Book the Date for Santa Barbara’s First Art Book and Print Fair

Embrace a unique opportunity to savor both creativity and community at Off Register, Santa Barbara’s first-ever art book and print fair. Taking place on November 16 at Santa Barbara Community Arts Workshop (CAW), this free, all-day public event will bring together more than 60 exhibitors from across the country working in a wide range of printmaking practices, ranging from zines and artists’ books to silk-screen printing and fine art publishing.

This homegrown, hands-on operation is organized by a team of local artists and academics passionate about printmaking, publishing, and building a DIY (do-it-yourself) and DIT (do-it-together) community here in Santa Barbara. The all-volunteer organizing group includes James Van Arsdale and Kestrel Tseng, among others, who met with me to share some of their plans for the inaugural Off Register event. The term — which is used to describe when a print job’s elements are misaligned or displaced — is a bit of a nod to embracing the imperfectness of things that are high-touch or handmade in our increasingly digital world. Which is not to say that these artists shun technology. As a matter of fact, they embrace it in many ways.

“There hasn’t been an event like this in Santa Barbara before, so it’s really exciting to us, and hopefully to a lot of other people too,” said Van Arsdale, an accomplished artist and Associate Professor of Graphic Art & Design at Santa Barbara City College. “We’re inspired by these other fairs, like the Printed Matter New York Art Book Fair and Los Angeles Art Book Fair. And also the Zine Fest in L.A., or there’s this San Francisco Zine Fest in the Bay Area. All these are inspiring for us to think, ‘Well, why isn’t this going on here?’”

Rather serendipitously, Tseng, an artist and the founder of Bird in Hand Press (a Risograph print shop, workshop space, and print-focused design studio), ran into Van Arsdale right after attending the Los Angeles Art Book Fair. “James told me, ‘I’ve been thinking about organizing an art book fair for Santa Barbara for a while. Would you be interested in doing something like this?’ And of course, I was like, ‘Yes, absolutely!’”

She continued, “It was just so inspiring to see the whole community gathered together to sell and appreciate paper prints, especially like paper print media and small publishing, analog print. … It’s a field that’s kind of, you know, not in its heyday, so it’s great to be able to see the community is still alive, and there’s still a lot of cool things. So, James really got the ball rolling, and we started organizing this. And of course, Alex Lukas [Associate Professor of Print and Publication] at UCSB also has a Riso program there, and he got involved right away as well. And then we brought Madi Mason [Loud Flower Art Co.] and Garrett Gerstenberger [High Desert Print Co.], who are both silk-screen printers, and then we decided to throw this event.”

Unlike other art book fairs, Off Register is not limited to paper but will include silk-screen printers who work with fabric. “The other thing that’s separate and different about Off Register, I think, is the focus on education. Just from the get-go, with James and Alex being involved, we knew that we wanted to bring some aspect of the educational promotion for print and art in conjunction with the book fair,” said Tseng. 

With that objective in mind, in addition to opportunities to meet, converse with, and purchase work from a diverse group of artists and publishers, Off Register will feature hands-on demonstrations of innovative contemporary print techniques, symposium-style panel discussions, and performative readings, alongside a gallery exhibition of printed work “embracing the imperfect,” Tseng and Van Arsdale explained. 

While exhibitors pay a small fee to promote their work, the event is completely free to the public, thanks in large part to sponsorship from Albert McCartney, founder and director of RISO Studio Arts, explained Tseng. Artist and printmaker Jayes Caitlin [Heavy Gel] is another key contributor from the RISO Studio Arts team.

In addition to live music by guitarist Sam Adams and DJ Hannah Yoo, demonstrations, workshops, and interactive activities include pinback buttons with SBCC Graphic Art + Design, RISO and MiScreen printing demonstrations where you bring your own shirt or purchase one to customize a design, live screen printing with MindGarden, and zine making with Santa Barbara Public Library on the Go! 

Panel talks and discussions include: Current Impressions: The Modern Printmaker & Entrepreneur (Natalie Andrewson, Madi Manson, Garrett Gerstenberger, and John Pham, moderated by Kestrel Tseng) at noon; What Is a Book? (Errant Press) at 1 p.m.; Text as Practice (David Horvitz, Louise Sandhaus, and Allyson Healey, moderated by Alex Lukas) at 2 p.m.; Listening (with Others) (Michael Ned Holte presented by Sming Sming Books) at 3 p.m.; and New Life in the Public Domain (Cita Press) at 4 p.m.

Off Register: The Santa Barbara Art Book & Print Fair, is free and takes place Saturday, November 16, 11 a.m.-6 p.m., at the Community Arts Workshop (631 Garden St.). Food will be available for purchase on-site. For more information, see offregistersb.org.