Handmade & Bound

The first annual Handmade & Bound book arts festival is just a few days away!  I've been looking forward to this event for months.  It was one of the first things about Nashville I found out about once we knew we'd be moving to town, and I sent in my vendor application before we'd even started packing to leave Virginia. 

I thrilled to be living in a city with a book arts community, and I can't wait to be a part of this event.  In addition to the various vendors selling handmade books and zines, there will be workshops and demos in bookmaking, papermaking, and printmaking, as well as a film screening, a gallery exhibit, live music and food trucks.  

Handmade & Bound Nashville

September 30 and October 1

Watkins College of Art, Design & Film

Friday, September 30

6:30 pm: Opening reception of "Encoded Structures: Interpreting the Story," a juried gallery show of artists' books and zines

8:00 pm: Free Screening of “$100 and a T-shirt," an award-winning documentary on the culture of zine making

Saturday, October 1

Vendors:

10:00 am – 5:00 pm: Vendor booths exhibiting and selling artists’ books, zines, small press publications, and other handmade bookish things.

Demonstrations:

10:00 am – 5:00 pm: Goldsmith Press Demonstration; print your own DIY bag

10:00 am – 11:00 am and 3:00 pm – 4:00 pm: Brown Dog Bindery Demonstration; Jennifer Knowles-McQuistion will demonstrate how wooden books are carved, burned, and bound

10:00 am – 5:00 pm: Gilded Leaf Bindery Demonstration; book restoration, fine bindings, blank journals, and gold tooling

10:00 am – 5:00 pm: Pamphlet Stitch Books for Kids with local printmaker and book artist Lesley Patterson-Marx

Workshops:

10:00 am to 11:00 am: Pixels, Print and Presence: How to Make the Most of Digital When It Comes to Print

This workshop is an introduction to web and digital assets for anyone from a DIY Zinester to Small Press publishers. 

10:00 am – 11:00 am: Findings & Bindings 

Use a discarded book, found papers both old and new, and a simple no-sew binding technique to create a one-of-a-kind handmade journal to house your creative notions.

11:00 am – 12:00pm: Zines with Kids & Teens

11:00 am – 12:00pm: Storytime for Children

Children can make paper finger puppets of the characters to take home.

12:30 pm – 1:30 pm: Miniature Accordion Popup Books

Artist Jennifer Knowles-McQuistion will lead participants through making a miniature hardback accordion book with pages that pop up, spill out, and burst from the folds. 

12:30 pm – 1:30 pm: Toward A Self-Sufficient, Long-Lived Zine

Examine the nuts and bolts of what it takes to keep a serial zine alive and vital. 

1:30 pm – 2:30 pm: Felt Sketchbook

Participants will design their book covers using felt and other materials, such as decorative papers, threads, and beads. Then they will assemble their sketchbooks, binding the books using posts and screws.

2:00 pm – 3:00 pm: The Art of Saying Something Worth Saving

Discussion will cover the pressure language undergoes when we seek to present it in a book arts project, and how words respond and rise to that challenge or collapse under the weight of that attention, and how we recognize it. 

3:00 pm – 4:00 pm: Quadraflip or infinity card

Turning the pages of this structure changes their orientation and reveals hidden pages before taking you back to the beginning. 

3:30 pm – 4:30 pm: Open Mic Zine Readings

All day: Papermaking 

Book artist and instructor Annie Herlocker will guide you through pulling your own sheet of paper from pre-pulped materials.