NEWPORT PAPER & BOOK ARTS FESTIVAL

The 2023 Newport Paper & Book Arts Festival (NPBAF) was held April 13-15 in Newport, Oregon. Of the almost 100 attendees, 21 were members of NORBAG. We were lucky to experience beautiful sunny (but still chilly) weather for all three days. Seven instructors taught 11 different classes that included book and box making, paper embellishment & marbling, animated pop-ups, and using different plant matter for inks and dyes. The Instructor's Exhibition and talks by some of the instructors were very inspiring. It's not too early to start thinking about next years festival which will take place over three days between April 11-14, 2024. For more information contact Sara at ssiggelkow@coastarts.org.

Here are some photographs from the festival. The first group of photos are from the Instructor's Exhibition at the Visual Arts Center.

Margo Klass - Solstice Moon, Unfolding Box Book

Connie Stricks - Birch Journal

Connie Stricks 

Randi Parkhurst - Rainbow Boxes

Moe Snyder - Three Tiers

Moe Snyder - Picture This

Some of the instructors and local artists shared their work at one of the evening events.

Shawn Sheehy

Shawn taught the animated pop-up classes

One page from Shawn's Fresh Cut Xmas book

The Popbox Cabinet

Cheri Aldrich is a NORBAG member from Newport who also had an exhibit at the Visual Arts Center during the festival.

Cheri described some of her pieces
 in her - It's Just My Nature exhibit

Another view of Cheri's wonderful creations

The following photographs are from one of the classes and also include some of the items made by class participants.

Busy making pop-ups

Shawn Sheehy's Pop-up class

Bonnie Julien took both of Shawn's classes

Three days of classes = two books of pop-ups

Dolores Guffey's beautiful dragonfly display box 
made in Margo Klass' workshop.

NPBAF

The Newport Paper and Book Art Festival (NPBAF) celebrated its 25^th anniversary (a year late) in April. It was very well attended by 18 NORBAG members, including four who were also instructors (Donna Gephart, Dolores Guffey, Margo Klass and Sandy Vrem). Every one of the 19 classes offered had at least one NORBAG member in attendance. To view a short video showing scenes from the festival through the years, visit:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PxLCKlFIZyY.

There was a wonderful art exhibit at the Visual Arts Center that featured work by many current and former festival attendees. Works by several NORBAG members were included. A 50-minute video tour of the exhibit, hosted by Cheri Aldrich and Sandy Williams, is worth seeing.

https://youtu.be/kC7rSZnkRFE. This video will be available until the end of May. 

 

Below are some of the books made by NORBAG members.

Cheri Aldrich's Panorama Book taught by Connie Stricks

Cheri Aldrich's collage from Arlene Warner's class

Cheri Aldrich's Pocket book taught by Connie Stricks

Bosha Struve made several items in
 Sandy Vrem's Colorful Surface Design class

Tags by Bosha Struve

Carolyn Jones took Wendy Schwartz's Gel Plate class

Carolyn also took Iris Daire's class on Indigo Dyeing

Edge Gerring took Pietro Accardi's Zoom class on
 Articulated Bindings

Another view of Edge's book that used Pietro's marbled paper

 

Michele Kamprath's Indigo Dyed pieces from Iris Daire's class

More of Michele Kamprath's Indigo Dyed pieces

Book covers from Margo Klass's class on
 Stitching Patterns & Textures

Michele Kamprath's cover from Margo's class

A view of the inside of Michele's book

Dolores Guffey's book from Margo's class

Dolores working on her stitching

Here is an example of the tiny stitching on someone's book

Top book is by Michele Kamprath
Bottom book by Jean Wyatt

Top book by Sandy Vrem

Jean Wyatt's box from Moe Snyder's class, Five Sides To Every Story

Jean's beautiful box closed.

Tired, but happy group at the end of a busy day of book art.
Cheri Aldrich, Jackie Gardner, Dolores Guffey & Sandy Vrem

SHOW & TELL RECAP & NPBAF REFLECTIONS

Update: This short article was inadvertently left out of this blog article so the editor apologizes and adds it now...better late than never! There are some great tips about photographing your work. 

How to Photograph Your Artwork at Home or Tips for Photographing Your Artwork. Textile artist April Sproule writes, “I did the video initially so people wouldn't be intimidated about photographing their work to submit for online entries or exhibitions. It is aimed at amateur photographers who might not have lots of fancy equipment or software. The video is available on my new YouTube channel, so if you want, please ‘like’ the video and perhaps subscribe to my channel. Go to tinyurl.com/4swt3p2k Thank you! April Sproule”

The May NORBAG workshop was a wonderful introduction to Mary Elizabeth Nelson's collection of artists' books. We also received some great tips on how she photographs her books. We would like to thank her very much for sharing her books and workspace with us. If you missed this event and would like to view the recording, contact Dolores Guffey.

Our Tech Coordinator, Bobbie Hayes, sent in the following information about our Zoom recordings. "Zoom has a maximum storage capacity for our account. Since our Zoom workshop recordings are of varying sizes, we cannot always save the recordings for an entire month when we exceed the storage limit. We are notified on the Wednesday after the meeting if we exceeded the limit and must delete the recording the next morning.

We have already adjusted the recording to make them as short as is reasonable but cannot tell in advance how large the recording will be. If you want to see the recording, send an email to Dolores BEFORE the meeting day. She will send the link as soon as it is available and let you know if the time for viewing is limited."

The second part of our Zoom meeting was to share the May exchange books. It was a very inspiring group of books made for the theme "circles". Sandy Vrem shared her book that she made using some "experimental" (paper towels!) paper that was colored during an afterhours play-time during the 2011 Newport Paper and Book Arts Festival (NPBAF) in Newport, Oregon. Dolores Guffey brought the supplies so that we could color the paper towels with various inks for a different kind of texture effect. It's amazing that Sandy still had some of these experimental papers to use for a current exchange book. It just proves that "real" book artists save EVERY scrap that might work in a future book! Here are some photos of that 2011 experiment.

Sandy applying ink with an eye dropper.

Beth takes her turn.

Our display table in 2011 showing all of the projects

from our various workshops and experiments. 

And here are photos of the book Sandy made for the May exchange using pieces from that ink on paper towels experiment.

Sandy's Circle book using the paper towel circles.

Back side of the book.

Sadly, the 2020 NPBAF was cancelled, but this year it will return in virtual form September 17-19. There will be different workshop formats that will be recorded with access available until December 1. While we will certainly miss the in-person sessions and the camaraderie that occurs when like-minded people share time in workshops during the day and then create impromptu art projects in the evening, it should still be an informative and worthwhile event. Registration for the 2021 festival opens the first week of July with full details of costs and workshops offered available at that time. To receive this information, be sure to contact ssiggelkow@coastarts.org to get on the mailing list.

Here are some photos of Newport and past festival events and projects to whet your interest for this year's event.

The yellow building facing Nye Beach was our main

meeting place. The white building beyond it is where

many of us stayed and where the paper towel project

took place.

Nye Beach mural.

Woven spine binding taught by Margo Klass in 2018.

Another great class by Margo (standing on right) 2016.

Another "afterhours" project.

Various books made during the 2013 event.