include:

Many Sides by Kristin Leigh Adolfson (edition 25)
Essay upon the Art of Political lying, excerpts from Jonathan Swift; by Bonnie Bernstein (edition 20)
Parts by Dean Dass (edition 10)
From The Passionate Pilgrim, William Shakespeare; by Richard Cappuccio (edition 20)
White Privilege Likes by Lyall Harris (edition 20)
Liar’s Log by Nancy Kober (edition 14)
Numbers Don’t Lie, by Kevin McFadden (edition 25)
Same Side by Garrett Queen (edition 25)
The Age of Euphemism, excerpts from Kevin Young’s Bunk; Kevin McFadden, et al (edition 25)

(SOLD/Out of Print)

Notions
By Members of the Virginia Center for the Book
Charlottesville: Virginia Center for the Book, 2014. Edition of 100.

Hand-crafted ephemera in a sewing box. Processes: Giclée, watercolor, embroidery, letterpress, quilting, digital print, offset print, photocopy, decoupage. Numbered on lid of sewing box.

Virginia Center for the Book website: "Imagine that a sewing box belonging to a young garment worker named Rosie, who perished in the New York City Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in 1911, has been passed on through four generations of women in her family. A century later it belongs to her great-grandniece, Katya, who designs low-cost clothing that is manufactured overseas for the U.S. retail market.

"In November 2012, flames raced through the Tazreen Fashions factory outside Dhaka, the capital city of Bangladesh, killing 112 workers under circumstances uncannily similar to the Triangle fire. The workers were sewing clothing for several global retailers, including Walmart.

"The Triangle and Tazreen fires are emblematic of the dangerous, inhumane working conditions and deprivations that many workers continue to endure in order to scrape together a meager living and support their families. They move us to look more carefully at lives that intersect with ours but have become almost invisible to us.

“The members of the Virginia Arts of the Book Center asked this question: What can the contents of a sewing box—a collection of 'vintage' notions used to stitch and mend, saved scraps, cached papers, and other seemingly arbitrary objects—reveal about the personal history of the young immigrant who first owned it, the social history of her time, and the lives of others who have added their own artifacts along the way?

"A family sewing box, passed on through four generations, reveals a story of factory girls, fatal fires, and the common threads that bind us all."

Postcard from Rosie’s fiancé. Artist: Yolanda Merrill. Antique postcard giclée printed on Arches watercolor paper, hand-tinted with watercolors, and letterpress printed on back.
Rosie’s ruined piece work. Artists: Lotta Helleberg and Dorothy Smith. White cotton shirtwaist collar, machine-stitched, with hand-embroidered inscription.
Rosie’s charm string and button jar. Artists: Janet Eden and Frank Riccio. Buttons strung and knotted onto a string, saved in a jam jar with original label art.
Smocking for Mrs. Vanderbilt. Artist: Barbara Payne. Cotton embroidery floss on muslin
Sewn in my own heart’s blood. Artist: Dorothy Smith. Letterpress printing on newsprint with hand-sewn embellishment.
Smoldering fire. Artists: Barbara Payne and Laura Sprung. Reprint of historic New York Times article accompanied by song lyrics typed on manual typewriter.
Rachel’s yarn card. Artist: Janet Eden. Letterpress printed card with vintage yarn.
Lue’s letter to Rachel. Artist: Rachel Singel. Original letter printed on letterpress, vintage photo enclosed.
Betsy McCall moves forward. Artists: Dorothy Smith and Cecilia Sorochin. Vintage Betsy McCall paper doll enclosed in a cardstock folder imprinted with an original story and art.
Mill migration postcards. Artists: Kristin Adolfson and Lotta Helleberg. Letterpress printed duotone images on Crane’s 90# Pearl White Wove and Rives Lightweight papers
Déjà vu: 9/11 and 1911. Artist: Michael Swanberg. Reprint of the a newsletter chronicling the experiences of former Peace Corps volunteers teaching in New York City public schools during 9/11
Something old, something new. Artist: Ceci Sorochin. Hand-quilted pieces of lace sewn onto a card; the original art and calligraphy were letterpress printed.
Tazreen redirect. Artists: Garrett Queen and Lana Lambert. Digital designs and original artwork offset printed and photocopied.
Tazreen button card. Artist: Angie Hogan. Letterpress button card with water color, Lennox and Lama Li Lokta paper.
Mourning our loss. Artist: Ceci Sorochin Recreated historic newspaper articles printed on hand-stained paper with decoupage roses and black lace embellishment.
"Plus ça change” mourning card. Artist: Donna Knoell. Offset printed.
Rosie’s needle book. Artist: Kevin McFadden. Letterpress needle book with tea-stains, hand sewing, and a hidden message.
Kate’s matchbox catch-all. Artists: Bonnie Bernstein and Yolanda Merrill. Letterpress printing on die-cut matchboxes.
Conscience pin cube. Artist: Bonnie Bernstein. Letterpress-printed labels on wrapped cardboard cube studded with ball-headed pins.
Red Threads care instructions. Artist: Bonnie Bernstein. Xerox color-printed on canvas and machine-stitched in red thread.
Old Wavy hang tag. Artist: Kristin Adolfson. Letterpress printed on a C&P Pilot on Crane’s 100% cotton paper.
Mayn Rue Platz/My resting place. Artists: Bonnie Bernstein, Stacey Evans, Nancy Kober. Letterpress printed cabinet card with photograph and music CD.
Lives beyond measure. Artist: Nancy Kober. A timeline of events in family history and labor history in the form of a measuring tape.
The sewing box. Artists: Bonnie Bernstein, Janet Eden, Lana Lambert, Yolanda Merrill, and Garrett Queen. Kraft papier mache box painted with red acrylic, wrapped with a giclée-printed band of advertising art, and decoupaged with sewing pattern tissue; original art on lid is letterpress printed.

(SOLD/Out of Print)

Pack of Lies
Exploring the History and Phenomenology of Untruths
By Members of the Virginia Center for the Book
Charlottesville: Virginia Center for the Book, 2017. Edition of 65.

3.5 x 5"; 56 cards (including 4 jokers, one of which is "No Trump.") Letterpress printed. Individual concepts, designs, and printing by individual artists from Virginia Arts of the Book Center. Housed in handmade letterpressed cardbox. Card back design by Lana Lambert. Numbered.

Virginia Center for the Book: "The 2017 VABC collaborative project, A Pack of Lies, is an exploration of the history and phenomenology of untruths. This 52-card playing deck – with four jokers tossed in -- was letterpress printed by 25 participating artists with special suits (stars, arrows, bangs, question marks). Explore a list of fabrication forms, historical hoaxes, infernal liars, and logical fallacies!"

A Pack of Lies: A Full Deck of Half-Truths: "A sign of our troubled times when the distinctions between fact and fabrication, reality and distortion, honesty and bunk seem sinisterly shuffled. We might as well then acquaint ourselves fully with the lie in its many forms, its argumentative acumen, is historical high tides, not to mention its infernal and eternal legends."

The suits : Stars - Types of Lies; Question Marks – Hoaxes; Bangs – Fallacies; and Arrows – Falsifiers.
(SOLD/Out of Print)