Alice Austin is a Philadelphia printmaker and book artist.
She has worked as a book conservator since 1999 at the Library Company of Philadelphia, the firrst library in the U.S., founded in 1731 by Benjamin Franklin.
She has been a lecturer at the University of the Arts, teaching book structures, and also teaches workshops at the Center for Book Arts, NYC, and other locations. She earned a BFA from the Philadelphia College of Art, now the University of the Arts, and has been an active member, heading many committees, of the Guild of Book Workers since 1998.
She has been awarded many artist residencies in Europe, some of which involve teaching and exhibiting. Her work is widely held in private, public and special collections worldwide and you can listen to a podcast about her work from the University of Alabama. Her art work is also featured in “500 Handmade Books,” “Magic Books and Paper Toys,” "1000 Artists' Books" and "Making Handmade Books." Her artist books have been reviewed in Fine Books magazine and on-line in the New Yorker book bench blog.

My solo exhibit, “Encircled by Water: Venice and Ireland,” opens at the UArts on Friday January 23rd, 6th floor Printmaking gallery, 333 South Broad Street, reception from 5-7pm.
I will be exhibiting copper plate aquatints from Venice and copper dry points from Ballinglen and some drawings, in addition to tunnel books from Venice and books from Ireland.
I hope you can make it!
Alice

Ballinglen fellowship - 2014

Alice was awarded a fellowship to the Ballinglen Arts Foundation in County Mayo, Ireland in September - October, 2014.

Workshop in North Carolina - June 2015

Alice teaches from June 21-26, 2015 at the Cullowhee Mountain Arts Summer Program at Western Carolina University in Franklin, NC.

Cullowhee

Alice interview

Alice interviewed on Isseylingo.com» in chinese and english.

The Print Center
87th Annual International Competition

Alice is a semi-finalist with the Rome Map series, and the online exhibition is now available for viewing.

Girdle Book workshop

Photo gallery from the GBW Girdle Book Workshop with Renate Mesmer at the Folger Shakespeare Library in August 2014

Venice fellowship

Alice spent November, 2013 in Venice, Italy as a recipient of an Emily Harvey Foundation fellowship. Below are photos and videos from her stay in Venice.

Map books inspired by Venice

I started with the idea that maps are not too useful in Venice. Using a substrate of US nautical maps, I printed, drew and painted maps of Venice and then folded the long maps in a manner to convey the feeling of wandering and being lost. I included a grid map of Philadelphia, abstracted, to contrast with the meandering streets of Venice. The maps are sewn into a folded cover of handmade paper.

See more photos »

Snapshots from Venice

Presenting work at the Scuola Internazionale di Grafica with Emily Martin

Etching at the Scuola Internazionale di Grafica

The Rome Project in Denver

Maps: From the Local to the Global

Anderson Academic Commons, University of Denver, March – August 2013

http://library.du.edu/site/headline/MapsFromLocaltoGlobal.php

The Rome Project (Upper Level)

This exhibit features a compilation of works from Alice Austin, a Philadelphia printmaker and book artist. The famous Nolli map of Rome inspired her detailed and creative interpretation. What is the Nolli Map? – It is an ichnographic plan of Rome from 1736 surveys of Giambattisa Nolli, an Italian architect. Nolli used the survey to engrave 12 copper plates into an elaborate and comprehensive ground plan, commonly recognized as building footprints, of Rome, Italy.

Collaborative paper making in Austria

Paper making at the Hobl+Sohn paper works in Steyrermuhl, Austria in September, 2012 during Alice's stay as the Resident Artist withARThaus4.

Flexagons in history

An interesting blog post about flexagons from the Center for Book Arts - who knew that flexagons were "discovered", and noted physicist Richard Feynman was involved?

Alice will be teaching Four Fantastic Folds about flexagons at the Center for Book arts in New York, June 15, 2013.

The CBA Blog post »

Secondary Colors
DVC-GBW exhibit at Philadelphia Museum of Art Library - Perleman Building

Coming in October, 2013. This show was previously at the Cabot Science Library at Harvard University as part of the Delaware Valley chapter, Guild of Bookworkers show, through May 18, 2013.

Twenty-one members of the Delaware Valley Chapter of the Guild of Book Workers participated in this collaborative book project. Each member contributed an edition of sections, exchanged them with other members, and then collated them so that the resulting contents of all the books are the same. The members bound their books individually, producing twenty-one unique bindings. The theme was "secondary colors" and participants were encouraged to interpret that in any way they liked, both in their editions and in the binding.

Rome 2012

Inspired by the 1748 Giambattista Nolli plan of Rome, these two books consist of prints, sketches and notes from Alice's residency at the American Academy in Rome, ink cover on natural vellum cover.

See the blog entry for the Rome Project »

Venice Tunnel books

“Venice Studio View” and "Ca d'Oro" are tunnel books inspired by the feel of Venice, a city built on water, full of narrow canals and tight spaces. The light play on buildings and water is evoked by using etchings, one for the background, and one cut to make two other layers. Linoleum prints, based on the pattern of an iron window grill, make the foreground and sides. The tunnel book is housed in a handmade paste paper covered box with a magnetic closure.

Edition of six.

Nolli

Nolli book

"Nolli," an exploration of the textural layers of Rome, by Alice Austin and Jon Snyder, was inspired by the Giambattista Nolli map of Rome, 1748. The book was folded from one sheet of paper which was printed offset lithography in six colors, which required six runs through the Heidelberg Kors press, at the Borowsky Center for Publication Arts, University of the Arts, Philadelphia, PA.

Nolli