Ending the year, beginning new work at FAR

Facility for Arts Research’s (FAR) fall semester ended with visiting artists at both Small Craft Advisory Press (SCAP) and formLab. formLab Project Fellow, Michael Rees, came for a second visit, when he continued to work on his sculptural pieces with augmented reality components. Nick Parparian (CVATD adjunct faculty member) and Craig Ryan (CVATD graduate student) assisted him with animation design, 3D printing, welding and other tasks. Rees has a final visit planned for this month, when he will finish and edit his pieces.

SCAP hosted Jessica Peterson, letterpress and book artist from Tuscaloosa, Alabama. Peterson led twenty-four artists and writers in the planning stages of a collaborative artists’ book. Artists and writers spent a day at FAR and the Florida State Archives, exploring archive materials and brainstorming about their contributions to the project. This work is a response to the Federal Writers’ Project of the Works Project Administration (WPA) in Florida and is the third in a series of Florida-inspired pieces produced by SCAP.

SCAP also hosted an event at Strozier Library in December for the artists’ book, Cropwork Orange. This book is a collaboration between Robert Fichter, Bea Nettles and Denise Bookwalter, artists with roots in Florida. This book explores the artists’ relationship to place, family, memory and information, and is a dynamic modular book-like object. During the event, the artists discussed their creative process and Jessica Peterson spoke about her Florida WPA-inspired collaborative project. Cropwork Orange and other SCAP editions may be viewed at Strozier Special Collections and Archives during regular hours.