University Libraries

Date and Time: Saturday, March 23, 2024, 8am-4pm

Location: Willis Library

From Artists’ Books to Zines is a new initiative from UNT Special Collections in conjunction with our Biennial Artists’ Book Competition to provide students and other attendees interested in the book arts field an opportunity to connect with other artists and creators working in the medium, foster engaging scholarship and discussion related to the field, explore and promote the reemergence of zines and their connections to the book arts field, and to honor and celebrate the participants and winners of the 2023-2024 Artists’ Book Competition cycle.

During From Artists’ Books to Zines, attendees will have the opportunity to listen to curated panels related to the book arts featuring UNT and TWU faculty, community organizers, and artists, hear a keynote presentation with recognized book artist Candace Hicks, view a pop-up exhibition of 2023-2024 Artists’ Book Competition entries, take part in a collaborative zine workshop, attend the official opening of UNT Special Collection’s new browsable zine library, and attend the reception for the Artists’ Book Competition where winners and honorable mentions will be recognized and announced. The symposium will be free to attend and food and refreshments will be provided throughout the day, but registration will be required due to space constraints.

Register for From Artists’ Books to Zines here.

From Artists’ Books to Zines Symposium Schedule

Saturday, March 23, 2024

Willis Library, UNT Denton

Panelist & Speaker Bios

Candace Hicks (Keynote Speaker)

Candace Hicks collects coincidences from the books she reads in her artists’ books and installations. With the exhibition Read Me at Lawndale Art Center, Hicks opened the book form into a room-sized interactive installation in which viewers pieced together a puzzle of narrative to find the correct solution. The Locked Room at Living Arts in Tulsa focused on a specific genre of literature the “locked room” mystery, and visitors were tasked with the challenge to find the means of metaphorically escaping the gallery. For Many Mini Murder Scenes at Women and Their Work, Hicks reproduced tableaux plucked from crime fiction and offered viewers the experience of playing a detective searching for clues. Books from her Common Threads series are in more than 80 collections around the world including, Museum of Fine Arts Houston, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Boston Athenaeum, Deutsche Nationalbibliothek, Grolier Club, Harvard, Hungarian Multicultural Center, MIT, MoMA, Museum of Applied Arts, Vienna, UCLA Biomedical Library, Stanford, and Yale.

Christine Adame (Artists’ Books Panel)

Christine Adame is an intermedia artist from Laredo, Texas. Her artwork relates to heritage, especially as informed by her mestiza identity. Her work resembles artifacts built from layered processes—including drawing, fibers, digital fabrication, and printmaking. Christine earned her B.S. in Architectural Studies from the University of Texas at Austin and an M.F.A. in Intermedia Studio from The University of Texas at Arlington. She has exhibited in Texas, the Midwest, and Japan and has led digital fabrication workshops nationally and internationally.

Kathy Lovas (Artists’ Books Panel)

Kathy Lovas is a multi-disciplinary artist working in photography, artist’s books, sculpture and installation. Her projects reference current and past events using familiar objects or words, and she often draws on personal experiences in her narrative work. Kathy holds a B.S. degree in biology from St. Mary’s College, Notre Dame, Indiana and an MFA in photography from Texas Woman’s University in Denton. She is a 1995 recipient of a Mid-America Arts Alliance National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in photography, and was a 1991 fellow of the American Photography Institute National Graduate Seminar at New York University. Selected solo exhibitions of her work include Lawndale Art Center, Galveston Art Center, Women and Their Work, Handley-Hicks Gallery in Fort Worth, and Liliana Bloch Gallery in Dallas. She has been a resident artist at Project Row Houses in Houston and the Atlantic Center for the Arts in Florida. Her work has been included in numerous group exhibitions throughout Texas. Kathy’s work is represented by Liliana Bloch Gallery in Dallas.

Dottie Love (Artists’ Book Panel)

Dottie Love is a miniature zebu rancher and retired photography and digital arts professor. She taught for 35 years at Hill College in North Central Texas. Dottie started making traditional and nontraditional handmade books in the late 1980’s at then NTSU. She studied at the Visual Studies Workshop in Rochester NY. Her work is included in many collections including the Houston Museum of Fine Arts.

David Wolske (Artists’ Books Panel)

David Wolske (he, him, his) is a typo/graphic designer, artist, and educator. His interdisciplinary practice combines the traditions of letterpress and printmaking with digital tools and design thinking. Wolske’s work is exhibited and collected nationally and internationally. He’s the IS Projects 2021 Exhibiting Artist in Residence; a 2020 LHM Educator Fellow at the Hoffmitz Milken Center for Typography at ArtCenter College of Design; the College Book Art Association 2018 Emerging Educator; 2016 Visiting Artist at Hatch Show Print; and a 2014 Utah Visual Arts Fellow.

Wolske is an Associate Professor at UNT’s College of Visual Arts and Design. Since 2004, he’s taught letterpress workshops at colleges, universities, and book art centers around the US. His work is represented by Artspace111 in Fort Worth.

Michael Bartels (Zines Panel)

Michael Bartels is the founder, volunteer CEO and editor-in-chief of Triangle Nonprofit Publishing. Serving at the pleasure of a volunteer board of directors, he develops charity publishing projects that support other public charities and oversees contributor publishing.

Under the byline M.R. Bartels, he’s authored and illustrated some 50 zines and books, most recently “Spectre of Aids: Ending the HIV Epidemic”, a 28 page 4 inch handmade zine with an initial run of 1,500 copies, as well Mermaids and Other Monsters of the Sea, an oversized graphic novel about multi-level marketing and millennial angst, 16 issues of Balloon Town Mysteries, two associated ebooks, the Tijuana Acid Party zine series and graphic novel and others.

Since 2021 he has donated 100% of the rights and proceeds from his work to charity in addition to volunteering full time for Triangle Nonprofit Publishing and continues to build and grow a network of independent publishing imprints supported by public charity and nonprofit publishing projects.

In 2023 Michael was at the helm of the acquisition of Denton’s own 50-year-old poetry publisher, The Trilobite Press, by Triangle Nonprofit Publishing, relaunching the brand to support Health Services of North Texas.

Meredith Cawley (Zines Panel)

Meredith Cawley is a multimedia artist residing in Texas and currently holds a position as a lecturer in Foundations at the University of North Texas. Her 10 years as an outreach educator at the Brazos Valley Museum of Natural History inspire, inform, and drive her practice. Her current line of inquiry focuses on how cultural opinions represent, shape, and affect the bear. website:

Alex Khraish (Zines Panel)

Alex Khraish is a multimedia artist, educator, and environmentalist living and working in North Texas. Alex earned their Bachelors of Fine Arts in both Photography and Art History from Texas Woman’s University, and went on to be a Museum Educator at the Kimbell Art Museum and the Dallas Museum of Art, with additional experience in social work and early childhood education. Their work addresses themes of identity, magic, and the sensorial experience of connecting with nature, while challenging the materiality of the photographic process. In both their personal practice and as an educator, Alex has extensive experience working with a wide array of artistic mediums, with a focus in papermaking, bookmaking, and printmaking.

Alex is a Co-Director and Educator with The PETAL Project, as well as Assistant Coordinator of Denton Zine and Art Party. Khraish teaches workshops across the DFW Metroplex at various museums, public libraries, and private studios.

Tom Sale (Zines Panel)

Tom Sale is a retired art professor and is now busy volunteering for many art organizations around North Texas. He is the executive editor for the 50-year-old Trilobite Press started by his father, retired UNT English professor, Richard Sale and now owned by Triangle Nonprofit Publishing. His chapbook/zine career started at age 11 when he wrote and printed his own poetry collection which he peddled door to door in Denton in the 1970s.

Rachel Weaver (Zines Panel)

Rachel Weaver (she/they) is a mixed-media artist, writer, community collaborator, and educator. They are the Founder and Coordinator of Denton Zine and Art Party - managing the annual Zine Festival, organizing the Zine Library at the Greater Denton Arts Council, and collaborating on local zine events and workshops. Rachel is also a Board Member, Volunteer, and Producer with KUZU Community Radio, an artist-member with Spiderweb Salon, and a Co-Director and Environmental Educator with The PETAL Project. They create zines on environmental topics, using methods such as collage and Xerox scanning, digital processing, and risograph printing, and have taught zine workshops at studios, museums, and art galleries throughout North Texas.

Sponsorship Recognition

Thank you to BLICK Art Materials for their generous donation!

BLICK Art Materials is one of the largest providers of art supplies within the U.S. with over 90,000 items available online, in their catalog, and at their retail locations. Check them out today at www.dickblick.com.

Thank you to Texas Woman’s University Libraries for their generous donation! Symposium organizers are appreciative of TWU Libraries’ support, and for helping to make this symposium a success! Learn more about TWU Libraries..

Thank you to Triangle Nonprofit Publishing and Denton Zine and Art Party for hosting the zine workshops for From Artists’ Books to Zines.

Triangle Nonprofit Publishing (TNP) “is a 501c(3) nonprofit art and literary publisher founded in Texas in 2021 which exists to promote art and literature and fund charitable organizations through nonprofit art and literary publishing.” In addition to their charity publications and art and literary publishing, they are also well known for their zine workshops and free public anthology zine series.

Stay up-to-date with all the awesome fundraising and events that TNP are coordinating by visiting their website

Denton Zine and Art Party (DZAP) is “multi-event, multi-media celebration of all things DIY zines, art, and music in Denton, TX,” DZAP hosts numerous events, gathers, workshops and more each year. They also have a zine library in the Greater Denton Arts Council - Patterson-Appleton Arts Center Library Room that celebrates Denton zine culture, and is available to view during art center’s open hours.

Stay up-to-date with all the wonderful events and programming that Denton Zine and Art Party are coordinating by visiting their website.