LIBROS Past Programs Archive 2023–2024

Be sure to check the main Calendar page for upcoming programs.

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Saturday, July 6, 2024

Special Collections Tour and Lunch

Saturday, June 1, 2024

How to Make a Pop-up Book
with Susan Clifford

Saturday, May 4, 2024

“They Had No Time To Say Goodbye”
with Rose Marie Prins

My LIBROS workshop will start with a PowerPoint presentation on my career as a maker of artist’s books, with a focus on my books relating to activism. The culmination of this is my most recent book, They Had No Time to Say Goodbye, created during a winter 2023/24 residency at an artists’ retreat in Guadalajara, Mexico. They Had No Time to Say Goodbye accompanies a multimedia installation of the same title that features four long, hanging scrolls (that fold into accordion books) comprised of x-rays with indigenous women’s and girls’ faces scratched onto them. The theme of the project is the crisis of missing and murdered indigenous women, particularly as it relates to New Mexico. The installation, along with the book, was exhibited in Guadalajara in January, 2024. (See my accompanying artist’s statement below).

I am inviting artists from the world over to participate in the project. So far, artists from Seoul, London and Guadalajara have contributed portraits on x-rays. I plan, during the workshop, to invite LIBROS members to participate by drawing portraits of indigenous women to incorporate into the multimedia installation They Had No Time to Say Goodbye. Some may choose to tape their drawings onto the windows of the hall, tape an x-ray over it, and scratch a portrait onto the x-ray which will be added to more scrolls of faces on x-rays. Ideally, we would use light boxes to accomplish this. But daylight works well also. Those who chose not to scratch their portraits onto x-rays will be invited, in the spirit of collaboration, to donate their drawings of indigenous women to the project for others, in subsequent workshops, to scratch onto x-rays. 

I anticipate that some participants will be experts at portraiture, others may need instruction. I used to teach drawing at Ringling College of Art and Design in Sarasota, Florida, and I continue to include drawing instruction in my painting course on Zoom through the Morean Arts Center in St Petersburg, Florida. Instruction in portrait drawing will be included in my workshop. 

In the fall I plan to take the project to Europe. I’ll be inviting artists in Germany and Portugal (where I will be attending an artists’ retreat) to participate.  

If you want to participate in etching the x-rays, please bring the following:

• Several sheets of tracing paper, minimum 9” x 11” 
• Soft pencil (4B)
• Eraser
• Pencil sharpener
• Ruler
• Masking, Painters’ tape or Cellophane tape
• Scissors
• Black and white print(s) of an indigenous woman’s face (or faces).

X-rays will be provided.

Artist’s Statement: Shortly after returning to New Mexico in September, 2022, I was confronted by a billboard with a blown-up face of a young Native American woman with one word: HOMICIDE. As a mother who had lost her only child six years earlier; and as an apartheid-era South African, sensitized to gender-based oppression, and as a feminist, this image struck me deeply. I was compelled to action. 

Proportionately there are more missing and murdered indigenous women than any other group. Media and governments, in their silence, are complicit. My project evolved into a series of artist’s books as part of a multimedia installation incorporating antique china doll limbs and scraps of red women’s and girls’ clothing: a metaphor for missing, murdered and trafficked daughters. I, and artists from around the world, are scratching hundreds of faces representing missing daughters and their mothers on old x-rays. 

The x-rays are a reminder of Native females’ transience and fragility in the face of violence. This is increasing due to “Man Camps,” established on Native lands as a result of the North American oil boom. The x-rays, enhanced with red (the color signifying the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women's movement), are stitched together to create scrolls. Four scrolls are now complete. They are suspended from the ceiling above a heap of desert sand in which the antique doll limbs and scraps of red females’ clothing are partially buried. 

Accompanying the installation is an artist’s book of the same title that addresses the issue of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls from the grieving mothers’ perspective. I am consulting with members of the indigenous community to ensure that this project has maximum impact and respects Native American mores.

Saturday, April 6, 2024

How to Make an Origami Box
with Charlotte Greene

Saturday, March 2, 2024

Insecti – Libros Collaborative Book Construction

For the March 2, 2024 Libros meeting we will put together the Insecti themed Collaborative project. If you didn’t sign up to participate in the project you can bring your own pages and book board and learn how to put it all together. New skills are always fun to learn.

For the participants:

• Bring your bookboard already covered (outside only).
• You will receive your 40 pages from all the participants in a bundle. 
• You will get a colophon with all participants listed in your bundle.

Once distributed to all participants, we will give some instruction as to how the book will come together. You will then have some time to collate the pages in the order you want them to appear. You will then affix the first page to the cover and keep affixing pages to the next one. The finished product will be a two sided leporello book!

Saturday, February 3, 2024

Terri Ross. Recounting Your Travels in Journals and Scrapbooks

Saturday, January 6, 2024

Artist Talk with Ester Feske

Saturday, December 2, 2023 @ 9:00am –  noon

Holiday Party

It is the time of year for the Libros Holiday Party. On Saturday, December 2nd we will have a pot luck and White Elephant gift exchange. Please see your email to sign up to bring something to share and let us know if you are participating in the gift exchange.

Collaborative Book

At the November meeting, the Collaborative Committee will issue the 50 sheets of 8.5” x 11” paper plus the precut book board covers to each registered participant. (See your email for details.)

Sign-up deadline is November 17, 2023 to commit to be a participant. 

• There will be no late entries accepted. 
• Please email or call Susan Wright to sign up. Provide your name, email address, & phone. See your email newsletter for details.

Overview of Project:
Theme: Insects (Bugs, spiders, etc.)
Each designed sheet is 8.5” x 11”, your design is on one side only.
Finished & folded folio is 4.25” W x 11” L.
Binding is Leporello - a modified accordion type binding that will have images on both sides of the accordion.

Dates: February 26, 2024 is the  FIRM DEADLINE for your completed folios to be delivered to Susan Wright.

November 4, 2023

Collaborative Book

Agenda: Project overview, important dates explained, sign up participants. 

Deadline is November 17, 2023 FIRM DEADLINE to commit to be a participant. 

• There will be no late entries accepted. 
• Please email or call Susan Wright to sign up. Provide your name, email address, & phone. See your email newsletter for details.

October 7, 2023

Junk Journal and Paper Making Workshop

Program from Chauncy at we.grow.eco

Note: Location returns to Manzano Mesa Center (address to the right) which requires $20 membership. Check your email newsletter for more details.

September 2, 2023

Orizomegami, Japanese Paper Dyeing
with Karen Woolsey

Note: Location returns to Manzano Mesa Center (address to the right) which requires $20 membership. Check your email newsletter for more details.

Orizomegami is an ancient Japanese paper craft that combines “origami’ paper folding and colored pigment dip-dyeing. Similar in concept to Shibori dyeing, Orizomegami creates fun and vibrant patterns on paper, instead of fabric, through careful and strategic folding techniques but utilizes multiple colors. The advantage of using multiple colors is apparent when considering the endless kaleidoscope of possibilities in color combinations for each pattern explored. Dyed papers can be used as gift wrap, book covers, collage, tags, cardmaking, scrapbooking, etc. I’m sure many of you did this as children, and it’s fun to revisit our childhood.

Karen Woolsey majored in Art in High School. She studied theater at Cabrillo College in Santa Cruz, CA, and was in several performances and even appeared on TV. The Air Force brought her family to New Mexico where she later studied Commercial Printing. She learned to make negatives in the darkroom, paste up and layout, typesetting and book production. Karen then worked for the USDA Forest Service as a Supervisor Office Manager, from which she retired. She is a Vietnam veteran and served in the US Air Force. She has a husband, two daughters, six grandchildren, two parakeets, some turtles and a whole gaggle of baby lizards and blue-tailed skinks.

August 5, 2023

Intentional Creativity and Art Journals
with Ruth Anna Abigail

Note: Location returns to Manzano Mesa Center (address to the right) which requires $20 membership. See your email for more details.

In this presentation, you will learn about the process of metacognitive drawing as a way of starting or continuing art journals. Using large pieces of drawing paper and markers, you'll be guided in drawing exercises focused on specific inquiries. After making your drawings, you'll use a double pamphlet stitch to create an art journal for future use.

Ruth Anna Abigail (Annie) is an avid art journaler who has used the process for many years as a problem-solving method. Ruth Anna has made dozens of books using a variety of techniques since she moved to New Mexico in 2012, when she retired from teaching and overseeing adult degree completion and online education at a university. She is a certified Zentangle® teacher, a certified SoulCollage® facilitator, a Home Sewing Association certified educator, a Martha Pullen Heirloom Sewing instructor, an accomplished art quilter with six solo exhibitions, and a certified Red Thread Intentional Creativity Guide. Currently she is pursuing a teacher certification in painting in the Musea Intentional Creativity community.

Ruth Anna received her PhD from USC, teaching in 11 countries and authoring/co-authoring three textbooks and a book of poetry.  Ruth Anna is the author/co-author of three textbooks: Persuasion: People, Contexts, and Messages (under her previous name Roxane Salyer Lulofs), Managing Conflict through Communication, and Communication in a Civil Society. She also published (as Aine Summermoon) a book of poetry and art titled Love Loss Longing.

She offers small classes online and in her home studio in Mountainair, New Mexico, which she shares with six dogs and two cats.

Note: Programs run from August – June. There is no regularly scheduled meeting in July.