By: Marie Drascic—
Muncie, IN—On April 12th and 13th, 2019, Book Arts Collaborative and Tribune Showprint Posters, along with Madjax Maker Force will be hosting Interrobang Wayzgoose, a FREE 1.5-day event, starting in the evening at 7:00 p.m. on Friday, April 12th, and running throughout Saturday, April 13th, from 9:30 a.m. to 9:30 p.m.
Aside from being funny words to say, the Interrobang Wayzgoose is a gathering of book artists from Midwestern states. The Public is encouraged to attend, and the event features activities, speakers, demonstrations, and a public reception for author Kelcey Parker Ervick on Friday evening. There will be family-friendly printing activities in Madjax throughout the day on Saturday.
Saturday afternoon speakers include: renowned Louisville concert-poster printer Brad Vetter who will talk about modern twists on historic printing processes; founder of Central Print community print shop in St. Louis Marie Oberkirsch, who will explain how her enterprise has helped to transform its neighborhood; Director of Hatch Showprint in Nashville, Celene Aubry, will host AlphaBlox Printing – a free workshop for families. Free workshops will be available throughout the day. Marketplace vendors will offer printed and bound objects, tools, printing and book-binding materials, supplies, vintage equipment, artists’ books, and other book ephemera for purchase.
Events continue throughout the day Saturday, including morning presentations by Sarah Allison from Special Collections at Bracken Library who will talk about book collecting, and Carl Shafer from Gordy Fine Arts and Framing, who will tell the story of an important pair of historic paintings that are currently in his shop. Saturday evening, Book Arts Collaborative will be hosting a shop takeover, and the public is invited to stay and participate as veteran book artists make new objects on the spot. Madjax will be hosting an array of food trucks, and The Guardian Brewing Company will be open.
Each year, Ball State students print and hand-bind a small edition of a book by an Indiana author. This year, Book Arts Collaborative Press is publishing a collection of flash creative non-fiction pieces and paintings by Indiana University South Bend professor Kelcey Parker Ervick called Defunct, which explores items and moments in our lives that are not useful to us in the same ways they once were, but nevertheless have shaped our identity. Ervick will be reading from the collection on Friday, and the collectible book will be made for sale at that time.
Interrobang is a punctuation mark proposed by Martin K. Speckter in 1962, combining an exclamation mark with a question mark. It was intended to express bewilderment, but since it did not really catch on in the popular press, students at Book Arts Collaborative are re-purposing it to mean “extreme curiosity.” A Wayzgoose is a day of fun and frivolity for printers’ apprentices that dates from the 15thCentury. Combine those into Interrobang Wayzgoose and come to Madjax on April 12th and 13th to experience the fun and extreme curiosity this name suggests.
You can find more information at www.bookartscollaborative.com/interrobang
