Regula Russelle winner of the 2011 Minnesota Book Artist Award

Abecedarian Gallery is thrilled to note that one of our favorite book artists, Regula Russelle of Cedar Fence Press is the winner of the 2011 Minnesota Book Artist Award.

 

Regula’s work has been featured in exhibitions at Abecedarian, most notably The Beautiful Book exhibit in 2009, and her work is held in gallery inventory (available for purchase here).

 

The annual award, presented by MCBA and the Minnesota Book Awards, and sponsored by the Lerner Publishing Group, recognizes excellence throughout an artist’s body of work, as well as their significant contributions to Minnesota’s book arts community.

The following is from the MCBA press release:

“Art-making is cultural work,” says Russelle. “It has political and spiritual dimensions. The central themes in my books and prints are the deep questions in my life. Mostly, I am haunted by the great American question, ‘What might we become?’ How do we shape a day, a week, a communal life, the way of the city, and the larger world beyond? Who is my neighbor, my kin?”

Russelle began making one-of-a-kind books during graduate work at Hamline University in the mid-1990s and has been making books on her own and with others ever since. In 1999, she established Cedar Fence Press, a small independent press that publishes limited edition books and prints. She teaches book arts and papermaking for undergraduate and graduate students at Augsburg College and beginning through advanced letterpress printing at MCBA.

Russelle was awarded the 2007 Minnesota Book Award for Fine Press, and had been named a finalist for the same award three times previously (in 2000, 2001 and 2006). In collaboration as Accordion Press, Russelle and fellow artist CB Sherlock were awarded a 2007-08 MCBA/Jerome Foundation Book Arts Fellowship. Other honors include an Artist Initiative grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board Grant and recognition from the International Society of Bookbinders. Her work is shown and collected internationally.

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