Booklyn Calling

As a shop worker for the legendary New York printmaker Joe Wilfer and midwest bookmaster Walter Hamady, Ruth Lingen learned both her trade and the pleasure of collaborating with living artists. In the years since, she herself has become somewhat of a legend, collaborating with nearly 50 of the world's greatest artists—on prints (some for Pace editions, some on her own) and very special limited edition artist books. She has worked with Jim Dine, Robert Ryman, Mary Heilmann, Kiki Smith, Chuck Close and Claes Oldenberg, Bob Holman, Robert Creeley, Jessica Stockholder and Jeremy Sigler, Donald Traever, Al Held, and John Chamberlain, to name a few. Lingen's work can be found in the collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Getty, and the Brooklyn Museum, as well as in more than 20 libraries, from the New York Public Library to the Harvard University Library.

Ever wondered how Booklyn came to be? Artist and founding member C. K. Wilde joins us on a trip to the ‘90s to uncover our history. From the book mobile that started things off, to the librarians who helped us make our way, and how a misread exit sign became our name. Links: Christopher's website Christopher's catalog Booklyn's Website Booklyn's Instagram Christopher Karl Wilde was born in 1972. Wilde was raised in Madison, Wisconsin, USA. At an early age his proclivities for art making were encouraged and enthusiastically supported. After going to The George School, a Quaker boarding school, he went on to study Philosophy and Art at the University of Wisconsin. In 1993 founded Artichoke Yink Press, an imprint for artists books; A.Y.P. has published over 125 titles to date with many artists and writers. Wilde moved to New York City to teach collage and book arts at The Pratt Institute, The Cooper Union, and The Center for the Book Arts. In 1998, Wilde co-founded The Booklyn Artists Alliance, in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, New York. Wilde is represented by Rosamund Felsen Gallery in Los Angeles.

Puerto Rican textile artist Gloribel Delgado Esquilín talks with Monica & Marshall about her work as a journalist, the aftermath of Hurricane Maria, and how a found bag of cloth ignited a journey of sewing dolls and creating soft books. The three discuss the political nature of her work, and Gloribel shares the importance of making work that is vulnerable and physically soft (to offset hard topics), while also needing to feel free in her creation, as a reaction to living in a colonized space. Links: Gloribel's Instagram Gloribel's catalog Booklyn's Website Booklyn's Instagram Gloribel Delgado Esquilín is a textile artist, craftswoman, teacher, and writer from San Juan, Puerto Rico. She worked for more than 20 years as a journalist, creating community newspapers, literary magazines, community radio programs, theater, and art. Her career took a surprising turn after finding some cloth bags on the city streets, inspiring her to create dolls with stories. From that meeting, she returned to her passion for sewing, creating over 400 dolls. In 2014, she moved to Lima, Peru, to expand her knowledge of textile art and joined the collective of textile artists, “La Hermandad de la Costura”. In 2018, she visited Paris, where she learned to create pieces in natural felt. In 2019, she returned to Peru and exhibited her first textile book “La Casa Inundada”. Delgado Esquilín's identity as an ecofeminist is a cornerstone of her work. She has trained as an agroecological promoter at the Puerto Rican farm school El Josco Bravo, and collaborated to spearhead the Project 4645 initiative, a poignant tribute to the memory of thousands of victims in Puerto Rico following the devastating Hurricane María. Currently, Delgado Esquilín is currently completing graduate studies in narration. She is working on her first book of chronicles and creates textile books with an anti-racist and decolonial vision of her days in Puerto Rico.

Josh MacPhee joins this episode of Booklyn Calling to discuss social movement culture as a third space outside of art and design with Booklyn curators Marshall Weber and Jan Descartes, and how art doesn't make change on its own. The three talk about collective expression and how imagery takes on meaning, and MacPhee teaches how to read protest and organizing symbols as a language. Links: Josh's Instagram Josh's Catalog Justseeds Artists’ Cooperative Interference Archive Booklyn's Website Booklyn's Instagram Josh MacPhee is a designer, artist, and archivist. He is a founding member of both the Justseeds Artists Cooperative and Interference Archive, a public collection of cultural materials produced by social movements based in Brooklyn, NY. MacPhee is the author and editor of numerous publications, including Signs of Change: Social Movement Cultures 1960s to Now and Signal: A Journal of International Political Graphics and Culture. He has organized the Celebrate People’s History poster series since 1998 and has been designing book covers for many publishers for the past decade.

Teacher, artist, and activist Shana Agid joins Booklyn Calling for episode ten, answering questions from Monica and Booklyn curator Jan Descartes. They talk about the themes come up so often in her work, like privilege and absence, and Agid explains his way of trying to make sense of the world by coming back to the same core questions throughout his art. Links: Shana's Website Shana's Catalog Ground Rules Call a Wrecking Ball to Make a Window Snitch Booklyn's Website Booklyn's Instagram Shana Agid is an artist, designer, teacher, and organizer whose work focuses on relationships of power and difference in visual, social, and political cultures. Her books and prints combine image, text, and form to explore these through narratives of desire, landscape, and history. His work has been shown at The New York Center for Book Arts, the Minnesota Center for Book Arts, the Hamilton Wood Type Museum, and other venues. His artist books are in the collections of the Walker Art Center, New York Public Library, and the Library of Congress, among others. She is an also a collaborative design researcher and practitioner working with organizations to create systems and infrastructures toward self-determination, and a long-time member of Critical Resistance. Shana is an Associate Professor at Parsons School of Design / The New School in New York City.

Monica and Marshall go on a wild ride with Fred Rinne, as they’re pulled into his universe for an episode. Join in as they reminisce about his artist book beginnings, discuss the overlapping of art, music, and humor, share thoughts on Booklyn Zine Club, and have story time with some of Rinne’s books. Links:Fred Rinne's Website Fred Rinne's Catalog Booklyn's WebsiteBooklyn's Instagram

Jose and Jess from Mobile Print Power join Booklyn Calling to give insight into their newly released box set and talk about the collective. They tell us what it's like being a bilingual multi-generational collective that explores social and cultural situations in a public setting, and how they take inspiration from their community and turn it into graphic designs. Find out about the collaborative work they do with their community in Corona, Queens, and how they're getting back to it since Covid derailment. Mobile Print Powers 8 Principals: 1. We engage our whole selves to the task at hand 2. We value the skills, knowledge, and experiences of all people, regardless of age or formal education 3. We honor all community traditions and respect all community voices 4. We recognize that dignity has no nationality and we oppose racism 5. We want equality across the gender spectrum and we oppose sexism 6. We reject violent words and violent actions 7. We value all forms of written and spoken language and other forms of communication 8. We believe in the power of collaborative and collective work Links: Mobile Print Power's website Mobile Print Power's Instagram Mobile Print Power's Catalog & Box Set Booklyn's Website Booklyn's Instagram

Sofia Szamosi joins Marshall to talk about how creating zines can be a gateway to making painted books and graphic novels, and how the process is different for them all. They also do a retrospective on Szamosi’s work around social media, looking into the subjects of body image and ‘girlhood’ and discuss her desire to make personal books. Links: https://sofiaszamosi.net/ https://www.instagram.com/sofiaszamosi/ https://booklyn.org/artists/sofia-szamosi/

Brooklyn-based artist and self-proclaimed "hydro-feminist", sTo Len, joins us to talk about his life so far as an artist, spanning his teenage years to today. From selling gas station zines and printmaking with dead fish to making collaborative artists' books with the Organik collective and his position as the first-ever NYC Department of Sanitation artist-in-residence. A super fun episode with a lot to be covered. *** Links sTo Len: https://www.stoishere.com/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/stoishere/ The Office of In Visibility (OOIV): https://www.officeofinvisibility.com/ Public Artists in Residence (PAIR): https://www.nyc.gov/site/dcla/publicart/pair.page#:~:text=Public%20Artists%20in%20Residence%20(PAIR)%20is%20a%20municipal%20residency%20program,solutions%20to%20pressing%20civic%20challenges. Works on Water: https://www.worksonwater.org/ *** Booklyn links Website: https://booklyn.org/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/booklynart/

Jeanette Arellano and Joe Brusky from Art Build Workers (Milwaukee, WI) join in to talk about the fight for public education, how everyone in a community can show up to help, and how art can amplify the voice of unions and social justice organizing. The Art Build Workers (ABW) are a group of six artists, designers, photographers, and educators who are based in Milwaukee, WI. We work locally and travel around the country organizing multi-day art builds that help unions, organizations, and movements amplify their messages through visual art, media, and archiving. Our motto is that before the march and before the strike there is the art build. We primarily collaborate with the National Education Association (NEA) which is the largest union in the country with an estimated membership of over 2.7 million members. ABW designs graphics for the movement and also coordinates designs from a vast network of activist artists and designers from around the country that we know. We screenprint picket signs, paint parachutes and banners, and produce offset posters that change the way demonstrations look visually, while amplifying a movement's social media presence, and helping create a space for movements to build community and become stronger. *** Art Build Workers - https://artbuildworkers.com/ When we Fight we Win (Box Set Edition) - https://booklyn.org/catalog/when-we-fight-we-win-box-set/ Community Building through Collective Art Activism - https://journals.librarypublishing.arizona.edu/jcrae/article/4794/galley/4762/view/ What Can Art Do in the Perilous Present? https://rethinkingschools.org/articles/what-can-art-do-in-the-perilous-present/ How Art Plus Activism Led to Teacher Pay Raises in New Mexico https://www.nea.org/advocating-for-change/new-from-nea/how-art-plus-activism-led-teacher-pay-raises-new-mexico *** Booklyn links Website: https://booklyn.org/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/booklynart/

Mary Tremonte and V Adams join us to talk about the Queer Ecology Hanky Project - a program and exhibition with a new book that explores the intersection of sexuality, queer theory, biology, and the environment. Tremonte and Adams expand on the project's themes, their personal connections to hankies, and how foraging in the woods evolved into an evolving community art project. Queer Ecology Hanky Project is a traveling exhibition and project with over 100 artist bandanas from across North America--from Vancouver to Mexico City--organized by Vanessa Adams and Mary Tremonte. Recent exhibitions of the project showcase a diverse array of artist responses to Queer Ecology—an area of inquiry that unites the study of biology, environment, and sexuality with a framework of queer theory–and a wide spectrum of print mediums and methods. The Queer Ecology Hanky Project has been exhibited at Zygote Press in Cleveland, Ohio, Women's Studio Workshop in Rosendale, NY, the Maine College of Art in Portland, Maine, the Irma Freeman Center for Imagination in Pittsburgh, PA, and the White Page Gallery in Minneapolis, MN in collaboration with the risograph residency at The Future. Links Queer Ecology Hanky Project: https://hankyexhibit.bigcartel.com/ https://www.instagram.com/hankysituation/ Mary Tremonte: https://www.marymacktremonte.org/ V Adams: https://vanessascholaradams.com/ Exuberant Possibilities: https://booklyn.org/catalog/exuberant-possibilities/ Eureka! House: https://www.instagram.com/eureka_mindspace/ Bruce Bagemihl’s Biological Exuberance: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780312253776/biologicalexuberance The Science Underground: Mycology as a Queer Discipline: https://catalystjournal.org/index.php/catalyst/article/view/33523#:~:text=In%20this%20work%2C%20we%20argue,and%20unworthy%20of%20formal%20investigation. *** Booklyn links Website: https://booklyn.org/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/booklynart/

Artist, archivist, and educator, Sauda Mitchell joins us to look at the intersections of marginalized students, archives, space engagement, and critical analysis of primary sources, and how she's merging art, education, and archival practice into one profession. Sauda Mitchell is an American multidisciplinary artist, archivist, and educator from Winston-Salem, NC. Utilizing artists' books as a medium, her work investigates complex issues centered around the African American experience. Her work explores the intersections of printmaking, archival research, and QR code technology as a creative non-traditional access method linking viewers to archival repositories, curated exhibitions, and aggregated data. Each work serves as a visual response to archival collection materials representative of the many stories that can be found deep within the archival landscape. Mitchell holds an Associate of Arts in Elementary Education from the University of Phoenix, a Bachelor of Arts in Communication Art with a minor in Art History from the Savannah College of Art and Design, a Master’s in Library and Information Science with a concentration in Archival Studies from Drexel University, and is certified by the Academy of Certified Archivists. She is currently a doctoral student at Drexel University in the Educational Leadership and Management Program. Her research centers around marginalized student access to archives-based engagement in support of primary source critical analysis as a catalyst for elevated cognitive development. Her artists' books and prints can be found in private and public library and museum collections around the country including Harvard University, Telfair Museums, SCAD Museum of Art, Smithsonian, and Northwestern University Melville J. Herskovits Library of African Studies. Links Sauda's website: https://www.saudamitchell.com/ Sauda on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/saudamitchell/ Never Forget: https://booklyn.org/catalog/never-forget-1/ More work by Sauda Mitchell at Booklyn: https://booklyn.org/artists/sauda-mitchell/ *** Booklyn links Website: https://booklyn.org/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/booklynart/

Hannah Brancato (Baltimore, MD) and Lorena Kourousias (NYC) of The Monument Quilt Project join us to talk about creating public rituals of healing, undoing white supremacy culture, and how they transformed what started as an art project into a movement. The Monument Quilt, a project of Baltimore and Mexico City-based FORCE: Upsetting Rape Culture, is a collection of more than 3,000 stories by survivors of sexual and intimate partner violence and our allies, written, painted, and stitched onto red fabric. These stories literally blanket highly public, outdoor places to create and demand space to heal, and resist a singular narrative about sexual violence. The culminating display was May 31 – June 2, 2019, on the National Mall in Washington, DC. This was the only time that the quilt was displayed in its entirety. The Monument Quilt was launched in 2013, and over six years FORCE collected nearly 3,000 squares of the quilt with messages of affirmation and stories from survivors. We partnered with over 100 organizations across the US and in Mexico, to organize 50 Quilt displays in 33 different cities. Cities include (in order from most recent): Washington, DC; Baltimore, MD; Madison, NJ; Houston, TX; Athens, OH; Fort Belvoir, VA; Towson, MD; Mexico City, Mexico; San Francisco, CA; El Paso, TX; Ciudad Juárez, Mexico; Santa Barbara, CA; Valley Center, CA; Tempe, AZ; Tulsa, OK; Fort Hood, TX; Annapolis, MD; Fort Meade, MD; Washington, DC; Nashville, TN; Jacksonville, FL; Oklahoma City, OK; Middleton, CT; Queens, NY; Pittsburgh, PA; Durham, NC; Oshkosh, WI; Chicago, IL; White River, SD; Quapaw, OK; Des Moines, IA; Baton Rouge, LA; Birmingham, AL; Arden, NC. Links The Monument Quilt Project: https://themonumentquilt.org/ FORCE: Upsetting Rape Culture: https://upsettingrapeculture.com/ FORCE on Instagram @upsettingrapeculture Hannah Brancato: https://www.hannahbrancato.com/ @Hannah.brancato Mixteca: https://www.mixteca.org/ The Monument Quilt Project Box Set: https://booklyn.org/catalog/monument-quilt-project/ How to Self Care (zine): https://booklyn.org/catalog/force-how-to-self-care/ Thrive Zine: https://booklyn.org/catalog/force-thrive-zine/ Thrive Thrive Thrive (zine): https://booklyn.org/catalog/force-thrive-thrive-thrive/ *** Booklyn links Website: https://booklyn.org/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/booklynart/

In Booklyn Calling’s first episode, NYC-based multimedia artist Zoe Beloff joins in to talk about her 5ft x 130ft history painting recording the horrors of the Trump regime. It was inspired by her post-inaugural rage as well as the materiality of the hand-painted protest sign. Beloff shares insights into her work, her influences, her process, and where she fits into the world as a working artist. Zoe Beloff is a visual artist and filmmaker. She aims to make art that both entertains and provokes discussion. With a focus on social justice, she draws timelines between past and present to imagine a more egalitarian future. Zoe’s work has been featured in international exhibitions and screenings; including the Whitney Museum Biennale, Site Santa Fe, the M HKA museum in Antwerp, and the Pompidou Center in Paris. However, she particularly enjoys working in alternative venues that are free and open to the community for events and conversations. These have included in New York City; The Coney Island Museum, Participant, Momenta, and The James Gallery at the CUNY Graduate Center. Zoe’s website: http://www.zoebeloff.com/ Zoe on Instagram @zoebeloff Parade of the Old New: https://booklyn.org/catalog/parade-of-the-old-new/ Reminiscences of a Refugee Childhood: https://booklyn.org/catalog/reminiscences-of-a-refugee-childhood/ Between Worlds: http://www.zoebeloff.com/pages/between.html HIAS Charity: https://www.hias.org/ The Allegory of Good and Bad Government https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Allegory_of_Good_and_Bad_Government *** Booklyn links Website: https://booklyn.org/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/booklynart/