Marlene MacCallum

Chicago Octet was produced in conjunction with the culminating event of my research grant project Artists’ Publishing: An Investigation into Digital Media as a means to Integrate Dissemination into the Creative Cycle. From May 19 – 26, 2014 a group of eight gathered at the Columbia College Center for Book and Paper Arts for a final collaborative project. This event was organized by Clifton Meador and myself and included David Morrish, Scott McCarney, and four Grenfell Campus BFA (Visual Arts) grads, Stephen Evans, Maria Mercer, Virginia Mitford, and Meagan Musseau. We were assisted by two grad students, Amy Leners and Mary Clare Butler. This event was primarily focused at providing the four BFA grads with training experiences that are not available at Grenfell. During the course of the week we held intensives in papermaking, letterpress printing, offset lithography and book binding. Each participant drew on the Chicago environment as the source for an artist’s book. The piece I created, Chicago Octet, had several collaborative components. The letterpress printing consisted of a word selected by each participant printed on one of Scott’s folded structures. The images were a digital layering of every cityscape photograph that I made and then inkjet printed on top of the letterpress. The final folded structure was designed by Mary Clare Butler. The case was designed and built by Scott McCarney, the front cover embossment was by David Morrish and Clifton Meador.