The Midwest Guild of Book Workers traveling exhibit Plainly Spoken will be on display at the University of Michigan Library in Ann Arbor, Michigan until April 10th. If you haven’t had a chance to see the show, now is the time! After closing in Ann Arbor, the show will travel to its third location at the Newberry library in Chicago. Make the trip to see these wonderful books!
In 1998, Julia Miller began the monumental task of sifting through notes and observations made during her 30 year career as an archivist and book conservator. After 8 years of additional research, she began to write. The publication that resulted, Books Will Speak Plain, (The Legacy Press 2010) is 500-page handbook aimed at conservators, collectors, librarians, and book lovers, for the identification and description of book structures and styles.
The Midwest Chapter of the Guild of Book Workers is delighted to showcase Miller’s book in this theme-based exhibit. Bookbinders from across the country acquired the text in folded sheets and, months later, presented them to a jury of three as a completed book. This exhibit includes a range of binding ideas: models that replicate books from a historical period; cut-aways that visually reveal their hidden structure; design bindings that interpret a concept from the text; and artists’ bindings that play with structures and materials to create something new.
EXHIBIT TIMELINE
| January 31, 2014 – April 10, 2014 | University of Michigan Library, Ann Arbor, MI |
| April 22, 2014 – July 8, 2014 | Newberry Library, Chicago, IL |
| August 14, 2014 – November 30 2014 | University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA |
| February 6, 2015– April 26, 2015 | Minnesota Center for Book Arts, Minneapolis, MN |
ONLINE CATALOG
Please enjoy the wonderful ONLINE CATALOG put together by our webmaster Eric Alstrom. Under “Exhibitors” you will find beautiful photographs and descriptions of each binding.