Thursday, April 05, 2012

The beauty of the irregular, the bliss of slowing down

Published in Southwest Michigan's Second Wave
Thursday, April 5, 2012

The Kalamazoo Books Center is about paper making, printmaking, letterpress, creative writing, and bookbinding, but it's much more. Zinta Aistars talks with director Jeff Abshear about preserving a technology that changed the world.
 
Jeff Abshear at KBAC (Photo by Erik Holladay)

Others grow flowers and vegetables in their gardens. Jeff Abshear went into his garden to grow books. It turned out to be a very good year to grow books.

"I was unemployed in 2005," says Abshear. "I called my friends to come to my garden to brainstorm."

Ideas filled the air, and one idea in particular took seed. Abshear was an artist with a dream, and his friends, a group of artists and writers, helped him grow his idea of putting to use vintage printmaking equipment he’d found. One friend, Paul Alvin Robbert, became a founding member alongside Abshear in the development of the Kalamazoo Book Arts Center.

Today, Kalamazoo Book Arts Center (KBAC) is a local treasure found at the Park Trades Center, Suite 103A, 326 West Kalamazoo Ave.--one that is fast building a national, even international reputation for printmaking, paper making, letterpress, book binding and creative writing.

KBAC opens its doors to...

READ THE FULL ARTICLE at Southwest Michigan's Second Wave.

No comments:

Post a Comment