The Western New York Book Arts Center is the home of the not-for-profit organization: The Western New York Book Arts Collaborative (WNYBAC), focusing on Art, Design & Craft. Located on Washington Street at Mohawk in downtown Buffalo at the site of the old Slotkin Building, WNYBAC is now open to the public. The space features a gallery, bookshop, event space, printing studio, library, & printing history museum.
The public Grand Opening this past Thursday was also the opening reception for the first WNYBAC members' exhibition. The exhibit features established and emerging artists, craftspeople, designers, and self published authors. Work is featured by: Alice Alexandrescu, Mollie Atkinson, Rita Auerbach, Jozef Bajus, Olga Bajusova, Diane Bond, Courtney Brent, Michael Clark, Don Dehoff, Jennifer Farrell, Cynthia Endres, Lorrie Frear, Timothy Frerichs, Chris Fritton, Dawn Gibson, Donald Grimble, Justin Hall, Mark Hatley, Adele Henderson, Abbey Hendrickson, Phil Hendrickson, Hero Design, Eric Jackson-Forsberg, Alan Kegler, Kevin Kegler, Kyla Kegler, Richard Kegler, K.C. Kratt, Ryan Legassicke, Amanda Maciuba, David McNamara, Gerald Mead, Greg Meadows, Linda Meyer, Brett Mikoll, Julian Montague, David Munson, Sue O'Donnell, Kathleen Parzych, Barbara Rowe, Jeffrey Sherven, Hyeyoung Shin, Gordon Sisler, Shasti O'Leary-Soudant, Peter Sowiski, Virocode, Margaret Urban, Christine Walsh, Carol Wannemacher, and Mark Wisz
The Western New York Book Arts Collaborative was organized in late 2005 to try and consolidate book arts activities and organize a central entity to promote book arts in Western New York. The Roycroft community was started by Elbert Hubbard's publishing interest and love of the book beautiful as inspired by William Morris and the Arts & Crafts movement in the late 1800s. The first WNYBAC workshop was held in collaboration with The Roycroft Campus Corporation. Along with other local cultural organizations, WNYBAC has been able to enhance cultural life in Buffalo and beyond with complementary rather than competitive goals. The scope of what is known as book arts is very wide and includes many disciplines from design and writing to printing and binding and all strata of what those mean---from rough intuitive expression to highly honed fine-artisan skills.
WNYBAC also formed with a desire to preserve the history of printing in Buffalo. Even in the mid-late 20th century Buffalo had more printers per capita than any other US city. With rapid changes in technology, closings of print shops and the selling of historical type and equipment for scrap became the norm. This is not a local phenomenon, however, there has been no local organized effort to preserve these materials and techniques that have been a crucial step in developing modern civilization. The techniques dating back to the time of Gutenberg (mid 1400s) were still in use until the mid and late 20th century and are now enjoying a resurgence as an expressive medium.
Currently, many book arts organizations exist around the country and the world, and often in places that are not large metropolitan areas. A revival of interest in letterpress printing and hand craft appears to be a direct reaction to the ubiquity of computers and the loss of connection to the tactile act of making and self publishing.
The organization has managed to grow primarily through volunteer efforts and member donations. The rehab of the Slotkin Building was undertaken by husband and wife team and WNYBAC founders Richard Kegler & Carima El-Behairy who credit the success of their company P22 type foundry with being the catalyst to embark on the WNYBAC project. P22 helped to host an international design conference, TypeCon, last Summer at the downtown Hyatt hotel with a sneak preview of the newly acquired Slotkin building. Since last Summer, WNYBAC has been granted its 501 (c) 3 status but also the economy has taken a downturn. The economic downturn made opening on time even more important in order to put programming and regular hours into motion. The refurbished 2nd floor of the building is almost ready for it's new tenant: a well known local cultural non-profit organization with a very complementary mission. The announcement of this co-tenant of 468 Washington St. will be made very soon.
Through workshops and studio access, individuals can learn old and new techniques to create their own printed ephemera, bookworks, prints and editions, and everything in-between. The Summer Book Arts workshop series has just been announced. Members and non members can take classes in: Clam Shell Portfolio Box workshop, Miniature and Wearable Books, Intro to Hand Typesetting and Letterpress Printing, DIY screen printing workshop, A-Z Pressure Printing, 2 Color Gig Poster Workshop, Basic Book Binding and a child & parent workshop: Letterpress Animal ABC
The WNYBAC bookshop offers book making supplies, art papers, books and artisan created works. WNYBAC is open 12-6 pm Wednesday-Saturday.
Stop by, smell the ink, become a member, help this fledgling organization soar!
This is one of those initiatives that I always mention to people from out of town. Everybody expects that we have art galleries, theaters, music venues, etc. So I love watching their expressions when I tell them that there's a Book Arts center. "A what?", they always say. Then I tell them that I went to an event there where I got to taste a bunch of classics made by local book/baking enthusiasts. That's when they start to think to themselves that maybe there's a lot more to Buffalo than meets the eye.
Way to go Rich and Carima. Not only for the center, but for putting Buffalo on the map when it comes to the world of printing (I never knew that it was so extensive).