Skip to main content

Mid-Career Award

This new award is generously funded through a grant from the Maxwell/Hanrahan Foundation. The award will be given to two Guild of Book Workers members each year for at least the next three years.  The award funding will allow the recipient to set aside time for study, reflection, opportunities, new projects, experimentation, and exploration, as well as attend the Guild’s annual Standards of Excellence Seminar. Awards are subject to state and federal tax guidelines. 

 

The award includes registration and hotel at the Standards of Excellence Seminar (up to 4 nights), and a $5,000 unrestricted cash award to put toward your work (can be used for materials, travel, studio rent, website updating, conferences, workshops, anything to help your pursuit of the book arts). The GBW expects that the recipients will, at minimum, write something for the newsletter about how the grant money was used to help further their career.

Mid-Career Award Recipients

Brien Beidler

Melanie Mowinski

beilder
melanie

 

Jurors

Kathy Abbott 

kathyabbott

Kathy Abbott served a four-year apprenticeship in bookbinding in the early 1990’s and then gained a Higher National Diploma from the London College of Printing, London (UK) followed by a BA (Hons) degree in Bookbinding from Roehampton University, Surrey (UK). She taught advanced level Fine Binding at the City Lit, London for 17 years and conducts many workshops across the UK and overseas.  She is a founder member of Tomorrow's Past, an international bookbinding collective and is the author of Bookbinding: A step-by-step guide, published by the Crowood Press in 2010.

Website: kathyabbott.biz

Li Jiang 

liJiang

Li Jiang is a letterpress printer, graphic designer, bookbinder and print maker. Originally from Chengdu, China, Li has always been artistic and hands-on. After receiving a BA in Graphic Design she found her way to letterpress printing and continues to gain as much arcane knowledge as possible about the craft from Bay Area printing masters. She has been practicing letterpress printing for nearly 20 years and is the proprietor of Lemoncheese Press in Berkeley, California. Her work can be found on the Web and Instagram under [lemoncheese.press]

In addition to working with individual clients, Li is also a member of many Bay Area bibliophilic and printing organizations such as the Colophon Club, Roxburghe Club of San Francisco, Moxon Chappel, and is currently the Board Secretary at the Book Club of California. Li has lead iron handpress demonstrations and lectures at SF Center for the Book, SF Public Library, USF Gleeson Library, and the Book Club of California.

In her most recent publication, 36 Views of the Golden Gate Bridge, Li uses a technique she has developed for creating polymer printing plates without the use of a computer. Images are created by directly scratching into the film which is used to create the polymer plates for letterpress printing, creating an unique look that is a marriage of color wood engraving and etching. The multi-colored prints range from five colors to as many as eleven colors. This technique requires extremely tight registration, which is a skill Li has been honing for many years. The book has been collected by Bay Area institutions and collectors alike. 

Website: Lemoncheese.press

Molly Schwartzburg 

 

melanie

Molly Schwartzburg is Philip Hofer Curator of Printing and Graphic Arts at Houghton Library.  She was previously Curator of special collections at the University of Virginia Library and Cline Curator at the Harry Ransom Center. Recent exhibitions include "At the Limits of the Book: Bindings in the Houghton Library Collections" and "The Bow and Arrow Press at 45.'

Website: mollyschwartzburg.com
 

 

Timeline:

  • Applications accepted: April 1-April 30.
  • Jurors review applications and select winners: May 1-May 31.
  • All applicants notified via email by June 15.

Eligibility Requirements:

  • This program is open to any Guild of Book Workers member in good standing. 
  • You must have or maintain GBW membership for at least one year prior to application. 
  • You have been in the field for at least seven years.
  • You have a body of work that demonstrates a sustained level of accomplishment, commitment, and excellence in the field of book arts.
  • Applicants may only receive one GBW award per year.
  • Applicants must have a US tax ID and will need to submit a W-9 if selected

Jury Panel: 

A three-member panel consisting of experienced and well-respected arts professionals will select the GBW Mid-Career Award recipients. All panelists are from outside the Guild of Book Workers. Panelists, insofar as possible, will represent a diversity of ages, ethnicity, gender, and geography. The panelists remain anonymous during the selection process. The names of the panelists will be revealed once the grant recipients are notified.