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tance, Marsh quickly became an integral part of the WGC staff.
While there, she also produced her own work, including a series of
photo almanacs, loose sheets of images grouped in manila enve-lopes
that Marsh saw as a record of the previous year. Marsh re-ferred
to these suites of prints as books, and while they were not
bound in traditional form, the suites
fit neatly into the category of concep-tual
photo work prevalent at the
time. Marsh sold the collected prints
through the catalogues printed on
her offset press and issued by the
WGC. These informal catalogues,
Women and the Printing Arts (each
artist/printer was represented by a
separate 3x5” double-sided card, the
cards held together with a metal
ring) were the primary means of dis-tribution
for the books and ephem-era
being produced by the women at
the Woman’s Building as well as by
their sister printer/publishers across
the country.
The Alliance for Contemporary Book Arts
A new LA organization, The Alliance for Contemporary Book Arts,
opened its (metaphorical) doors in 1988. The organization, whose
motto was Discovering and releasing the Archimagical powers of words,
issued its new periodical, AbraCadaBrA, on April 1st. The opening
editorial, signed by Susan King and Jaime Robles, began,
Like the States or California, Los Angeles is big: big in area and in num-ber
of people. The small regions and communities that make up L.A. are
individual in their concerns and characters, but relatively inaccessible to
one another. Diversity and isolation: these positive and negative opposites
define our everyday lives. . . .What, then, as book artists in L.A. can we do
to break through our isolation and share
one another’s diversity?33
King and Robles (a temporary
émigré from the Bay Area who
moved to LA to manage production
at the artist Sam Francis’s Lapis
Press) expressed the hope that the
newsletter would help to bring the
disparate LA book community to-gether.
AbraCadaBrA, a more stylish34
and compendious version of Umbrella
(which was still going strong), listed
relevant exhibitions and recent publi-cations
that might be of interest to its
members. A column, “Practical
Polly’s Printer’s Tips”, came and went
with various issues; other how-to articles were included in later is-sues.
If the goal of ACBA was to highlight the diversity of book
people in LA, the list of founding members was a solid reflection
of that goal. The names were drawn from a broad background of
traditional fine press printers (Ward Ritchie, one of the doyens of
LA fine printing; Gerald Lange); maverick bookmakers whose
work at times resembled the book world’s version of outsider art
(Joe D’Ambrosio; Gloria Stuart, the actor who took up printing
20
Object Description
Description
| Title | Page 21 |
| Full Text of PDF | tance, Marsh quickly became an integral part of the WGC staff. While there, she also produced her own work, including a series of photo almanacs, loose sheets of images grouped in manila enve-lopes that Marsh saw as a record of the previous year. Marsh re-ferred to these suites of prints as books, and while they were not bound in traditional form, the suites fit neatly into the category of concep-tual photo work prevalent at the time. Marsh sold the collected prints through the catalogues printed on her offset press and issued by the WGC. These informal catalogues, Women and the Printing Arts (each artist/printer was represented by a separate 3x5” double-sided card, the cards held together with a metal ring) were the primary means of dis-tribution for the books and ephem-era being produced by the women at the Woman’s Building as well as by their sister printer/publishers across the country. The Alliance for Contemporary Book Arts A new LA organization, The Alliance for Contemporary Book Arts, opened its (metaphorical) doors in 1988. The organization, whose motto was Discovering and releasing the Archimagical powers of words, issued its new periodical, AbraCadaBrA, on April 1st. The opening editorial, signed by Susan King and Jaime Robles, began, Like the States or California, Los Angeles is big: big in area and in num-ber of people. The small regions and communities that make up L.A. are individual in their concerns and characters, but relatively inaccessible to one another. Diversity and isolation: these positive and negative opposites define our everyday lives. . . .What, then, as book artists in L.A. can we do to break through our isolation and share one another’s diversity?33 King and Robles (a temporary émigré from the Bay Area who moved to LA to manage production at the artist Sam Francis’s Lapis Press) expressed the hope that the newsletter would help to bring the disparate LA book community to-gether. AbraCadaBrA, a more stylish34 and compendious version of Umbrella (which was still going strong), listed relevant exhibitions and recent publi-cations that might be of interest to its members. A column, “Practical Polly’s Printer’s Tips”, came and went with various issues; other how-to articles were included in later is-sues. If the goal of ACBA was to highlight the diversity of book people in LA, the list of founding members was a solid reflection of that goal. The names were drawn from a broad background of traditional fine press printers (Ward Ritchie, one of the doyens of LA fine printing; Gerald Lange); maverick bookmakers whose work at times resembled the book world’s version of outsider art (Joe D’Ambrosio; Gloria Stuart, the actor who took up printing 20 |
