The CODEX International Book Fair takes place at the beautiful Craneway Pavilion in Richmond CA from February 4-7, 2024 with over 200 presses represented from around the globe. This is the ninth fair and I’ve participated in each one. I showcased my new work with poet Theresa Whitehill, HEAVY LIFTING, at Table #20.
The Heavy Lifting project includes an extensive listening tour that features an experimental film, poetry readings, and straight talk. In 2023 Theresa and I visited nine communities affected by fire throughout California and as far north as Seattle. Upcoming locations include IAS, Santa Cruz (Mar 3, 3:00pm); The White Barn, St. Helena (Apr 21 4:00); and 1078 Gallery, Chico (May 19 3:00pm).
The latest Moving Parts Press artist book, VENUS ENVY: I-IV, is available directly from Moving Parts Press and at the SFMOMA Museum Store in conjunction with this exhibition:
Amalia Mesa-Bains: Venus Envy, Chapter I and Madrinas y Hermanas (Godmothers and Sisters)
June 18–November 6, 2022
SFMOMA
151 Third St
San Francisco, CA 94103
This two-part exhibition features Amalia Mesa-Bains’s installation Venus Envy, Chapter I: The First Holy Communion Moments Before the End (1993/2022). The second part, Madrinas y Hermanas (Godmothers and Sisters), presents works from SFMOMA’s permanent collection curated by Mesa-Bains.
SPRING 2022
The CODEX International Book Fair took place at the beautiful Craneway Pavilion in Richmond CA from April 10-13, 2022 with over 200 presses represented from around the globe. This is the eighth fair and I’ve participated in each one. I showcased my new work-in-progress with poet Theresa Whitehill, HEAVY LIFTING, at Table #73.
WINTER 2022
The organizers of BAM! Book Arts Mendocino!, along with Partners Gallery, are truly honored to offer a short talk by good friend and colleague, Peter Rutledge Koch, co-founder of The CODEX Foundation. On Saturday, February 12 at 4:30pm PST, the longtime Bay Area letterpress printer, designer, and publisher, presented “Meditations on the Humanist Side of Printing” in a virtual talk. Now available online here.
Woohoo! After nine months I finally got my permits for the new studio. Due to the cost of building materials, construction has been postponed to Spring ’22. I’m making do in my tiny shed, working hard on my new book with poet Theresa Whitehill, HEAVY LIFTING. I’m excited about sharing this and other new work from the past year at the CODEX International Book Fair in Richmond, April 10-13, 2022.
BAM! Book Arts Mendocino!
BAM! Book Arts Mendocino! is a series of exhibitions and displays, talks and readings, workshops and demonstrations devoted to the wide ranging and varied arts of the book.
It all started with a feature article in REM magazine about three letterpress printers: Zida Borcich, Theresa Whitehill, and me. This led to an invitation to exhibit our work at the Partners Gallery. “Three Letterpress Printers Walk Into a Shed” opens January 6 and runs through March 6.
At that point we thought, why not invite those of us who make or publish books on the coast to join us in a celebration of all things BOOK! All events will take place on the Mendocino coast in January and February 2022.
CALIFAS online exhibition
CALIFAS The Ancestral Journey/El Viaje Ancestral, a major project of the last two years, is now a beautiful online exhibition at Google Arts & Culture Moving Parts Press and Museo Eduardo Carrillo unite five Central Coast Chicano/a/x artists in this unique artists’ book (shadow box cover by Amalia Mesa-Bains pictured). A trade edition of the original is the first of a new series of small commercially printed accordion-fold books. Number two in this new series, “Venus Envy” by Amalia Mesa-Bains, is hot off the presses.
International Mushroom Dye Institute
My mother, Miriam C. Rice, unlocked the full spectrum of color from mushrooms, an unprecedented discovery. For ten years I have been on the board of the non-profit organization that she founded in 1985. Last week I finally made good on my promise to re-design the IMDI website: mushroomsforcolor.com. Please help us further her research by supporting the IMDI after a megafire in August 2020 completely destroyed our only source of income, the entire inventory of my mother’s books. Complete story at mushroomsforcolor.com.
SUMMER 2021
THE NECROPOLITICS OF EXTRACTION: A work lost to climate change
Felicia Rice and T.J. Demos in conversation
What is necropolitics? How does extraction relate to climate change? The artists’ book, THE NECROPOLITICS OF EXTRACTION, expands on the term “extraction”and helps illuminate our murky future with a call to action. Felicia Rice will present slides on the making of the book and the impact of climate change on this project. Collaborator and writer/environmental activist T.J. Demos will discuss the book’s message with Rice while exchanging thoughts on art and activism. What comes after the end of the world?
REGISTRATION here
Reclamation : Artists’ Books On The Environment
ONLINE Artist Reception :: Friday, July 2, 2021 5 – 6 pm PDT
WINTER 2021
Moving Parts Press has relocated to Mendocino, CA!
Please note new address: 45320 Calpella St. #394, Mendocino CA 95460.
Lectures : Panels
February 4, 2021 (6-7pm)
January 28, 2021 (5-6:30 pm PST)
VIDEO: Moving Parts Press: Rising from the Ashes
Hosted by Columbia University Libraries, with Jane Siegal and Kevin Schlottman
Part of Virtual Bibliography Week, NYC
January 26, 2021 (3-4 pm PST and 6-7 pm EST) please note the time difference
CALIFAS artists panel (10:30-11:30 am)
SUMMER 2020
Shop and archive incinerated in wildfire!
On August 20, 2020 a massive fire storm hit the ridge where Moving Parts Press had stood for 25 years. Ignited by lightning strikes in the Santa Cruz Mountains, the CZU Lightning Complex Fire burned over 86,000 acres before it was contained over a month later. The Press, along with our home, was one of 925 residences destroyed by the fire.
Please donate to this recovery effort to Raise Moving Parts Press from the ashes!
FALL 2019
Talks
Chicano and Chicana Art Roundtable: a roundtable discussion about the recently published book, Chicano and Chicana Art: A Critical Anthology :: October 8, 2019 :: UC Santa Cruz
2019 Reva and David Logan Symposium on the Artist’s Book: Borderland: Visual Poetics in Artists’ Books :: October 12, 2019 :: Legion of Honor Museum, San Francisco
WINTER 2019
Two new books from Moving Parts Press and two from the backlist. Three back-to-back events in Santa Cruz featuring Moving Parts press authors — Beau Beausoleil, Guillermo Gomez-Peña, and Juan Felipe Herrera.
Read on…
March 4 7-9 pm
Bookshop Santa Cruz
Al-Mutanabbi Street Reading
Beau Beausoleil and others read poems and prose in honor of those who died twelve years ago in the car bombing of Al-Mutanabbi, the booksellers’ street in Baghdad, Iraq. The Santa Cruz debut of the new Moving Parts Press book, THE LONG DISTANCE!
• NEW THE LONG DISTANCE
Seventeen poems by San Francisco poet Beau Beausoleil with prints by Felicia Rice
Handset and letterpress printed by Felicia Rice with Jared Cortez here
March 5 7-9 pm
Second Stage, Theater Arts, UCSC
The Most (un) Documented Mexican Artist
Guillermo Gómez-Peña in performance with Balitronica Gomez and Saul Garcia Lopez
• Still available DOC/UNDOC Documentado/Undocumented Ars Shamánica Performática
Seven-year collaboration with Guillermo Gómez-Peña, Jennifer González, Felicia Rice, Gustavo Vazquez, and Zachary James Watkins
Limited edition artists’ book in standard and deluxe editions here, and trade edition co-published with City Lights Books here
• Still available CODEX ESPANGLIENSIS From Columbus to the Border Patrol
Facsimile of limited edition artists’ book by Felicia Rice, Enrique Chagoya and Guillermo Gómez-Peña
Trade edition co-published with City Lights Books here
March 6 6:30-9 pm
Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History
BORDERBUS: A Community Conversation about Migration, Art, and Social Justice
Juan Felipe Herrera and Felicia Rice in conversation, joined by representatives of local groups working on social justice and immigration issues. In celebration of the publication of the new Moving Parts Press book, BORDERBUS!
• NEW BORDERBUS
One long poem by recent US Poet Laureate Juan Felipe Herrera with prints and book work by Felicia Rice
Limited edition artists’ book in standard and deluxe editions here
FALL 2018/WINTER 2019
The award-winning PBS documentary series, Craft in America, airs its newest episode, Visionaries, on December 21 nationwide. Visionaries documents the ways in which artists and influencers inspire new generations to envision the limitless possibilities of craft and features book artist Felicia Rice along with three others.
On October 20, 2018 the Getty Research Institute presented the world premiere of Visionaries. This screening complemented the exhibition Artists and Their Books / Books and Their Artists, which included the collaborative artists’ book, DOC/UNDOC, on view at the Getty Research Institute June 26 – October 28, 2018.
The book, also titled Artists and Their Books, Books and Their Artists, accompanies the exhibition and includes over one hundred important examples selected from the Getty Research Institute’s Special Collections of more than six thousand editions and unique artists’ books.
EXHIBITION
Máxima Expresión: Otra Forma de Ver y Hacer Los Libros
Biblioteca de México in Mexico DF during 4ta Expo Feria Nacional Artes y Oficios del Libro
October 18 – January 16, 2018
Celebrating the publication by City Lights Books with Moving Parts Press of
DOC/UNDOC Documentado/Undocumented Ars Shamánica Performática
Book launch and exhibition
February 1, 2018 (7–9)
Canessa Gallery, 708 Montgomery St., San Francisco, CA
Book talk
February 20, 2018 (7:00)
Bookshop Santa Cruz, 1520 Pacific Ave., Santa Cruz, CA
More information and book price here.
Museo Eduardo Carrillo online exhibition of DOC/UNDOC
Google Cultural Institute Art Projects
January 29, 2018 launch
“ReOpening The Book”
February 3–April 29, 2018
Elverhøj Museum, Solvang, CA
Opening: February 3 (4:30–6 pm)
“Spoken/Unspoken: Unfinished Business”
January 7–April 7, 2018
Santa Cruz Public Library, Santa Cruz, CA
Opening: February 2 (6–8 pm)
Felicia Rice celebrates 40 years of books, broadsides, and prints
Opening reception: First Friday, December 1, 2017 5–9pm
Santa Cruz, CA 95060
In 1977 Felicia Rice set Moving Parts Press in motion. A letterpress printshop in downtown Santa Cruz, Moving Parts Press welcomed all kinds of print work, from business cards to book design. Then in 1981 Felicia published her first book, For Earthly Survival, by Santa Cruz poet Ellen Bass, the first of a series of handcrafted editions.
From the beginning the mission of the press was to give voice to those who would not otherwise be heard. For 40 years Felicia has collaborated with visual artists, performing artists, and writers to create book structures in which powerful language and striking images meet and merge.
Rice combines 19th-century bookmaking techniques with 21st-century digital technology to bring the flexibility of screen-based design to the texture and history of the letterpress-printed page. This exhibition includes books, broadsides, and prints from each of the periods that distinguish the 40-year history of Moving Parts Press.
“Guillermo Gómez-Peña: Mexican (IN)documentado”
Museo de Arte Moderno, México DF
November 29, 2017–April 22, 2018
Opening: November 29
“Felicia Rice: Collaboration and Metamorphosis”
The Center for Book Arts, New York
October 6–December 16, 2017
Opening: October 6
Performance: October 13
“Santa Cruz Printers’ Chappel: Celebrating 35 Years: Broadsides, Prints & Books”
Porter Faculty Gallery, UC Santa Cruz, CA
October 5–December 2, 2017
Opening: October 5
“Chamber of Heart and Mystery”
The Museum of Art & History @ McPherson Center, Santa Cruz, CA
September 2017–September 2018
“ResistFest”
The Museum of Art & History @ McPherson Center, Santa Cruz, CA
September 23, 2017
“BORDERBUS: work-in-progress”
Doheny Memorial Library, Special Collections, Room 206
University of Southern California, Los Angeles
September 1–30, 2017