Alumni

By the conclusion of the MFA Program, students have developed the conceptual and technical skills necessary to teach, print, design, publish, curate, work in the fields of book and paper conservation, or open an independent studio or business. Most of our graduates continue to develop as professional artists. Here are some of our alumni.

Margaret Arnold, 1997

Margaret Arnold is the co-proprietor (with Elias Roustom, 1996) of EM Press, a fine letterpress printing studio in New Bedford, Massachusetts. EM Press makes letterpress printing available to designers working in a contemporary idiom; their clients include Reebok, IBM, the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, and New York Magazine. Margaret has exhibited her books and paintings at the Cambridge Art Association, Marion Art Center, and Harvard University. Currently in the ordination process in the Episcopal Church, fall '05 she will be entering the Master of Divinity program at Boston University.
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Ruth Baggett, 1993

Ruth Baggett came to UArts with a BFA (concentration in weaving) and a K-12 teaching certificate from Murray State University. For 18 years she has taught at Paducah Tilghman High School, in Paducah, Kentucky--drawing/painting, sculpture, photography, and Advanced Placement courses. She is presently a candidate for National Board Certification. She works in various mediums--books, drawing, installations--but the common denominator in all is her use of text.
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Virginia Batson, 2002

Virginia Batson entered the program as a printmaker and book artist, and left as a sculptor and installation artist; she continues making work in a range of media including organic mixed media sculpture, installation, works on paper, video, and language-based works. She exhibits her work nationally and is a Resident Artist at Nexus/Foundation for Today's Art (http://www.nexusphiladelphia.org), Philadelphia's well-known exhibition space for experimental artists, where she recently had a solo exhibition. Her artists' books are in university and museum collections in New York, Philadelphia, and the UK; one of her books printed at UArts is currently in the Arcadia id Est exhibition traveling through Europe, Australia, and the US. When not in the studio, she coordinates the Philadelphia Open Studio Tours (http://www.philaopenstudios.com) at The Center for Emerging Visual Artists. Her work can be seen online at http://www.virginiabatson.com.
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Siri Beckman, 1992

Siri Beckman lives in Stonington, Maine and is the proprietor of Out of the Woods Press. She is widely known in New England for her wood engravings and letterpress books. One of the most recent, A Week at the Lake, has been published as a trade book by DownEast Books (Camden, ME). Her prints can be seen at several galleries (or on their web sites)-- Nan Mulford Gallery in Rockland (http://www.nanmulford.com), Turtle Gallery in Deer Isle (http://www.turtlegallery.com) and William Talbot Gallery in Santa Fe (http://www.williamtalbot.com). Siri has taught relief printmaking and book arts part-time at the University of Maine, Haystack Mountain School of Crafts, and in her own studio. Each fall she co-teaches a book arts workshop on Eagle Island in Penobscot Bay. The last eight years have been transitional due to several opportunities in National Parks--a volunteer job at Yellowstone National Park with the park archeologist, artist residencies at Acadia National Park, Rocky Mountain National Park, Badlands National Park and Hovenweep National Monument, plus a semester with Audubon Expedition Institute studying environmental issues while living outdoors in Alberta, Canada. This year she spent a month at Rancho Linda Vista, an artists' intentional community in Oracle, AZ, realizing a long time desire to paint.
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Nancy Brandt, 1999

After leaving the program, Nancy Brandt worked for a year as a book conservation technician at the Hagley Museum and Library in Wilmington, Delaware. She then moved to California to be a conservation assistant in the Library Preservation Division at the University of California, Berkeley. She teaches at the San Francisco Center for the Book.

About the Program: "The UArts Program afforded me the tools to operate on both a creative level and in a more traditional working environment through conservation. I feel as if I have so many possibilities in front of me that the real challenge is to sort it out and choose."
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Denise Carbone, 1991

Denise Carbone presently teaches book methods and printmaking processes at UArts and is the book conservator at The American Philosophical Society Library. Her personal work challenges traditional methods of printmaking and book structures incorporating mixed media, found materials, letterpress, and alternative processes. She has exhibited her books and prints both nationally and internationally.
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Macy Chadwick, 2003

Macy Chadwick's prints and artist's books, published under the imprint of In Cahoots Press, often involve the themes of memory, personal communication and visual language systems. While at UArts, she extended the definitions of the book to include mixed media sculptures and installation. She currently teaches book arts to both graduates and undergraduates at the Academy of Art University in San Francisco, teaches letterpress workshops at the San Francisco Center for the Book, and assists book artist Julie Chen at Flying Fish Press in Berkeley.

About the Program: "I found the UArts program to be a place where I could really grow as an artist. I found a voice as a writer and a whole new direction for my work. The faculty at UArts was willing to let me discover my own path and I am ever grateful."
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Geoffrey C. DiMasi, 1997

Since graduating from the Program, Geoff DiMasi has developed his career in both the fine and commercial arts. He continues to create new bodies of work and has had three solo shows and been included in several group exhibitions. He is a member of Vox Populi, a cooperative gallery, and served as the membership vice-president. In the commercial realm, he supervised the Typography/Imaging Lab at UArts for three years and was the Interactive Director of Monsoon, an advertising agency. At present he is Assistant Professor in Multimedia at UArts. He is also principal of the design and branding firm p'unk avenue and a founder of the Passyunk Square Civic Association (http://www.passyunk.org) in south Philadelphia, where he lives with his wife and two-year old daughter. He is interested in sustainable design and helped create Philadelphia's Green Map.
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James Engelbart, 1995

At present, James Engelbart is Conservator/Bookbinder (and Supervisor) in the Collection Care Department of The Free Library of Philadelphia. His lithographs and artist's books are represented in both public and private collections and have been shown in both solo and group exhibitions, as such places as Zone One (Philadelphia), The University of the Arts Printmaking Gallery, Kamin Gallery (University of Pennsylvania), Art in City Hall (Philadelphia), Dartmouth College Art Gallery, and Minnesota Center for Book Arts. With Rosae Reeder (1995) he organized Thesaurus: A Book Exchange (among alumni and faculty of the MFA Book Arts/Printmaking Program).
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Brad Freeman, 1991

Brad Freeman is a book artist, photographer and offset printer. He is presently working with Pyramid Atlantic on a number of projects including the 10th Biennial Book Arts Fair and Conference to be held November 2006 (http://www.pyramidatlanticartcenter.org). He founded JAB, The Journal of Artists' Books in 1994 in order to provide a forum for critical debate about books by artists. JAB published 20 issues and is currently in a printing hiatus. Past issues are available online at http://www.journalofartistsbooks.org. Since 1980 he has created his own offset artist's books and has collaborated with Johanna Drucker on four books. They are currently working on a book based on a trip to Cuba.

About the Program: "The Book Arts Program at The University of the Arts allowed me to grow as an artist in ways that I could not have predicted."
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Carrie Galbraith, 2001

Carrie Galbraith is currently a Fulbright Scholar in Romania, teaching book arts and is working on an artist's book that reflects of the Revolution of 1989 and its legacy. After graduation, she received a post-graduate fellowship to teach printmaking and book arts at the Scuola Internazionale di Grafica in Venice, Italy, where she was invited to stay for 3 years. She has been active in group and solo shows in Europe and America and publishes her artists' books under the imprint of Ketone Press. This spring she (and Susan Viguers) organized an exchange exhibition of artists' books by students from Universitatae de Vest, Timisoara, Romanian and UArts.

About the Program: "Leaving a commercial arts career and deciding to come to UArts was a risk that proved worthwhile in every way. The excellent faculty, facilities, colleagues and location provided challenges and opportunities that pushed me in ways I could never have previously considered. The program is stimulating on every level and offered me growth not only as an artist but also as a writer, designer, thinker and teacher. As I mature as an artist, I am more and more grateful for the ways in which my mind and art were opened at UArts and the lifelong friendships I developed while studying there."
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Katie Harper, 1993

After graduating, Katie Harper took a teaching job at Ball State University (computer graphics and book arts). From there she moved to Seattle, where she spent three years working in advertising and multimedia, teaching classes at the School of Visual Concepts and being involved with the Book Arts Guild of Seattle. Since then she has had several academic and administrative positions, coordinator of the Graphic Design program at Northern Kentucky University, a visiting professorship at the University of Dayton, and, most recently, Assistant Dean and Chair of Visual Communications, School of Art and Design, Endicott College in Massachusetts. She is director of Ars Brevis Press.

About the Program: "For me it was a time of discovering what I was meant to do, and of having the perfect environment, resources, and influences to be able to do it for optimal experience and productivity ('flow' or 'being in the zone' as it's sometimes referred to). It has also given me many practical advantages in my work in graphic design."
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Jim Hinz, 1995

Jim Hinz spent six years as Head of Library Conservation at Hagley Museum and Library, Wilmington, and now serves as Associate Book Conservator at The Conservation Center for Art and Historic Artifacts in Philadelphia. He has taught bookbinding courses at The Maryland Institute College of Art, Parsons School of Design and UArts. His work has been in exhibitions at Arcadia University Art Gallery in Glenside, PA; Biennial '96 at the Delaware Art Museum, Wilmington; and at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Padlock Gallery, Vox Populi, Temple Gallery, Samuel S. Fleisher Art Memorial, The Project Room, and Nexus Foundation for Today's Art, all in Philadelphia. His work is included in the public collections of the Minnesota Historical Society and the New York Public Library, as well as the Tate Gallery Library and the Victoria and Albert Museum Library in London. He was awarded a Pew Fellowship in the Arts in 2003 (http://www.pewarts.org).
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Rebecca Hoenig, 1993

Since graduating Rebecca Hoenig has had numerous teaching positions: Germantown Friends School (high school drawing), The Bala House Montessori School (pre-k), Springside School (8th grade art), and Fleisher Art Memorial (drawing and painting for 5-year-olds). She is presently working full-time at The Philadelphia Museum of Art as a museum teacher and a liaison to the Philadelphia Public Schools. She continues to work as an artist, mainly in watercolor landscapes of Prince Edward Island, Canada, and in mixed media sculpture. Most recently, she exhibited two sculptural works at The Noyes Museum in their exhibition "Art in Boxes, Hers and His Stories," an exhibit that enjoyed a favorable review in The New York Times.
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Berwyn Hung, 1997

Berwyn Hung is an artist who uses text, the book form, and the interaction of the participant in his work. He has taught at the University of Tennessee in Chattanooga and Georgia State University in Atlanta and is currently senior instructor at The Creative Circus in Atlanta. He also runs a letterpress studio and workshops with Praxium Press. (http://www.praxiumpress.com) His work is in collections such as The Museum of Modern Art, NYC; Museum of Fine Art, Boston; and The Victoria and Albert Museum, London. He had the honor of designing the last Nexus Press book in 2004 called Chops, which just received a Seed Award, a gold medal in the book category. He currently has work in an exhibition, Daumen kino, in Germany.

About the Program: "I think UArts is a good program to work on conceptual ideas. There is a lot of opportunity to learn a variety of techniques. I also believe that the faculty is excellent and genuinely cares for the students there. Between the dedicated faculty, the access to varied techniques and the central Philadelphia location, it is a choice that I have not regretted and recommend to others."
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J. Chadwick Johnson, 1998

Chad has worked in a variety of capacities since graduating. From the Conservation Center in Philadelphia to letterpress shops in the bay area of San Francisco to
freelance design to conservation technician at UC Berkeley, he has focused on nearly every aspect of books and printing. In January of 2006, he took on the job of running
One Heart Press in San Francisco, CA. A working ‘job shop’, One Heart prints commercial letterpress work. He still produces his own work and books and is currently serving as the President of the Hand Bookbinders of California. His website is http://www.uninsane.com.
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Margaret Kessler, 1999

Margaret Kessler is a Project Manager for Pentagram Design in San Francisco. She also teaches book arts classes several times a year and, on a freelance basis, creates small editions, boxes and albums. She tries to maintain an active presence in exhibiting work nationally, and has recently been busy developing a new design language under the title Incident Design which includes concepts, art, graphic design and wearables.

About the Program: "It was an immense experience in terms of broadening numerous studio abilities, challenging my conceptual capacity and exposing me to a dynamic group of individuals, both faculty and students, with diverse backgrounds and aesthetic concerns. Having experienced other graduate programs in the last few years, I feel ever stronger about the program due to the challenge place upon the individual by the faculty to grow beyond what is known, comfortable, or merely 'expected.' I would recommend the program to anyone as an experience wherein one can grow, adapt, and emerge into the world of art with both a desire and ability to create stimulating work."
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Matthew Liddle, 1991

Matthew Liddle is an Associate Professor and Head of the Department of Art at Western Carolina University in Cullowhee, North Carolina. During his term as head, the department has launched a new MFA program and has built a new art building, designed by the Cambridge, MA firm of Graham Gund Associates. He teaches courses in book arts, typography, and all levels of printmaking. His own work is a combination of mixed media prints and artist's books. He lives on the side of a mountain in nearby Sylva, NC, with his wife Nancy, daughter Hannah (10) and son Jack (6) as well as 2 dogs and 2 cats.
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Lindsey Mears, 2004

Lindsey Mears is a book artist living in Philadelphia. Her one-of-a-kind books incorporate original and found text and imagery created with 19th century photographic processes, to relay real and imagined narratives alluding to the past. She has been a resident artist at Weir Farm, CT, and the Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts in Nebraska. Her work has been included in exhibitions both national and international. With her mother, glass artist Elizabeth Ryland Mears, she creates unique glass book objects that draw upon the forms of early glass plate negatives. She currently works as a conservation technician for the Historical Society of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.

About the Program: "I come from a background of literature and creative writing and was pleased to find an emphasis not only on the structure and form of the book, but also on the content--here were mentors who recognized the importance of raising book arts to a level beyond the whimsical or self-indulgent. In the program at The University of the Arts, I found guidance not only in the craft of books, but also in attention to content, to making books that were vital and relevant within the contemporary art scene."
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Kelsey Osborn, 1996

After graduation, Kelsey Osborn received a Kress Internship in Paper Conservation at the New York Botanical Garden Library. Her internship research paper on current photoreproductive techniques was published as an appendix to Architectural Photoreproductions: A Manual for Identification and Care by Eleonore Kissel and Erin Vigneau (also an alumna). Upon completion of her internship, Kelsey trained and worked for 4 1/2 years as a Conservation Technician at The New York Public Library Center for Humanities. In 2001 she returned to The New York Botanical Garden Library as an Assistant Conservator. Here she continues to conserve book and paper objects and, in addition, works with interns and grant projects. She is also actively involved in the planning as well as the conservation and installation of objects in the Library's Gallery. She continues to write and create images.
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Caitlin Perkins, 2004

Caitlin Perkins is a resident artist at Space 1026, an artist collective and gallery in Philadelphia's Chinatown. She is also a staff member of the Philadelphia Print Collaborative where she coordinates the organization's community art program, Printing Philadelphia, facilitating workshops, exhibitions, a portfolio exchange of relief prints, a lecture series on printmaking and a culminating event at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. In addition, in 2004 she co-founded, with Jude Robison (2003), the Philadelphia Center for the Book, on which she currently serves as a member of the board. Caitlin recently traveled with the Space 1026 collective to Milan, Italy to participate in the Urban Edge show at the P4 Gallery. In 2006 the 1026 collective will travel to San Francisco and install work as a collective at the Yerba Buena Center. http://www.space1026.com
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Maria G. Pisano, 1995

Maria Pisano is the director of MGP Studio Arts Gallery in New Hope, PA. Her books, published under the Memory Print imprint, have been exhibited widely in museums and galleries and are in numerous private and public collections, including, among others, the Library of Congress, the American Art Museum and National Portrait Gallery, The Ruth and Marvin Sackner Archive of Concrete and Visual Poetry, Harvard University, Stanford University, The Museum of Modern Art, The Whitney Museum, the New York Public Library, and the University of Alberta. Some of the works can be seen at the Book Arts web site http://www.philobiblon.com, under the gallery link. She has been an artist in residence at Lafayette College in PA and at Stephen F. Austin State University in Texas. She has published articles in book arts publications and teaches papermaking, printing, bookbinding, and conservation--at Rutgers Mason Gross and at the RCIPP, The Center for Book Arts in NY, Oklahoma Arts Institute, and other venues. She has served as project consultant for two grants at the Newark Public Library for the preservation, treatment and storage of their fine print collection. She has over the years been continually involved in curating and mounting exhibits. This summer, she will be curating "The Elements: Creative Energy" at the Hunterdon Museum of Art in Clinton, NJ.
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Rosae Reeder, 1995

Rosae Reeder is an instructor at UArts in the Printmaking Department and Continuing Education, teaching courses in bookbinding as well as workshops in printmaking, Polaroid transfer and casein printing. Her work combines various printmaking media in combination with book structure and installation. She has been published in Sarah Van Keuren's A Non-Silver Manual. Since 2000, she has traveled to Greece every other summer to work as an archaeological illustrator for Chrysokamino, an Early Minoan habitation site on East Crete. With James Engelbart (1995), she organized Thesaurus: A Book Exchange (among alumni and faculty of the MFA Book Arts/Printmaking Program). She serves on the board of the Philadelphia Center for the Book.
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Elias Roustom, 1996

Elias Roustom runs, with Margaret Arnold (1997), EM Press, a letterpress printing house in New Bedford, Massachusetts. EM Press makes letterpress printing available to designers working in a contemporary idiom; their clients include Reebok, IBM, the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, and New York Magazine. Elias also occasionally teaches workshops in letterpress. His life outside the printing field involves playing with his daughter Rose, getting in as much fishing time as possible, if possible, and trying to teach his Airedale to move "Down" from "Sit" (without anyone getting hurt).

About the Program: "I left a career in architecture to study Book Arts and Printmaking at The University of the Arts. It was a big risk. What I found literally changed my life. The world of the book was opened to me in every way imaginable--from history to critical theory, writing to letterpress printing (which I now do for a living), papermaking to bookbinding. My design skills were honed by the intensive study of typography. My understanding of the fine arts was broadened. The open environment and structure of the program let me explore what I need to explore and to perfect the craft I found most applicable to my work. The critical, challenging, and supportive faculty helped me lose some of what baggage I walked in with, but saw me off transformed-energized-aware of myself as an artist and secure in my skills as a craftsman."
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Jude Robison, 2003

Jude Robison works as a conservator at the American Philosophical Society and the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society library. She co-founded with Caitlin Perkins (2004) the Philadelphia Center for the Book, a non-profit organization that seeks to bring together book artists and the esteemed Philadelphia area special collections libraries, and is a founding member of the board. She also teaches books arts, with a special interest in working with teachers to bring book arts into the classroom.
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Wilber Schilling, 1994

Wilber "Chip" Schilling owns and operates Indulgence Press, a letterpress studio specializing in the design and production of limited-edition books and prints. Working as both a fine artist and a commercial artist, he has exhibited and been collected nationally and internationally. Collections include: Minneapolis Institute of Art, The Walker Art Center, The Getty Center, New York Public Library, The British Library, and the Whitney Museum of American Art Library. Chip has served as the president of the Ampersand Club (founded in 1930 to foster an appreciation of the historic and artistic importance of the printed book) and has been a member of the Artist Advisory Committee at the Minnesota Center for Book Arts and a faculty member of the College of Visual Arts. For more than a decade, he has taught workshops in letterpress printing, bookbinding and photography throughout the United States. In 2007, Chip moved his studio to, and became a member of, the Traffic Zone Center for Visual Art (TZCVA). *updated 01/2008
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Patricia Silva, 1999

Patricia Silva returned to Florence, Italy, after finishing the program. She teaches semester courses in book arts at the Santa Reparata International School of Art and at Fuji Art Studio as well as workshops for both American university programs in Florence and for private groups and institutions. In addition, she maintains a private studio where she does limited edition books and books on commission.
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Suzanne Solis, 1998

Suzanne Solis lives in Arlington, Virginia with her husband and three young boys. She works as a freelance bookbinder. She has made books with Arlington County elementary school students as a visiting artist and has taught a cyanotype workshop at the Smithsonian Institute. Her pinhole photography non-silver prints and artist books have been exhibited in juried and invitational shows in the area.
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Gretchen Trainor, 1995

Gretchen Trainor is currently Mid-Atlantic Sales Manager at Stinehour Press. Prior to that she was Production Manager at The Greenwich Workshop, a fine art publisher in Connecticut, where she worked with artists and fine art printers. She continues to do her own black and white photography.
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Paul Trautwein, 1994

Paul Trautwein came to the program after working for Nexus Press in Atlanta. He now works as a Freelance Graphic Designer, specializing in web sites (virtual books). He teaches Graphic Design at Mount St. Mary's College and the Art Institute of Los Angeles. He lives in Venice, California, with his wife Mary Beth (MFA, Exhibition Design, 1995), his daughter Edith, and his computer. http://www.paultrautwein.com
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Susan White, 1994

Susan White lives in Philadelphia and currently teaches various printmaking processes, drawing, and 2-D Foundation at UArts, Tyler School of Art, and Drexel University. She is a printmaker, papermaker, and book artist: recent exhibitions include Topography at Abington Art Center; Nature Preserved, Altered, Invented at The Schuylkill Center for Environmental Education and Art on the Page: A Selection of Artist's Books at City Hall. (See her artist page on the InLiquid website: http://www.inliquid.com/xindexx.htm.) She has curated several exhibitions in the Philadelphia area, including Hot Off The Press: An Emerging Curator Looks at Emerging Printmakers at The Creative Artists Network and Crossroads: The Artists of Northern Liberties at The Painted Bride Art Center. From 1999 until 2002, Sue served as the Assistant Director of The Print Center, a non-profit arts organization which supports printmaking and photography.
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