Cafe Royal 'Rubber Stamps' by Stephen Fowler

My Rubber Stamps book for Cafe Royal came out in the Summer. I'm over the moon with it.
Thanks to Craig Atkinson, the fantastic publisher and photographer.

Rubber Stamps
11cm x 8cm x 1.5cm
Hand made tray with lift off lid, both 1500 micron card.
Coated with Amethyst Wibalin Buckram
Foil blocked in flat black

edition of 50

Contents:
32pp zine, b/w digital
a selection of hand made prints and badges

each box contains different prints and badges. Some contain more of one and fewer of the other. Max two badges, min one badge.

The stamp impressions are all from the Minnesota Centre for Book Arts Scott Helmes and Picasso Gaglione Stamp Archive.

You can buy the book here.

The S.Helmes & W.Gaglione Stamp Archive is one of the largest repositories of rubber stamps and stamp-related materials in the world. Comprised of hundreds of commercial and one-of-a-kind boxed sets and over 70,000 individual stamps spanning a period of 120 years, the H/G Archive is both comprehensive and incredibly diverse. In addition to physical stamps, the collection includes original stamp art, artists’ books, limited-edition publications, journals, catalogs, reference materials, correspondence art, assemblings, design specifications, posters, and production materials.

Mono Printing with Charles Shearer.

I had the great opportunity to attend the brilliant Ashridge Summer School in Devon this year, it's organised by Desdemona Macannon. The superb printer Charles Shearer ran a two colour mono-printing class.

Here is the print I made. 

Not long now ! Malmö Artist's Book Biennial - 20/21st April .

It won't be long before I arrive in Malmö to attend MABB. 
My Passport Office is nearly finished ! 
The organiser's; Anders Bräck and Christel Lundberg are about to screw on the sign. 

BOUND TO BRISTOL - Pop Up Exhibition U.W.E

Both my 'Cosmic Forces' and a pop-up rubber stamp workshop book, were featured in Bound to Bristol, a pop up 2 day exhibtion at the University of the West of England's Bower Ashton Campus.

Bound to Bristol is delighted to present a pop-up two-day exhibition, showcasing a collection of artists’ books.

This exhibition is inspired by and sourced from the personal collection of Sarah Bodman, senior research fellow in Artists’ Books at the Centre for Fine Print Research, at UWE Bristol.

Produced by four MA/MFA Curating students from the university, the exhibition aims to present a diverse range of works produced by artists, whose practices are either based in Bristol, or influenced by the city. The extensive range of books, brought together in this way, will map out connections between the objects and their authors, and celebrate the work’s intrinsic diversity.

The exhibition will encourage visitors to pick up and flick through the books on display. Visitors are also invited to contribute to The Bristol Reading List during the show – please feel free to record the title of your favourite book, or a book that everyone should read.

The show is curated in conjunction with two artists’ books workshops, which will be drop-in and free to attend for all. The workshops will allow the public to take inspiration from the exhibition, and to try their hands at creating their own Artists’ Books. The next will take place at Hamilton House on the 17th March, in the Community Arts Space, between 11am and 2pm.

Exhibiting artists: Craig Atkinson, Guy Begbie, Angie Butler, Sarah Bodman, Chrystal Chernwichan, Paul Cooke, Anwyl Cooper-Willis, Lisa Davies, Helena de la Guardia, Jeremy Dixon, Andrew Eason, Bernard Fairhurst, Kate Farley, Fluxus Lab, Stephen Fowler, Hazel Grainger, Charlotte Hall, Gen Harrison, Nadine James, Éilis Kirby, Cecilia Mandrile, Imi Maufe, Natalie McGrorty, Jon McNaught, Kar Mern Tan, Jonathan Monk, Linda Parr, Carinna Parraman, Paul Salt, Ruth Sidgwick, Tom Sowden, Cathey Webb, Rebecca Weeks, Corinne Welch, and Philippa Wood.

F-block gallery, UWE Bristol, City Campus at Bower Ashton, Kennel Lodge Road, Bristol BS3 2JT.

to download an exhibition catalogue follow this link - http://www.bookarts.uwe.ac.uk/bound/

Passport Office Traveling to Malmö, Sweden

The Passport Office has been invited to take up residence at Malmö Artist’s Book Biennial. (MABB)
My Passport Officer shirt is being altered, (a new patch will be made) and a redesign for both the Passports and official rubber stamps has been requested. 22 stamps for all the participating stalls, publishers and book artists will be sourced from my collection, or especially carved. 
I'm very excited. 
It takes place on 20/21 April 2018. 
How will it be received ? Come along or watch this space and find out! 

http://www.mabb2018.se/  

MABB – Malmö Artists’ Books Biennial, will be a Swedish and International exhibi­tion and selling platform for art works that are inspired by the structural and conceptual properties of the book form.

MABB, arranged for the first time 2018, will invite both national and inter­national artists, publishers, booksellers and organizations to participate in the first International fair for artist’s books in Sweden – an art genre that is attracting more and more attention.

THE BALLAD OF CHETHAM’S LIBRARY: MUSIC AND PRINTING WORKSHOP

Desdemona McCannon invited me to collaborate with her on a marvellous Popular Print/Street Literature project workshop at Chetham Library, Manchester.

Chetham's Library was founded in 1653 and is the oldest public library in the English-speaking world.  http://library.chethams.com/

     



We worked alongside the inspiring Jennifer Reid, and the brilliant Graham Moss of Incline Press.

http://jenniferreid.weebly.com/    https://www.inclinepress.com/

Come and listen to ballad singer Jennifer Reid talk about her recent research trip to Bangladesh, where she explored Manchester and Lancashire song traditions, and how they relate to Bangladeshi songs of the same type. Jennifer will also perform a couple of folksongs from the Lancashire area similar to “Barbara Allen”, whose long and fascinating history will be described in depth during Vic Gammon’s Library Lecture later on in the day.

Again as an introduction to Vic Gammon’s talk, participants will be able to get a free letterpress version of “Barbara Allen” as produced by local printer Graham Moss from Incline Press in Oldham. There will be a chance to finish these copies with your own choice of illustrations by the hand of artist Desdemona McMannon and printer Stephen Fowler, who will provide a number of specially commissioned rubberstamps for this workshop.

We are making our collections of broadsides, ballads and single sheet material available online thanks to our ACE funded digitisation project “The Ballad of Chetham’s Library”. In addition to creating digital surrogates, we have put together a whole programme of activities aimed at providing a better understanding of the world of street literature from the 16th to the 19th century. This is our first event. There will be more events as part of “The Ballad of Chetham’s Library” project later on in the year. Follow us on Twitter #bballadschet to keep up to date.

Here are a few photographs of the event. 

Des's Rubber Stamps.
http://www.art.mmu.ac.uk/profile/dmccannon
All photographs taken by Desdemona Mccannon 

Chapbooks and Broadsides from Chetham's Library, Manchester.

Before Desdemona McCannon and I started the Broadside Ballard Rubber Stamp Workshop, we had the opportunity to take a look at the library's archive of Broadside Ballads and Chapbooks.

Susana Sanchez Gonzalez, Digital Project Officer,very kindly accessed the collection for us. 

Here are few of my favourites. 

More Exhibitions at MCBA - Scott Helmes and William ‘Picasso’ Gaglione, MCBA’s H/G Archive.

In the Minnesota Centre For Book Arts library a number of Scott Helmes and William ‘Picasso’ Gaglione Archive stamps, and stamp pads were exhibited. 

Take a look at the antique stamp pad tins - fantastic graphics.