ARTIST RESIDENCIES – START TO FINISH

June 7, 2022

With the Artist Project Award from the National Endowment for the Arts we were proudly able to provide two residencies for emerging artists in 2021/2022. After an application process and interviews, we chose Rachel Stickney and Laura Citino based on their project scope, excitement for the book and printing arts, and a gut check on who would be fun to have around on a regular basis. These residencies have given Rachel and Laura a jump start on their creative endeavors, and we look forward to seeing what happens next! Let’s see what they’ve done…

Rachel Stickney

Rachel began her association with us as an intern and a Book Arts in Italy study abroad student. Her growth as a book artist, painter and educator has continued from there. She had several goals for the residency, the first being the exploration of affordable ways to make a print. The pandemic had made her extremely conscious of the financial struggles of artmaking and from that came a series of collagraphs created with scrap cardboard and throw away material as an experiment in image making. Additionally, she wanted to make books and tools out of animal bone to use freshly learned skills from the Penland School of Craft. Last, in experimental and explorative ways, she wanted to see how she could push the boundaries of a book form. 

She found that studio time was sanctuary time. It was a space where she could relax, get to work, and do what she loves doing. For her collagraphs, she used cardboard and scrap material, cut away designs, engraved details into the cardboard, pasted on textured elements, and then sealed the plate for printing. Rachel finished a series of six detailed and interesting prints.

With tool making, she focuses on how a tool fits in the hand. Something might look beautiful but if not functional, an opportunity is missed. She carved and shaped several bone folders out of deer bone that pushed the creative bounds of function and design. For book forms, she likes the idea of taking non-traditional material and making them into book covers. Rachel made small books out of clay forms created on a potter’s wheel. In her mind, the results are like creatures or vegetation found in nature like a sea urchin or a geode.  

Rachel tells us that, “I have been living and breathing everything books, paper, and prints. It’s been a marvelous experience to fully immerse myself in this art form and have the support to explore new ideas. As with all experiments, some succeed and some fail. But I learned a great deal by simply doing.”

Laura Citino

Like many artists, Laura's creative trajectory took a sharp left turn in the early days of COVID. After more than seven years pursuing and working in traditional literary publishing after receiving her MFA in fiction in 2013, she realized it was not the right path for her or her writing; it didn't provide the flexibility, control, creativity, or energy she craved. In mid-2020 she began the Topophiliac Project, her own press and bookmaking outfit to publish her short stories, zines, and other writing and art projects. When KBAC announced that it was offering funded studio residencies, she crafted her proposal for Dead Cities, Reconsidered—a chapbook of speculative, surrealist flash fiction pieces based in the Midwest—and was thrilled to get the go ahead. 

Laura tells us that “this residency provided exactly the intensive, concentrated, soup-to-nuts instruction in the book arts that I was looking for. It was an ideal blend of guidance, mentorship, and free reign in the studio.” Beginning with a broadside to learn letterpress, linocut, and use of the Vandercook press, Laura worked freely—with studio manager Katie Platte available to help answer questions, troubleshoot, and offer advice—as she assembled that and another broadside, handset and printed covers, title pages, and linocut prints, and then sewed the final chapbook with long-stitch binding. Many of these skills Laura learned for the first time at KBAC.

This residency enabled Laura to produce work using equipment and tools that would otherwise be unavailable to her and opened her mind to the possibilities of being a writer, printmaker/illustrator, and bookmaker all at once. Art fairs, zine fests, collaborations with fellow artists, and another residency are all on the horizon. The next steps: procuring a small letterpress for her personal studio, dreaming up the next book project, and continuing the path of fruitful experimentation and tangible skills-building begun here.

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