May 23 and 30, and June 6, 13, 20 and 27 – plus one Saturday half day TBA and one additional evening meeting TBA.
Wednesday evenings, 6:00-8:30

Instructor: Mary Alice Ramsey and Gwen Diehn
Cost: $340 (includes a $10 material fee)

Description: If you are a sketcher or a journal keeper who has wrestled with trying to quickly sketch the sense of a place or capture the gestures of moving figures, or render architectural forms, this class should fill the bill for you. You’ll learn basic drawing techniques that will equip you to draw quickly and effectively while in the midst of action.

The class will be taught by two experienced college-level drawing teachers. It will meet in the studio at BookWorks for most class periods and in the field when appropriate. The culminating session (date TBA) will be a half day sketching adventure drawing landscapes outdoors.

Mary Alice Ramsey is a native of Western North Carolina and is a mixed media artist, bookmaker, visual journalist, illustrator, writer and performance poet.  She is a founder and co-owner of Sassafrass Studio at Riverview Station in the River Arts District of Asheville, North Carolina.  She is an instructor of art who has exhibited paintings regionally, has illustrated seven books, and is a published writer and poet.  She completed undergraduate work at UNC Asheville and graduate work at Western Carolina University with dual majors in Art and Education.  She has taught at Asheville Buncombe Technical Institute, Mars Hill College, UNC Asheville and has recently retired from teaching Art at a Buncombe County High School. She is a National Board Certified Teacher of Art for Adolescents and Adults who is passionate about images and words.

Mary Alice’s personal artistic expressions are frequently representational and often include images of people.  She frequently incorporates writing into her work and keeps several sketchbooks and visual journals.  She is influenced greatly by family, friends and by these Appalachian Mountains which are her home.  She lives in Fairview, North Carolina with her husband, Terry, and has four adult children and six grandchildren.  She is an avid gardener and an award winning cook.

For more information on Mary Alice visit her websites:

http://www.maryaliceramsey.com
http://www.sassafrassstudio.net

Click to see a list of workshops Mary Alice is teaching.

Waterlily, Shawn Sheehy

Asheville BookWorks is seeking work for an exhibition of Miniature Books featuring Pop-Up Elements at Asheville BookWorks, July 3 – Sept. 12, 2012.

The exhibit will correspond with 2012 Miniature Book Society (MBS) Conclave in Asheville and the 2012 MBS Traveling Exhibition displayed in the BookWorks Gallery.

In addition, Shawn Sheehy is teaching a class called Miniature Pop-Ups for Miniature Books, August 23 and 24, 2012.

Entry Requirements:

Marvelous miniature movables that surprise, delight, mystify or intrigue. Miniature books, very small books, sized no larger than 3-inches in height, width or thickness featuring three-dimensional or movable elements including pop-ups, transformations, tunnel books, volvelles, flaps, pull-tabs, pop-outs, pull-downs and more...

Entry Form - Mini-Pops

"You Are Here" Brad Vetter

Beyond Language will be on display through April 30, 2012. Click on title of the show at the beginning of this post to view on-line.

Juror’s Statement by Bryan Baker

“Beyond Language showcases daring, playful, and inventive approaches of handling typography and letter forms.  A viewer will find themselves being pulled toward and then away from brief understandings that are spurred, sparked, and triggered by the quick relay the mind makes upon recognition of these very special shapes.   It is only natural that after all of these years the art of printmaking still carries the torch for it’s greatest partner and eternal love – Letters. A letter can, with ease, deliver to us striking form, content, and even context; usually these fine things are strung tightly together with an understanding and usage of language. Within the bounds of art and design this need not be the only use for these uniquely versatile characters in the world of mark making. This is an exhibition of printed works that

"Luna" by Laura Ladendorf

find themselves made using these building blocks of communication, all of them structured deliberately not to be read as text, but rather understood as compositions.   A few pieces in the show take a path toward literally making illustrations with letters that have been whimsically liberated from their usual work of making words,  while other works arrive to use more abstactly and with a strange beauty that is ironically bound to them by their illegibility.  Many carry with them a physicality that drives us to a meaning though an understanding their rhythm, or  from speculations about their manner/reason of accretion.  Please enjoy this collection of prints and take the time to ponder what the artist shown here are straying from and moving towards.”

August 6 & 7, 2012
Monday and Tuesday, 10-4 pm

Instructor: Kseniya Thomas
Cost: $237 (includes materials fee)

Description: Platens once ruled the letterpress world, and they may yet again as Vandercooks become more scarce and sought-after. Platens, in all their hundreds of varieties, are simple and efficient machines capable of tight registration, 1000 impressions an hour, and fine printing as well as just-fine printing. Come learn their ins and outs with decade-long-platen-press lover Kseniya Thomas, owner of Thomas-Printers and co-director of Ladies of Letterpress. In this two-day course, we’ll cover maintenance, safety, working with photopolymer plates and type, makeready, inking, complex registration, multi-color work, and die-cutting; there will be ample demonstration time as well as practice time. We’ll look at many letterpress examples, troubleshoot, share resources, and will learn some tricks of the trade as well.