Volume 30, No. 2, Jun 2007
From the Editor
In this our 30th year, it is well evident that the thrust of information is so intense that one must digest it, synthesize it and select it for readers. I do hope the choice is appreciated. Those of you who receive the Umbrellanewssheet, as part of your subscription, know that daily messages sent to you come from all corners of the globe. If, for any reason, you have not been invited, please let me know. It is an announce-only Yahoo Group, and I send out the notices almost daily. All I am doing is sharing what comes my way, and I send out information that seems appealing and extraordinary. Although this requires a few hours more in my day, it’s fun to share it with you all.
We are a bit late this summer, due to several factors. So many conferences have occurred that it has been hard to catch up. First there was Kitty Maryatt’s most amazingly organized conference at Claremont on Mallarmé’s Coup de Dés in January, followed by one after another. I did get to attend the conference dedicated to the memory of Tony Zwicker at Yale University in April, a one-day conference sponsored by the Arts of the Book department. Then there was the Chicago Conference at the Center for Book and Paper at Columbia College. The 100 people who attended seemed to feel a collegial atmosphere of friendship, appreciation, and desire to learn new things. It was so well organized that we felt that Chicago in June is ideal for such an event and the city is so inviting. Hurrah for the Center for Book and Paper for such a remarkable weekend.
The Book Fair was great in Chicago, as was the remarkable exhibition that Bill Drendel installed with great skill and patience since there were more than 500 bookworks from all over the U.S., Canada and the UK. Just amazing. And although we go to press before we hear about the conference in Minneapolis, Open the Book, Open the Mind, we are sure they had an outstanding program as well. It certainly has been a year of conferences–and how I remember how hard it was to get funding support to make any conference happen. We salute all the institutions that helped to support the gathering of book artists and artist book collectors to partake of such great discussions and exhibitions.
With so much activity in the field, it is a boon to have not only The Bonefolder online, but also the renaissance of JAB, now at home at the Center for Book and Paper at Columbia College. You must subscribe to all of them, including Umbrella Online–and still there is no way that all the news that’s fit to print can be in one document anymore. Daily updates at the Book Arts-L sent to subscribers by e-mail, as well as the other journals and many more publications fill in the blanks. I used to be all-encompassing, but it is now impossible. . (And I’m getting older and hopefully wiser). I ask any and all of you, if you have news to share, let me know–I can send it along in my daily “newssheet” or can keep it for the next issue of Umbrella Online. The September issue will be full of artist book reviews.
Now, without further ado, I wish you all a good summer of bookmaking, vacations, journeys, creativity, and a respite from the daily routine of any job. There is so much art in the world right now that perhaps looking at a horizon, seeing the ocean, watching the moonrise, or the sunset, well, that’s something that one should appreciate too. And perhaps we can get a little peace in the midst of the chaos of this globe.
—Judith A. Hoffberg
Editor & Publisher
