Welcome House at the Painted Bride

Greetings from the Welcome House is on view at the Painted Bride, featuring video documentation of the October Welcome House event in Love Park. This includes documentation of Guild members Mary Tasillo and Michelle Wilson's Book Bombs Shelter, a day of interactive papermaking and pulp printing.

Book Bombs is much obliged to Ricardo Rivera for capturing this day of public paper art so beautifully. Please come to the opening Friday, November 6, 5-7, to check it out, or stop by during gallery hours in November and December. The Welcome House structure itself will be on view in the exhibition Shelter, also on view through the end of the year at the Painted Bride.

Book Bombs Project

Guild Members Mary Tasillo and Michelle Wilson invite you to this public hand paper art project.

BOOK BOMBS SHELTER PART OF THE WELCOME HOUSE PROJECT October 9, 2009 10am-6pm Press Release

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Philadelphia, PA - Sept. 22, 2009 - Philadelphia's First Person Arts Festival is proud to host BOOK BOMBS as part of the Welcome House Project. BOOK BOMBS is a collaboration between artists Mary Tasillo and Michelle Wilson. The Welcome House is a 10 foot by 10 foot transparent cube installed in Philadelphia's own Love Park, featuring artist projects by day and video of the day's activities by night. On October 9, 2009, 10am-6pm, as part of their day-long residency, BOOK BOMBS will utilize handmade paper and community participation to create a site-specific one-night installation called Book Bombs Shelter. This event is free and open to the public. BOOK BOMBS is a collaborative, site-based zine project examining Philadelphia parks and benches as social spaces, shelters and art galleries, and will culminate next year as a component of PHILAGRAFIKA 2010. For Book Bombs Shelter, Tasillo and Wilson invite the population of Love Park, including office workers, skateboarders, protesters, passers-by, and the homeless, to create works in handmade paper about Love Park. The resulting papers will be attached while still wet to the interior of the Welcome House, creating an evolving visual conversation about the nature of urban public space in general and Love Park in particular. In addition, the pieces will be documented on the project blog and used as material for the upcoming zine publication about shelter, homelessness, and urban space during PHILAGRAFIKA 2010. The Welcome House is a project conceived and curated by artist Marianne Bernstein and presented by First Person Arts in collaboration with InLiquid.com. Designed to re-imagine art spaces, art practice, and community engagement, artists were invited to propose one-day residencies using the space as a nexus for public interaction. All daytime events will be filmed by klip collective videographer Ricardo Rivera and projected onto the cube at night for public viewing. Following the project will be an exhibition of the works created in the Welcome House at the Painted Bride Art Center, located at 230 Vine Street in Philadelphia, in November 2009. The exhibition will remain on display during the First Person Arts Festival and through the end of 2009. SUGGESTED LISTING October 9, 2009, 10am-6pm: Book Bombs Shelter, a collaborative public art project by Mary Tasillo and Michelle Wilson, part of the Welcome House Project. Love Park, 15th and JFK Boulevard, Philadelphia, PA. Free and open to the public. ABOUT THE ARTISTS Mary Tasillo is a book, print, text, and paper artist based in Philadelphia, PA. She is also a teacher, writer, and independent scholar. She balances limited edition work with the democratic multiple to ensure the broadest possible audience. Mary holds an MFA in Book Arts/Printmaking from The University of the Arts, Philadelphia, PA. Michelle Wilson is an interdisciplinary artist whose work focuses on social and environmental issues. Through the use of intersecting narratives, she creates situations that transform history into invented mythology, and asks viewers to consider the impact of their choices upon a larger world.

Tidewater Summer Classes

TIDEWATER PAPERMAKING STUDIO in Del Haven, NJ is offering the following papermaking classes this summer at the south New Jersey shore. Take a 1 day class, or stay the weekend. Papermaking studio rental with instruction/consultation is also available.

July 25 – Cast Paper Vessels
Create personal and unique “story vessels” by using hand-cast paper pulp and including your own memorabilia. Using existing plastic bowls to act as moulds, learn to embed flat inclusions as you form colorful paper vessels, which can commemorate some special occasion or simply be handsome receptacles for your special collections of shells, dried plant materials or
other knick-knacks. No experience necessary for this meditative process.

Price: $85 per person (includes materials) 10am – 4pm

August 1 – Japanese Papermaking

Japanese paper, or washi is known for its transparency, strength and beauty. In this workshop, lecture time will encompass the history and traditional methods of preparing the inner bark fibers that make these special papers of great character. Learn how to cook, clean and pound the fiber and prepare vats to make paper from kozo, fiber from the paper mulberry tree. Practice
traditional sheet formation as well as a few decorative techniques. Bring delicate 2D items to include in your paper if you wish to further personalize your creations. Beginning and advanced papermaking students are welcome.

Price: $90 per person (includes materials) 10am – 4pm


Any Day/s between August 15 – 25 – Studio Concentration Days

Rather than offering the week long Papermaking Intensive in August, I've decided to have Tidewater Studio available for concentrated one or two day sessions in paper areas of your choosing. Would you like a day to play in vats of abaca, rag, plant fibers, with veil pulp for stenciling? Pulp painting? Pouring big sheets? More Japanese papermaking? You name it....

Available dates are August 15th through 25th, if this is of interest to
anyone e-mail me and we can work out details.

September 13th – A Day at the Vats

Spend this late summer day splashing in vats filled with beautiful fibers, making your stash of enticing papers to use for printmaking, collage, stationery or whatever throughout the coming seasons. Denim and other cotton rag, abaca, flax and other unique pulps will be available. This is a day for those who have already taken a class and want more paper!!!

Price: $90 per person (includes materials) 10am – 4pm

For Registration info and & Tidewater Cottage rates contact Winnie, Winnie.r@verizon.net

Hybrid Book Fair

This June, The Master of Fine Arts Program in Book Arts and Printmaking will celebrate its twentieth anniversary. In recognition of this achievement, the program will be hosting THE HYBRID BOOK FAIR. Free and open to the public, this international fair will run from 1-6:00 PM on Friday, June 5, and Saturday, June 6 and will feature over 100 artists, toolmakers, and vendors displaying artist’s books, prints, and more for sale. This event highlights the wide range of work being produced in the field today, from both emerging and master artists, alongside exhibition and performance events. The fair will take over two floors of the Gershman Y Building, located at 401 South Broad Street, on Philadelphia’s Avenue of the Arts.

Vendors include Guild members Michelle Wilson and Mary Tasillo, as well as local papermaker Alisa Fox and the Burlington, VT-based Combat Paper Project.

All forms of the art of the book, from the traditionally hand printed and bound, to zines, sculptural books, and innovative cross-disciplinary interpretations of the book will be on display. In the age of Amazon Kindles and Google libraries, this art form is highly collectible and certain to grow in value. Writers, readers, collectors, booklovers, and those interested in learning more about book art are all welcome to attend. For details, visit www.hybridbook.org.

Pulp Function at the Michener

Several Guild members have work in the exhibition Pulp Function, currently on view at the James A. Michener Art Museum in Doylestown, PA. The work of Carol Cole, Arlene Gitomer, Betsy Miraglia, and Erin Tohill Robin is featured among over 70 works of contemporary handmade paper. The exhibit was organized by the Fuller Craft Museum. The Michener show also features a lecture and demonstration by Guild member Caren Friedman on June 2. For more information, visit www.michenermuseum.org/exhibits/pulp.php