Steve Woodall to speak at Friends of Library dinner September 16

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Kellie Willis, Henry Madden Library
Phone: (559) 278-5790

Steve Woodall to speak at Friends of Library dinner September 16

Steve Woodall, Artistic Director of the San Francisco Center for the Book, will be the featured speaker at the Sept. 16, 2005, Friends of the Madden Library Annual Dinner program. Woodall’s presentation, “The Vitality of the Hand-Made Book in the Age of the Computer,” will provide a broad overview of activity in the book arts today – along with a brief look at the history of the expressive book form in California over the past hundred years.

In the digital age, there are more people making books by hand than ever before. These books fall into a wide range of categories, from traditional fine-press books, to deluxe livres d’ artiste, to newer expressive forms which may not resemble traditional books at all. It is now a widely-held belief in the book arts community that the ubiquity of the computer has placed a higher value on traditional hand work, and this opinion is certainly borne out by the popularity of programs at the San Francisco Center for the Book and elsewhere – yet the computer has also opened up new possibilities for the book form, well worth exploring.

Woodall has been with the San Francisco Center for the Book since its founding in 1996. In the course of its short history, SFCB has become one of the most active book arts organizations in the United States, with well over 300 classes and public programs annually. In 2000, as an artist in residence at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center, Woodall helped develop a digital book arts studio, part of the research project and exhibition XFR: Experiments in the Future of Reading. His article on the journals of Los Angeles designer Larry Vigon appeared last year in Graphis magazine.

Friday, Sept. 16, 2005
Fresno State’s Smittcamp Alumni House
6:00 – 6:30 p.m. Reception with no host bar
6:30 – 7:30 p.m. Dinner
7:30 – 9:00 p.m. Program
Reservations are required by Sept. 12. Call 278-5790.

The annual dinner is $50 for members and $55 for non-members. All meetings of the Friends of the Madden Library are accessible to the physically handicapped. A sign language interpreter will be provided upon advance request.

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