home | about | services | exhibitions | publications | volunteer | members

New etc. is here!
June/July issue of the etc. downloadable (PDF) for PCBA members. Want to join so you can get the newsletter? Learn more >

Join Today!
Membership is open to anyone interested in the book arts: $40/year standard subscription, $30 student/senior, $50 institutional/overseas, $100 sustaining. Learn more >


BookWorks 2008
July 1 through September 26, 2008

Moving Parts Press: CosmogenieOn Tuesday, July 1, BookWorks 2008 opens with a lively public reception in the Skylight Gallery of the Downtown San Francisco Public Library. Join us at the opening reception from 6:30–8:00 p.m. in the 6th floor Skylight Gallery. BookWorks 2008 – the 14th in a series of exhibitions with works by members of the Pacific Center for the Book Arts – will be on view through September 26, 2008. During the opening reception, the Steven P. Corey Award for Best Emerging Book Artist and the Alastair Johnston Award for Fine Printing will be presented for two outstanding pieces in the exhibit. Artists with work in the exhibition will speak about their works in the 6th floor exhibition gallery from 1-3 p.m. on Saturday, August 16 and Saturday, September 13.

“What is book arts?” and “What is a book?” Book arts is the practice of those skills necessary to create a book and its component parts, including the actualization of content, whether it be text or image. This includes paper-making, calligraphy, typography, bookbinding, setting metal type by hand, and various printmaking techniques, as well as examples of marbled paper, photography, xerography, handmade paper, digital typography, various illustration techniques, xylography, bindings made of many different materials, and much more.

To the question, “What is a book?”, the answers will be as numerous and as varied as those making them and those reading or viewing them. Ordinarily, one thinks of a book as a gathering of pages bound between two covers. But to others, a book can take many forms and become a work of art, and the pieces in this show represent a wide range of responses to this question. What you see here may surprise you and even challenge your definition of what constitutes a book. Traditional books, such as finely-printed books of poetry and other literature and books beautifully hand-bound in various materials, will of course be offered, and along with these will be innovative, and often whimsical, avant-garde artists’ books.